Teasing is a fundamental bond for many a father and son. For comedy duo Marty and Charlie Nadler, it’s an art.
On Friday, the comics will team up for a Father’s Day stand-up show at the Film Center. In addition to performing their own solo material, the pair will take the stage together to riff on the oddities of their parent-child dynamic, and perhaps share a secret or two with the audience.
“There are certain things I’m sure have happened to him that he doesn’t report to me, and there are things I don’t report to him,” Marty Nadler said. “So to be exposed in front of everybody else — and ourselves — can be pretty funny.”
For 42 years, Marty had a successful career as a stand-up comic and television writer. His credits include hit sitcoms like Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.
“I was always funny in class. I was always in the school plays,” Marty said. “When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to go into showbiz.” Marty fell in love with the Vineyard while attending Ithaca College, when he would visit the Island each summer to produce plays with a theatre troupe called the Vineyard Players.
Charlie was born at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, but the Nadlers didn’t move to the Vineyard full-time until Charlie was seven. He remembers an upbringing on the Island colored by John Hughes films and Harold Ramis’s Groundhog Day. Comedians who paid visits to the Vineyard, like an early-career Dave Chappell, were crucial in shaping his instincts. This includes his own father, who emceed a regular comedy show at Lola’s (now Nomans).
When he’s not working with Marty, Charlie writes scripts and travels the country performing solo stand-up shows. On Wednesday he emceed the Best of the Vineyard award ceremony hosted by Martha’s Vineyard Magazine.
“I find that basing [my comedy] off my own life experiences is the easiest way to not accidentally tread on other people’s jokes,” Charlie said. “But I like to add kind of an absurd bend to it.”
Charlie performed stand-up for an audience for the first time in 2010, at a club called Pig and Whistle on Hollywood Boulevard. It would take a whole year of open mics for her felt ready to show his dad his material.
When Charlie finally did invite Marty to watch his set at a club in California, Marty was terrified — not that his son would bomb, but that he wouldn’t connect with his son’s craft.
“If he was getting laughs from the audience, then he was fine,” he said. “But then I would say: ‘What if it wasn’t funny to me?’”
But when Charlie finished his set, Marty was overwhelmed with pride and relief.
“He was very funny,” he said.
Marty shares his son’s inward-looking comedic style. In retirement, Mary said he is focused on writing short stories and plays, one of which was read Monday night for an audience at the Vineyard Playhouse. His craft is the way he makes sense of life’s pain.
“My comedy is basically survival,” he said. “Comedy is the opposite of tragedy.”
Marty and Charlie both approach comedy with a seriousness that binds them together, but it’s clear that their connection goes much deeper than a punchline. Over a decade after Charlie’s first performance, Marty is still proud of him — as a father and a colleague.
“I got into being funny and having a comedy career because I really couldn’t do anything else,” Marty said. “Charlie, on the other hand, actually is quite bright, so I didn’t worry about him.... He would have something to fall back on. I would just probably end up in a canoe somewhere.”
“I’ve seen my dad, and I don’t think a canoe would work out that well for him,” Charlie responded.
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