“Next time you see some haters in my comments saying ‘All he does is crowdwork, it’s so easy’ – is it?!comedian Matt Rife asks his audience. The 28-year-old social media star has clearly maintained the defensive posture that characterized “Natural Selection,” his debut Netflix hour from last fall that was best remembered for an effectively infuriating, if moaning, bit about domestic violence. But in “Lucid,” his final hours, Rife’s signature pet peeves — mostly dick jokes, plus the aforementioned chip on his shoulder — are broken by his audience, a few hundred fans gathered at the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North Carolina for which Rife proudly and repeatedly emphasizes that Netflix’s first work special is for the entire audience.
Rife is not the first stand-up to create an entire act from spontaneous responses to his own paying audience. (Ten years ago, Todd Barry conducted an entire tour without any prepared pieces, combining the shows into a special directed by Lance Bangs.) It’s likely that the Phantom haters that Rife so annoys are less responsive to his time-honored way of making a to forge a bond. connection with the crowd than the impression that Rife is more of an influencer than an observing master, using TikTok as a shortcut to the upper echelons of his field. With his full lips and square jaw, Rife certainly looks the part.
That’s why Rife is careful to emphasize that he’s been performing at the Comedy Zone since he was a teenager, even though his mainstream success is relatively recent. Whatever you think of its Gen-Z brethren, “Lucid” – directed by frequent collaborator Erik Griffin – showcases Rife as a seasoned MC. He knows how to dwell on an interesting answer without wringing it dry (a woman who runs a company that sells blowjob tutorials), and how to turn around from an obvious dead end (an incoherent ramble about single are). Plus, incorporating other points of view helps temper the exhaustion that comes with Rife pantomiming a high-octane sex toy. It is better as a garnish than as a main course.
‘Clear’ is in practice not as spontaneous as the starting point implies. Although Rife opens with an expected bit of outfit-based roasting – a gentleman wearing a ridiculous pair of bedazzled boots with curled toes is “dressed as Santa’s favorite elf” – most of the hour consists of a guided conversation about dreams. The first half is about dreams in the aspirational sense: a woman who left a career in marketing to become a pilot; a gay man who knows what his stripper name would be if he were a woman. (Brandy Jameson. Pretty good!) The second, weaker half is about more literal dreams. Rife has a recurring nightmare about his teeth falling out; one spectator keeps being chased by a faceless witch.
Though a skilled facilitator, Rife never generates the electricity of true, transcendent spontaneity. The frame itself is quite tired. Rife introduces his subject by acknowledging that he’s lucky enough to be living his own dream, so he wants to know more about others’ – but by the end it’s become a setup for more youthful sex stories. (Of course, the nightmare chat is followed by a wet dream investigation.)
In recent years, Netflix has made a similar pivot to scripted programming in comedy, shifting the focus from prestige or at least diversity to purely populist plays. (Critics are certainly not the intended audience anymore; no advance screeners of “Lucid” have been made available for review.) The former home of Maria Bamford’s wacky, ingenious “Lady Dynamite” is now working with the likes of Rife, Joe Rogan and Shane Gillis: outspoken men who are sometimes controversial in a tired, culture-war kind of way, but usually laugh with little effort. “Lucid” is just the latest phase of a broader game plan.
“Matt Rife: Lucid” is now streaming on Netflix.