Five years ago, Oakland comedian W. Kamau Bell decided he wanted to take a break from stand-up. He was riding high on the success of Private School Negro, his third Netflix special, and the birth of his third daughter. A little time away seemed in order.
This Q&A was adapted from the Alta Weekly Newsletter, delivered every Thursday. To keep reading, become an Alta Journal member for as little as $3 a month.
SIGN UP
“I thought, ‘I’ll pick stand-up comedy up again in 2020. It’s an election year!’” Bell recalls with a rueful laugh.
Instead, the pandemic saw Bell branch out with a variety of other projects. In 2022, he coauthored the book Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book with illustrator Kate Schatz and directed the four-part docuseries We Need to Talk About Cosby, which earned him a Peabody Award and four Emmy nominations. (Bell has also won three Emmy awards for his CNN show, United Shades of America, and another for the documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed.)
As 2024 began, Bell returned to stand-up with an eight-week residency at the Berkeley Rep called W. Kamau Bell Gets His Act Together. Bell spoke by phone as the Rep run nears completion this Saturday.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What brought you back to the stage after five years away?
With stand-up, you’re really in it. It takes a lot of travel time, and I felt like I was traveling enough at that point. I still have three kids to see, sometimes, in my life. I just thought that life was over. Then United Shades went away, and last year, the industry was in turmoil, so a lot of things that I thought would be going on weren’t going on.
Also, over the course of those five years, I’ve been slowly accumulating stories. Like, “If I ever did it again, I would tell this story.” Plus, there are these things happening in the world where I was like, “Man, if I was in the stand-up-comedy world right now, I’d talk about that.”
Berkeley Rep had reached out to me—I think it was pre-pandemic—to say that if I ever wanted to do anything to please let them know. I must give a lot of credit to Berkeley Rep for being super excited and jumping on the idea.
How did you decide on a format of eight shows spread out over two months?
I knew that if I was going to go back to stand-up, I couldn’t just book one or two nights, because that’s not enough to really figure out what you’re doing. I knew I’d need a run of shows. After eight shows, I’ll either know that I’m back or I’ll be like, “That was fun, and I don’t want to do it again.”
It reminds me of what Mort Sahl used to do at the Throckmorton in Mill Valley: topical, intimate, ever-changing.
Yes, there’s a very good history of comics doing things like this, especially now. When Marc Maron is getting ready to go out on the road, there’s this theater in L.A. he goes to where he’ll tell the crowd, “You get to come watch me work it out in real time.” I think there’s a type of audience that really likes that and understands what that is. I’m hoping I can find that audience to do this with too: people who want to see it when it’s messy and are OK if it stays quiet for a while.
You mention “wanting to grow up to be Mike Birbiglia” as part of the description for this current run of shows. Could you envision doing something akin to what he does on Broadway or what Alex Edelman just did at Berkeley Rep with Just for Us? Did you see that while it was there, by chance?
No. I think the first night that I started was Alex’s second-to-last show here. My show was at 7 and his was at 8, so he very nicely came over before his show to say hello. He actually sat through the beginning of my show. He was like, “Can I sit for a while and just watch?” He was excited because comedians like to see other comedians fail or stumble through things.
That show gave me a new appreciation for how well comedy can work with a quiet, attentive audience. Do you have interest in doing something like that?
Yeah. That was one of the things that I gave myself permission to do when I came back: I get to do it how I want to do it.
Look at somebody like Mike Birbiglia. I’m sure he plays comedy club sometimes, but he’s established that he wants his thing to live over here. There are many comics who have done that, but I think he’s the modern version of it. Even Jerrod Carmichael did his show at Berkeley Rep. More comics are realizing that an audience who is patient can actually be helpful to you. Not expecting a laugh every 15 seconds is helpful.
Congratulations on winning an Emmy last year for 1000% Me. What’s the response been like since the film was made more widely available?
The thing that’s been the most interesting and helpful to the doc is that it’s on United Airlines flights. I fly a lot, and I have only occasionally seen work that I’m even in on an airplane. I’ve never seen United Shades on an airplane. The Cosby documentary is certainly not on there. But I was on a United flight last year, checking out the documentary section, because I like to watch documentaries. The options are listed in alphabetical order, so the numbers are listed first, and the first thing on there is 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. I was like, “Why didn’t anybody tell me this?!” And then I watched it, because you’ve got to be your own cheerleader. It was interesting to watch it on that tiny little screen on the back of somebody’s seat. I’ve also talked to many people who say that I made them cry on an airplane because of my doc. I’m always like, “You’re welcome!”
It was super personal for me to put my name and to put our kids in there, and the big thing is the fact that they get to see the impact it’s having in the world. The trophy is great, absolutely. It makes them feel super proud that they did work that won that trophy, but the fact they were at the Emmys and people were excited to meet them—kid actors were excited to meet them and tell them they did a good job onstage—for everything my kids have been through the last few years with COVID, it was great to give them this B12 shot of joy and acceptance and the feeling that they’d done something that’s helping people.
You recently wrote a piece for the Daily Beast in tribute to Palestinians. Is that a subject you’ve attempted to address onstage as well?
I try to shy away from it, but I just can’t resist it. It’s like, if I’m the person I want my kids to believe I am, if I’m the person my mom raised me to be, then I think I have to figure out a way into this. One of the things that led these shows to come about is our general loss of empathy as a society. For me, that’s talking about how many Americans don’t view Palestinians and Gaza as the underdog in that fight when it’s clearly the case.
Those are the underdogs right there, and we, as Americans, are supposed to root for the underdog. Whatever your religion is, whatever your connection is to Israel, we need to make room to have empathy for all the people who are currently, actively suffering. To be clear, I have empathy for all of it. But generally, in the way we look at people who are unhoused in America, how we look at people who are coming across the border and looking for asylum and freedom, to me, we’ve lost a tremendous amount of empathy.•
Zack Ruskin is a freelance reporter living in San Francisco. His regular beats include weed, music, literature, comedy, and drag. He’s written the cannabis column “Chem Tales” for SF Weekly since 2016 and reviews new music releases for Variety. His byline has also appeared in Vanity Fair, Merry Jane, the San Francisco Chronicle, Alta, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Cannabis Now, and Marin Magazine.
