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Depending on your age and tastes, you either know Alex Borstein for her character work on MADtv, Family Guy, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or The Lizzie McGuire Movie. The Catwoman actress is memorable whether she’s mothering Mila Kunis or chaperoning Hilary Duff, but after 30-plus years of onscreen credits, Borstein is on her own hilarious.
She proved it at Polaris Hall on Thursday, Sept. 25, calling her show at the renovated church for a crowd of roughly 200 a sign that she’s “made it.” Borstein apologized for starting her show 15 minutes late, as she got distracted backstage reading trivia about Shakira (the hit records, the tax issues, the boar attack—if you know, you know). Riffing on the “Whenever, Wherever” lyric about Shakira’s small, humble breasts, Borstein questioned how body parts can have traits like that, calling her own big and arrogant. From there, she kvetched about why women’s sweaty armpits have to hang out of gowns at Hollywood award shows (Ariana Grande smells like cotton candy, Borstein says), how creepy houseplants owners are, and the benefits of having children later in life—chiefly, she will be dead by the time the kids really screw up.
Learning that a small handful of guests were in their 20s, Borstein declared it proof that she was relevant. Selecting one age 26, Borstein called her to the stage to smell her head like a newborn baby’s. From there, Borstein playfully picked on her throughout the evening, using the 20-something as a reference for crowd work. Meanwhile, a woman behind me wheezed with laughter during Borstein’s bit on making fun of people who put stickers on their giant water bottles, as the comedian by pure chance was naming stickers she used.
Borstein largely talked about her experiences aging, and delivered a profound metaphor for being at the bank, seeing people of every age and realizing we have been or will be all of those stages. She also debunked antisemitic paranoia, questioning why Jewish people would let New York City summers be so miserable if the space laser worked. The voice actress mostly stuck to using her own tone, which in emotional extremes teased hints of her other characters, like her famous Björk impression or Peter Griffin’s mother in law. Thanking fans for decades of support, Borstein closed singing a parody of Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” in Lois Griffin’s voice. She’s made a career of being other people, yet Borstein was refreshingly real as herself.
