Michelle Wolf: Review of The Best Job in the World – Motherhood, Hurt, and Menopause in The Very Hungry Caterpillar | comedy

TBest job in the world, michael wolff’s touring show is called. Whether that refers to motherhood (among Woolf’s current occupations) or standing (hers) is up to us to decide. Describing parenting in these terms elicits a deeply sarcastic response from Pennsylvania, whose ear is perfectly attuned to society’s questionable respect for motherhood, breastfeeding, and a host of other things women do without much fanfare. Wolfe is here to redress that balance, in a flag-bearing, not always tongue-in-cheek, display of women’s magnificence in a society not built to accommodate them.

Exhibit A, for a 41-year-old woman, is the menstrual cycle – and not just the woman’s menstrual cycle, but the entire (unannounced and ununderstood) menstrual cycle that lasts an entire month. Exhibit B? Pregnancy, which should be discussed less in terms of “your baby is now the size of a grapefruit” and more: today, you’re creating a spine! There’s a lot more where this came from, as our host reveals the miracle of breastfeeding and (a mother of young children who draws inspiration from nearby) suggests “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” as a parable about menopause.

It’s all good, tart stuff, animated by Woolf’s familiar line from the devil: witness the relish she brings to her routine about her infant son’s testicles, and her mixed feelings as a result. There are a few delicious gags also salvaged from her onetime stint as Kim Kardashian’s joke writer. Sometimes, as with her extreme talk about feminine facial grooming, her persuasiveness begins to crumble. The concluding point about essentialist gender propaganda is weakly illustrated by the ensuing skits about Stockholm Syndrome and the children’s song “The Wheels of the Bus.”

But both of these routines are funny regardless, and if we leave still unsure whether motherhood or stand-up is the best job in the world, it’s clear that Wolf has completely nailed it at at least one of them.