Shay Mace
Jilberto Soto returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month with his latest stand-up hour, centred around queerness, family, and most presciently, fatherhood, from someone who isn’t a father. Described as part stand-up, part telenovela, Jilberto looks to explore his upbringing as a First-Generation Mexican American, from his relationship with his own Father, to those who step into the role when it becomes absent, and his Brother who is just about to become one. We caught up with Jilberto for a pixelated pint to find out more.
You can catch ¡Ay! Papi: Jilberto Soto at Just Up The Stairs at Just The Tonic at The Caves on August 20th – 30th at 14:25 (60 min). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Shay: Hi Jilberto! You’re making a return to EdFringe this year with a show all about fathers, from the perspective as a gay, first-generation Mexican American. Tell us about why you’ve decided to tell this story now, and how you’ve found the funny in that intersection of themes.
Jilberto: ¡Ay! Papi started with a photo my dad refused to be in and once I noticed that, I couldn’t unsee it. The whole hour is built around three moments where I watched him dodge a camera: winning a pageant as a kid, my brother’s wedding, and then my own. Same man, same instinct, three totally different reasons why, and somewhere in there is basically the whole story of how a Mexican dad learns to love his gay son out loud. I didn’t set out to write “a show about masculinity”, I set out to figure out why my father won’t stand next to me in a picture, and the jokes showed up because that question is genuinely funny and genuinely sad at the same time, sometimes in the same sentence. Being first-generation and being gay both mean you’re constantly translating yourself for people who love you but don’t quite have the vocabulary yet, and I think that’s where most of my comedy lives, not in the tragedy of it, but in the absurd tenderness of two people trying.
Shay: Tell us about your process for putting together this hour – what do you do to get yourself motivated and what challenges have you found with this material?
Jilberto: Honestly, most of this show started as voice notes, me talking to myself on the subway or in the shower, just saying the thing out loud before I knew how to write it down properly. I find I can access the honest version of a story before I can access the funny version, so I let myself ramble first and edit for jokes later, rather than trying to be clever from sentence one. The hardest part with this material specifically is pacing the emotional stuff without letting the show turn into therapy with a mic. I want people laughing right up until the moment it actually lands, and finding exactly where that line sits took a lot of rewriting. Motivation-wise, it helps that this isn’t a hypothetical premise for me; it’s a photo album I actually have, so on the days I don’t feel like working on it, I just remember I’m not making something up, I’m just finally telling it right.
Shay: Tell us about your comedy icons – who are they, and how have they influenced your work?
Jilberto: I grew up on Wanda Sykes, George Lopez, Bill Burr, and Margaret Cho, and looking back, I think I was drawn to all of them for the same reason, none of them ask permission before they say the true thing. George Lopez showed me you could build a whole hour out of your own family and have it land with everybody, not just people who grew up like you. Wanda Sykes and Margaret Cho taught me that being specific about who you are, your body, your identity, your community is what makes a joke universal, not what limits it; the more precisely you tell your truth, the more people see themselves in it. And Bill Burr’s in there because I love a comic who’ll follow a thought all the way to the uncomfortable end instead of bailing out with a safe punchline. Between the four of them I basically got a masterclass in saying the specific, personal, slightly dangerous thing which is pretty much the whole job description for ¡Ay! Papi.
Shay: Do you have any pre-show rituals?
Jilberto: I breathe, do the sign of the cross, and then remind myself that at the end of the day, I get to do comedy, the thing I love most, and people actually showed up to see it. That’s it. That’s the whole ritual. Equal parts Catholic guilt and genuine gratitude, which, if you’ve seen the show, you’ll recognize as basically my entire personality.
Shay: What do you do when you’re faced with writer’s block?
Jilberto: I call my best friends Miguel and Miriam and just talk out loud about what I want to say and why, no pressure to be funny, just an actual conversation. And that’s usually the unlock, because with friends you’re not performing, you’re just naturally yourself, and it turns out that’s when the funniest version of the story shows up. The hard part is I have to hang up fast afterward so I can write down whatever made them laugh before I lose it, half my best lines exist because I sprinted for a notebook right after saying goodbye.
Shay: Has/will the show be performed anywhere ahead of EdFringe?
Jilberto: Yes, I have work in progress shows in NYC July 9, 30 and August 14.
Shay: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Jilberto: I’m most excited to say this story in a room full of strangers who have zero context for my family and watch them get it anyway, there’s something about Fringe audiences specifically that makes you trust the work, because they showed up for a stranger in a basement on purpose. Selfishly, I’m also excited to finally stop workshopping this thing in my head at 2am and just let it exist in front of people. And having written about finding your audience as a Mexican performer in Edinburgh, I’m curious to actually live that answer this year instead of just theorizing about it.
Shay: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Jilberto: A shot of mezcal that your dad pours for you without quite making eye contact, it’s warm, it’s a little bit of an apology, and neither of you is going to talk about your feelings, but you’re both going to sit there together and drink it anyway. Smoky, a little rough going down, and somehow it still means “I love you.”
Reminder, you can catch ¡Ay! Papi: Jilberto Soto at Just Up The Stairs at Just The Tonic at The Caves on August 20th – 30th at 14:25 (60 min). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
