HONOLULU (KHON2) — If you ask most modern comedians who their comic inspirations are, you might hear some familiar names like Robin Williams, Chris Rock or Wanda Sykes.
But for Carisa Hendrix, a Canadian comedian soon making her way to Oʻahu, her inspirations are a bit out of left field for those not particularly versed on the history of comedy and the ladies that helped build the genre.
Stars from the 1930s like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mae West and Dorothy Parker influence Hendrix in her comedy, with some help from fellow funny lady Eartha Kitt, who was a couple decades after the others.
“I’ve been obsessed for my entire life with all these 1930s, 1940s ‘it-girls’ that were both glamorous and profoundly witty, truthfully so witty and effortlessly charming,” Hendrix said. “I watched all these old-timey movies growing up, ‘Bringing Up Baby,’ ‘What a Way to Go!,’ these cool screwball comedies I’m super obsessed with.”
With these references and inspirations from the past, Hendrix went on to create the character of Lucy Darling, a modern, comedic take on the glamorous 1930s grande dame.
Lucy is more than a comic with a big red wig and timeless dresses, Hendrix has a myriad of quirky skills and talents that Lucy is able to utilize to enhance her shows.
Hendrix has a colorful past to say the least — she was a stilt walker and acrobat, and is currently a magician and world record firebreather. All of which are skills that she has passed on to Lucy to make her shows not just a comedy show or circus act, but more of an everything show.
These skills were developed out of survival, Hendrix said.
“I was 16, I got kicked out of the house,” she said. “I needed to not die, I needed to just not starve to death.”
So, she developed all those odd skills, which was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, Hendrix had an endless repertoire of flashy skills. On the other, she couldn’t decide what her favorite thing to do was.
“I’ve always not been able to nail my interests down. I’ve always felt like a modern vaudevillian,” she said. “I want juggling. I want music on everything in the show. I love a variety show, I’ve always loved a variety show.”
Variety shows are a bit of a lost format, with the only current variety show on television being “Saturday Night Live.” But audiences love the style of entertainment, with legendary variety shows such as “The Muppet Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show” and “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” still holding major influence in the entertainment world.
With audiences still loving the format despite the relatively small amount of modern variety shows, Hendrix hopes to provide an outlet with a mix of her comedy, magic and other talents.
“It’s like Lucy showing off all of these different things,” Hendrix said. “And what I’ve realized is I love bringing these elements of surprise to the show, but the truth is that whatever I’m doing in the show is ancillary to the primary purpose of creating a sense of fantasy and wellbeing.”
This sense of fantasy is something that Hendrix particularly likes to leverage, as she sees presenting a fantasy as a way for people to escape the numerous stressors of the real world.
“I think right now, with everything that’s going on, there’s this really strong desire to participate in fantasy, and fantasy and novelty and indulgence has become this really desirable quality, and Lucy embodies all those things,” she said.
The concept of using comedy to escape reality and embody a fantasy is nothing new, but there is a bit of a parallel in the medium of that fantasy.
Lucy’s 1930s shtick is based on a time when audiences were looking for their own escape. During that decade, the Great Depression was at its peak and WWII was on the brink, leaving people itching to find a way to temporarily break free from the shackles of a poor economy and turbulent political time.
A similar parallel can be felt today, with audiences looking to escape a rapidly changing political climate and uncertain economic conditions by way of Lucy’s show.
Given the endless possibilities, Hendrix hesitates to label the show as a specific genre. There’s a bit of stand up, a bit of magic, a bit of cabaret and a bit of everything else. Ultimately, as Hendrix says, “it’s really just an evening with Lucy.”
The highlight of the show is Lucy’s quick wit — a skill that shines the brightest during her crowd work, which makes for a popular portion of her show when paired with her unique old Hollywood style.
“I always feel like I’ve been on the edge of the comedy world,” Hendrix said. “I’m like this weird cousin of comedy. And a lot of comedians really put down crowd work, and they’re sort of seen as like a lesser form.”
But that “lesser form” of comedy has actually turned into the catapult for Hendrix’s presence — thanks to her crowd work videos that hit it off on social media, Hendrix has garnered more than 40 million likes on TikTok and millions of views on Instagram.
“[Crowd work] is like cutting up the ingredients to make a meal. Because of all the stuff, all of that conversation that we have in the beginning of the show, that becomes sucked into the rest of the show, and turns into this whole other thing,” Hendrix said. “Like all those people that you meet at the beginning, we call back to them, we use them for stuff, we bring them up on stage that it all sort of turns into this next thing.”
Lucy’s interactions with the crowd can be light and fun, or border on an insult comic, which Hendrix says exists in the world of drag.
And sitting in the back row doesn’t mean that you’re safe from Lucy’s wrath — Hendrix likes to make sure everybody gets a premium experience.
“An integral part of [the show], you really feel part of the show,” Hendrix said. “Doesn’t matter if you’re in the back row or in the front row. We walk around the audience… we’re going to make sure that every row is the front row.”
Lucy and Hendrix will be making their Honolulu debut at the Hawaiʻi Theatre on Dec. 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase online, with prices beginning at $50.50 with taxes and fees included.