“Thar She Blows!”
No, despite its heading, this review isn’t about a show based on Moby
Dick. Then again, much of it is about dicks, both mopey and alert. Its star is a rising, young, standup comic named Jacqueline Novak who doesn’t shy from the
title “Blowjob Queen.” Even the name of her one-woman show, Jacqueline
Novak: Get on Your Knees, let’s us know where she stands (or kneels).
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| Jacquelin Novak. All photos: Monique Carboni |
Novak's personality is sneakily unassuming, her lines delivered in a natural, conversational way, broken now and then by a mild smile
at something she’s said that got a notable audience reaction. She’s also very
physical, using her body to express much of what she’s talking about, which, since
what she’s talking about, mostly, is blowjobs and hand jobs, needs very little
for us to catch what it is she’s doing. 
Remember that song, “Sodomy,” in Hair? The one that begins, "Sodomy, Fellatio, Cunnilingus, Pederasty"" It was
pretty risqué back in 1968 but Novak’s play doesn’t bother with such formal
vocabulary for what she’s talking about, the word “fellatio” not being
mentioned once. It’s kind of unusual to see a female comic do an extended riff
on her experiences giving blowjobs but, if the orgasmic laughter climaxing at the Cherry Lane is any indication, it’s also kind of refreshing. 
Novak’s routine may be dealing with crass material but she brings
a spirited, lighthearted honesty to her work that elevates even her often hilarious
discussion of words like “penis” to a higher level. She’s a brilliant raconteur
of linguistic niceties, finding fun not only in vocabulary—her bit about why “cock”
so nicely encapsulates what it represents is terrific—but in phraseology, the euphemistic
idioms (like “laying a pipe,” “baby arm,” or “rock hard”) we use to describe things
sexual. Seeking to dignify sexual activity, she prefers atypical ways of
describing them, such as calling “doggy style” “the hound’s way.”
Structurally, the piece rambles, loses comic intensity, then
picks up with some huge zinger or two, sometimes deliberately thrown away in an offhand manner. Novak’s zany meditations, some of them
concerned with concepts like ghosts, are mainly erogenous, as she recalls
learning the basics of fellating a fellow high school student, and eventually
mastering the art. She similarly deconstructs the nature, aptitudes, and
appearances of penises and vulva (her own included), with jocularly erudite disquisitions
on the balls.
Much time is also occupied with the relative toothiness of
blowjobs, with its side issue of biting off a member, and the nonexistence of
bones in organs capable of being called boners. One of her cleverest bits
involves having two mouths while servicing her boyfriend, but I’ll let you discover
for yourself why she’d find that helpful. 
Most of the audience packing the Cherry Lane looked like Gen X,
Millenials, and Gen Zs, and their laughter was both frequent and loud. My baby
boomer plus-one laughed a lot, too, but my own rictus capacity was not quite as
active, I’m afraid. I appreciated Novak’s mental, verbal, and physical agility,
and was with her all the way, but I was never rocked by the kind of tear-provoking,
pee-inducing laughter I've experienced with great sets by comedians like Richard
Prior, George Carlin, Joan Rivers, et al. Humor is in the bladder of the beholder.
Jacqueline
Novak is a poetess of the penis, a vindicator of the vulva, a booster of the
blowjob. The latter act may require a subject on which to practice but I think
most of us would prefer to see this smart and talented comic just as she is,
solo. Like what she spends so much time ruminating about, she is, after all, in
the standup business.
Cherry Lane Theatre
38 Commerce St., NYC
Through August 18
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