When I got the assignment to write about Matt Rife: Lucid—A Crowdwork Special, I had to research a bit about what crowdwork is when it comes to stand-up comedy. It basically means the whole crowd is also part of the performance, along with the comedian on stage. And unlike other stand-up sets, where comedians mostly come with a proper plan of what jokes to tell, crowdwork is all improv. Rife’s show happens to be the first crowdwork special on Netflix. The comedian is known for crowdwork, but here, he’s going all out. Quite naturally, “Lucid” doesn’t work like other Netflix comedy specials. It is improvised by Rife and his very sporting audience, but it does have a theme, dreams. That is also something you don’t get to see in a comedy set. I mean, sure, there are sets that particularly focus on certain aspects, but here, all the jokes are based on dreams alone.
Well, I shouldn’t say jokes, as these are like mini acts of comedy performed by Rife and members of his audience. The comedian does take a little time to warm up and let us know about the topic of the show, though. In fact, the first joke draws from a random man in the audience with an unusually long pair of boots. When he’s done with the boot man, Rife stretches a bit more and throws around some more jokes. The best one has to be calling the Top Gun (1985) gay, referring to the homoerotic energy felt in the film. He brings that up while talking about his aspirations of becoming a fighter pilot, and from that he gets into a dream. Rife lets his audience know how the show’s going to be. He’s going to talk about three kinds of dreams, mainly; one – which are already achieved; two- that are being pursued; and three- which were missed. Rife mentions that he himself is living his dream, and he considers himself lucky and privileged for that.
The first interaction happens between a mother-daughter duo and our comedian. This one’s about a dream that the daughter is going after. She wants to sell houses, and she has a marketing degree already. But what’s she currently doing? Running a very adult business with her mom. The mom lets everyone know that she basically teaches women how to satisfy their partners better. She also says that they had an adult toy business and, before that, an ice cream truck. It’s all very erotic, and what makes the whole thing funny is the way the young comedian conducts it. And then he very skillfully shifts the attention to another mother and daughter, where the mother is a special ed teacher (but she admits it’s for the perks) and the daughter is a behavioral therapist. It’s the mother who’s going after the dream, and Rife is smart enough to laud them without any snark.
Rife then moves on to those who are living their dream, just like him. There’s this pilot who was once in marketing but six months in that line of work made her realize that she’s not cut out for it. The woman does speak like someone who has achieved their dream. There’s one interesting aspect here: the pilot doesn’t want to mention the airlines she works for. “Commercial or private?” Rife presses further, but she chooses not to reveal. That does give him the opportunity to speculate whether it’s Spirit Airlines, who are quite notorious when it comes to delaying or canceling flights. Another person who’s living their dream is a stay-at-home dad who has no problem accepting he’s a child at heart, who’s married to someone who does interventional x-rays – which is a form of advanced, technology based medical treatment. The husband wife duo seems very much game with Rife’s sense of humor, which makes sure this bit is as entertaining as the others.
The one that comes after is the one who couldn’t achieve the dream. It’s a man who would very much like to be a pole dancer, but he’s stuck in finance. He wishes he was a girl. He even has a character name—Brandy Jamison. Rife says the man can still do it before landing on a joke about his age; all in good spirit though.
Even though Rife mentions the show is about dreams, it’s quite impossible to leave nightmares behind. And what are these nightmares about? A woman has had a recurring dream about a witch ever since she was twelve years old. But what’s worse? Another woman has dreams about her boyfriend cheating on her and stays a “little mad” at him for what he didn’t do. Rife rightfully points out that the boyfriend, who’s also in the audience, bears absolutely no fault. The woman goes on to tell everyone that it’s a result of her past trauma. A lesser comedian would have possibly joked about it, but not Rife. Even though it seems like he’s going to roast the woman, he ends up telling her the right thing, which is basically making an attempt to not project her trauma onto this guy who has been nothing but good so far.
With the nightmare done, Rife has one other kind of dream to talk about—wet dreams. And he clarifies that he’s not quite talking about erotic dreams. He wants to know about the dreams where things happen, in a literal sense. Enter this man who had one once, that too during basic training while sleeping at the top bunk. It’s quite hilarious, especially when Rife starts to imagine the outcome of it and compares it to “Halloween decorations” from the POV of the guys in bottom bunks. Next up, there’s this woman, who was in a relationship with a married man on the verge of his divorce. She doesn’t quite get into why she broke up with him, but the important thing here is that this was a man with a seven-inch-long thing, and she can’t get over it. The result of that was the kind of dream she had while on a cruise. Her friends thought she was touching herself, but she swears that she was sleeping only, and all of it happened in the dreamland. Rife’s show begins and ends with “Dream A Little Dream Of Me,” which is very fitting. It also has very interesting ending credits, which might leave you in a state of confusion, just like how you feel after waking up from a dream. If that’s not the best way to end Netflix’s first crowdwork special, then what is?
