According to the basic laws of the Fringe: the later the performance is the more likely it is to be for more adult audiences. Now, if you are Donald Alexander, this means that you just wanted to be the headliner of the evening. Truly, I cannot find a fallacy in his logic. At 23:15 we were ushered into a dark, hot basement room packed with folding chairs. When a room is full of chairs for a performance, usually that means it is quite popular. A good sign for the girl who bought random tickets to a random show. 

To provide some background, I have never seen a stand-up show in person; which, in theory, makes my opinion a little more unbiased than the next person. Jeff Dunham, Gabriel Iglesias, Kevin Hart are some of the leading names in American stand-up comedy, which are pretty vulgar examples compared to what the rest of stand-up comedy has to offer. After seeing “Donald Alexander: The Great”, the biggest lesson to be taken away from the show is that there does not need to be excessive swearing to make something humorous in stand-up comedy. 

First and foremost, when Donald Alexander walked out and upon the stage, I truly did not think that he would be able to get on the stage without losing his head. This man could clear the ceiling if he was on his tiptoes. This detail is quite important because for the duration of the show he used the lankiness of his body to create humor. He did this by bending, squatting, going against the wall and stretching his legs, and swiveling around. His persona made him easily likable and amusing even without performing. 

Donald Alexander has this whimsical storytelling capability that some stand-up comedians lack. In solo comedians shows, oftentimes comedians walk through the show by telling joke after joke; sometimes losing the storyline that follows the humor. Throughout the entire show, he flowed effortlessly through each story, punchline, and quip. He remembered what he had said before so that he could use it later, and set us up for the joke so that we felt like it was our right to laugh too. What made him so likable is that he laughed along with the audience. If I were to make a guess, that is a tell-tale sign of a good comedian. His stories never became too disgusting or offensive. The purpose was not to offend the audience, but rather for us to see things from his perspective; which happens to be an absolutely hilarious one. His stories were easy to perform because he had lived through all of them. When stand-up comedians try to tell jokes that they have no personal relation to is when the show starts to lose its humor. For the audience, it is as if now we know somebody to whom this horrendous and hilarious story has happened and now we find it funny as well. I think that that’s part of the psychology of why stand-up comedy is so humorous to whoever listens. After doing some background research on him, typically Mr. Alexander does not perform the same show twice. He keeps refreshing and reviving. This was very easy to tell. He wasn’t too practiced by any means. 

Donald Alexander reminds me of that lanky, awkward younger brother that constantly wanted to be by his sister’s friends when she had sleepovers. Maybe this is what makes him so likable to the audience. I highly recommend this show to anyone looking for a good laugh and a few bittersweet moments.