Jenny Yang loves trees. Not that she hasn’t seen them before, but the Taiwan-born, Los Angeles-bred comedian was far more used to seeing West Coast palms before she came east to bear witness to the splendor of fall foliage. Fittingly, she named her Northeastern tour the Leaf Peeper Tour, incorporating into the stage design most apropos autumnal accoutrements.
I spoke with Yang a few hours before her performance in Brooklyn, while she was eating “a boring stack of vegetables” on a restaurant patio to balance out the culinary delights that can define time away from home. But comedy — telling and landing jokes, specifically — is its own source of nourishment in Yang’s world.
“To me, it's like that ‘Ratatouille’ moment where you taste something and the chef just like, puts so much love and finesse into that bite that you're taking that you just have a flood of positive, warm memories,” she said, recalling memories of previous knockout sets and memories of the first time she nailed it.
And in that first tour stop in Brooklyn, she nailed it. When I was crammed into the back of a basement — an odd enough situation to ponder, considering where society was exactly one year ago — Yang reeled off jokes concerning parents, technology, parents and technology, food, dating, food and dating, among other things. She built a rapport with her audience, as many a good comedian wants to do, but she also embraces her own vulnerability and the humor therein. As she’d say, it’s OK to laugh.
These aren’t cookie cutter concerts. Yang dives into local news so that she can have a point of common conversation with the audience. For Boston, that means checking in on the mayoral race, featuring an Asian American candidate in Michelle Wu, and leaning into the cultural and food scenes that resonate with her, and a broader population.
“You got an Asian-American in the mayoral race; you have a huge population of Southeast Asians in Massachusetts,” she noted. “I mean, I'm obsessed already. I'm out here. I’ll be hunting for good food, but I love touring in cities so that I can generate a level of conversation around what's happening in the city.”
Jenny Yang is playing The Sinclair in Cambridge on Oct. 21, and The Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington on Oct. 22 and 23.
