Colin Quinn's "Long Story Short" Strikes an Intellectual Chord

Apr 15, 2011
Chris Istace

Colin Quinn stars in "Long Story Short." - Devin Wright

Colin Quinn's one-man show "Long Story Short" takes audiences on a hilarious tour of human history. The show was directed on Broadway by Jerry Seinfeld.

With his thick Brooklyn accent and deadpan delivery, it may surprise some that Colin Quinn has had the success he's found with his one-man show, "Long Story Short: History of the World in 75 Minutes."

Although his witty and satirical take on life seen in previous writing and performances had a hint of intellectualism, Quinn has proven he is capable of adding substantial knowledge and study to his humor with "Long Story Short."

Best known for his five-year stint as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live, Quinn has since moved on to various projects of his own. Besides staying close to his roots in stand-up comedy, he has also written for television. There were three episodes of the sketch comedy, The Colin Quinn Show in 2002, and a television series called Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn in 2003 and 2004.

In Tough Crowd, he and other comedians discuss issues affecting the United States and the world, from politics to pop culture, through a semi-sitcom platform.

Although he has taken movie roles since then, Quinn makes a fully invested return to audiences with "Long Story Short." The stage show first ran off-Broadway at the Bleecker Theatre in New York, but went on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre beginning on Nov. 9, 2010. The show was extended twice, ultimately closing on March 5, 2011.

Colin Quinn and Jerry Seinfeld work together

The theatre show was directed by friend and fellow comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Both Quinn and Seinfeld teamed to executive produce Long Story Short's airing on HBO on April 9, 2011. It's here that a much broader audience got to see Quinn's satirical take on the history of the world.

And it's an interesting and purely entertaining one, particularly because of the unexpected range Quinn shows in the stage show. His Brooklyn accent, as thoroughly part of his persona as his Irish background, gives way to a multitude of accents to portray characters from India, the Middle East, England, France, Greece, Africa and South America. This previously unpromoted talent enhances his tour around the world through history.

Quinn's story in "Long Story Short" takes us through the Middle East, winds through the rise and fall of Greece and Rome to Europe's trip to the world's apex. He finally ends in America, with all its features, good and bad.

Informationally, the show is thick, and Quinn's delivery is deadpan, but his pace keeps his audience with him on every set-up and every punchline. He walks us through history in a way that anyone with an inkling of North American pop culture can grasp. His ability to put a modern spin on ancient history is strikingly accurate and hilariously funny.

India, Quinn explains, was located at the centre of the Silk Road, a trading route that stretched from Baghdad to China - basically the known world at the time. Quinn describes India's color and liveliness as the bazaar of the world, it's inner sanctum as mysterious as "your stoner friend's apartment."

"You walk across the border into India through beads," he says. "'Is this India?' 'Yeah. Shut the door. Get in, man.'"

Quinn also attempts to outline how cultures developed around the world, like how the Chinese became so definitively unified: "One leader; one party; one haircut," Quinn says.

Former SNL star has ability to repeat success of "Long Story Short"

One of the biggest reactions from the audience came when Quinn described the drug cultures found in South American civilizations before discovery in 1492.

"You had the Incas up in Peru... Coca leaves - cocaine," he said after explaining how another culture mellowed out on marijuana. "So, they have a whole different vibe. They have art, architecture, astronomy, mathematics; but they also have beheading, cannabalism, human sacrifice.

"Because that's cocaine: Gives you the best ideas and the worst ideas simultaneously."

Quinn seems to have mined deeply into historical study to come up with "Long Story Short." What he found spawned some of the best educational comedy a one-man stage show can give.

It's obvious from the success of "Long Story Short" that Quinn could do it all again with another topic. If he does, his success at intellectual humor won't come as a surprise again.