Speak Out: Reinventing Art, Crossing Cultures and Innovating Amidst COVID: How Ashley Blaker Has Navigated the New Global Landscape
By Rachel S. Kovacs © 2020
arttimesjournal January 26, 2021
It is no great revelation that the pandemic has sent shockwaves through the arts world. Although this is certainly true in the fine arts world, COVID19 triggered massive layoffs in the performing and visual arts. Blacked out theater lights, cancelled production schedules, and indefinitely delayed openings wreaked havoc in the already serendipitous earnings of almost everyone in the entertainment industries. In late 2020 (September 24), The New York Times reported: “Taxable revenue from performing arts companies fell 85 percent this spring compared to 2019, dropping from $25.2 million to just $3.8 million.”
Some companies have turned to streaming, somewhat successfully, but in the highly competitive digital world, how much will consumers gobble up, and what will be the trickle- down economic impact on all but the most high-ticket celebrities in the entertainment sector? There is no way to finesse or spin doctor the reality that most of those employed in that sector are suffering greatly. The consensus is that performing artists, like their colleagues in fine arts, must scramble to patch together a livelihood. With the increased reliance on Zoom, social media, streaming, and other tech applications during the pandemic, artists have learned to embrace global opportunities to hone, exhibit, and hawk their skills in innovative ways to global audiences. Nevertheless, it is unclear what even the most avid arts aficionados will demand in the way of more digital offerings, and for how long—as no one knows when or how the performing and visual arts will look when COVID has subsided. So what alternatives are there for talented performers, who must keep body and soul together when most options are off the table? What genres are likely to strike a chord with audiences?
One Man’s Answer: Humor
Ashley Blaker is banking on audiences’ need for humor, and he has had to answer the above questions for himself since March 2020, when the pandemic hit full force. It was not the first time Mr. Blaker had to step into another role, but his art has taken a radically different direction from that of his other transitions. His life and career have taken many unpredictable and unconventional turns, and they represent an odyssey that has landed him squarely in the “reinvent yourself” landscape of today’s performers.
How does one explain the unlikely transition of Mr. Blaker, London born-and bred, from Oxford undergrad and budding doctoral student at Cambridge, to comedy? Even more confounding is that he switched careers at 40 to be a full-time stand-up comic. No doubt Mr. Blaker tread a highly unlikely path for a British Jew, and his road to live standup comedy was a lengthy one. The career seeds were planted in his tween and teen years, during which time comedy was an enjoyable sideline. He always wanted to do standup, but these ambitions fell by the wayside once he began university, and somewhere in his 20s, he began a foray into Orthodox Judaism.
With his Oxford degree and time at Cambridge, Mr. Blaker had initially contemplated a career in academia. Nevertheless, in another surprise turn, he landed a job as a comedy writer for British show host Graham Norton and for the BBC. After many years, in mid-life, as an Orthodox Jew living a thoroughly Orthodox lifestyle, a husband and father of six, knowing all that it takes to support a large family, he had gotten the “bug” again. He had done some local comedy and earned plenty of laughs.
By that time, even the rabbis were curious. Thereafter, Mr. Blaker took the plunge and went into full swing as a solo act, on a 41-day tour. That tour dispelled any of his old colleagues’ skepticism about his career transition. Since then, he has had successful shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a highly regarded showcase for new talent. The Festival segued to Off-Broadway and other international venues. He has had a wide appeal for cross-cultural audiences.
A Distinctive, Non-Conformist Approach
Truly, Mr. Blaker tries to get people to see him as out of the box, and they do. He is almost always challenging people’s perceptions of him and constantly evolving as a performer, which perhaps has been a saving grace in the current economic and artistic climate. His demeanor as a BBC-groomed, slight of build, self-effacing, unassuming, and clearly Orthodox man belies his comic prowess and stamina; he has none of the superficial bluff and bravado of most comics. Mr. Blaker recalled that an Orthodox rabbi told him that it was alright to take his religious seriously, but not to take himself too seriously. Not only has he heeded the rabbi’s good advice, but he can also see Orthodox Jews and Jewry from an outsider’s perspective. When he pushes the envelope, it is neither raunchy nor mean-spirited, but rather he provides a wry look at his own culture and religion. For example, a very recent tweet:
“Tonight is Yom Kippur when Jews afflict themselves for 25 hours. Because apparently 2020 hasn’t been enough of an affliction already.”
Some of Mr. Blaker’s material is loosely autobiographical. It is not explicitly Jewish in terms of family life, and there are certainly universal threads woven throughout--for instance, what is involved in raising many children, but as seen through the prism of his life. “If you come to see me at Soho [Playhouse], you come into my house. When I perform at a synagogue, I am in someone else’s house but when you come and see me in a theatre, it’s the other way around. (As an artist…), You can’t please all the people all the time. You aim for the people who like you. You want to be someone’s favorite,” he said.
Not only has Mr. Blaker evolved, but so has his material, which is another example of the resilience that serves him so well in the current arts environment. When Blaker writes for his shows, he gets bored by talking about the same, “safe” topics. Consequently, he gets various reactions to his material and always many emails asking him to remove jokes. Some in his audience decide to become the arbiters of what is “kosher” (read appropriate) and what is not. On his Web site, he has gotten emails about halacha (Jewish law), as it relates to content in his shows. He rarely replies, except to emails from people who misremembered material and he wants to set the record straight. His reactions from non-Jewish audiences are quite different.
Playing to Diverse Audiences
As to the cross-cultural reach of his audiences, and a bit ironically, he has never had complaints from Gentiles. He has learned a great deal from them and suspects he has achieved two goals in performing for non-Jews—to bring people together with laughter and to dispel anti-Semitism. In recent years, he has taken his show to locations where Jews, if they do reside there, are even more of a minority. He is firmly, and humorously, committed to his religion and family and to multicultural understanding. That is why, for a few years, he has worked with Imran Yusef, his friend and colleague in comedy, and co-written and performed with him for Gentile, Jewish and Muslim audiences across the UK.
Mr. Blaker came to know Imran when, as a producer, he had booked Imran for a TV show. In 2018, Imran came to see him perform at the Edinburgh Fringe and Mr. Blaker suggested that they tour together. As an observant Muslim, Imran was fascinated by the Jewish religion. The TV show they were about to do together was canceled due to COVID. Despite this, their performance at a large suburban theatre was so well attended that Mr. Blaker joked that more Jews want to see a Muslim than a dayan (Jewish judge), whose shiur (lecture) at a nearby synagogue had to be cancelled. Imran was unsure how the audience would react to him, but they embraced him, loved him, and were super-generous and eager to show how liberal they were. Audiences in Bradford, a largely Muslim community in England’s north, also found the duo entertaining. The collaboration between the two performers continues.
Adapting to an Unprecedented Time and Paying It Forward
Ashley Blaker is always evolving and constantly pushing himself when he gets bored. He sees live performance as a bonus, as he loves performing to a crowd, but for now, all that has changed. Although he could book more such performances not long ago, with COVID, live shows could be canceled two weeks prior to opening. Everything live now is ephemeral. So now he is working on an at-home version of Goy Friendly, the off-Broadway show debuted in Edinburgh and performed off-Broadway to send to Jewish community centers, theaters, and other organizations.
A few months ago, for goodwill and to give housebound audiences some light relief, Mr. Blaker released Strictly Unorthodox, his first off-Broadway show, for free on YouTube. By now he has uploaded two complete shows (Prophet Sharing, with Imran Yusef, is the second), as well as additional short clips, to YouTube. As another gesture of giving to the community, Mr. Blaker has also performed around 100 shows for synagogues, charities, schools, and other organizations on a pay-what-you-can basis.
It’s hard to say what will be next for Ashley Blaker. One thing is for sure, Ashley Blaker will always keep the momentum going, and his audiences laughing. And in his own inimitable way, like all performers and other “creatives” trying to navigate their way in the stormy waters of COVID 19, he will have to reinvent and retool his art until the post-pandemic world emerges.
Note: Rachel S. Kovacs is a communication professor at CUNY, and a public relations professional, writer, and arts reviewer. She can be reached at mediahappenings@gmail.com or at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelskovacsglobalstrategies/ .