A sad and lonely Gilda trapped in Tom Schiller’s Fellini-esque world of garish fame. An elderly John Belushi dancing on his former castmates’ graves. (“That was just Dratch,” Maya assures her new ghost pals, offhandedly.) Some pieces like this just capture the show better than others. She’s not a ghost, as the trembling hand of Rudolph lands squarely on Dratch’s very alive face with a fleshy slap.
Dratch is in an ominous bathtub, not in Room 237, but right on the stage.
Kenan (himself sure to haunt 8H alongside Fey and Rudolph once/if he ever leaves the show) is Scatman Crothers/Dick Halloran, whose sagacious talk of Rudolph’s former cast member “shine” eventually gets on Maya’s nerves a bit. (Her standard beer-garita is on the house.) Fey (sporting a serious case of coke-nose and a hairstyle oddly reminiscent of original writer and Lorne Michaels’ then-wife, Rosie Shuster) welcomes Rudolph as one of the long-suffering woman pioneers of SNL, even as she bemoans the loss of self-destructive workplace affairs (and all that coke). Once she arrives in the studio proper, there’s a genuinely creepy (you know, in a good way) Alex Moffat as the ghostly in-studio bartender, assuring Rudolph that her money’s no good there. (Her fond regrets over not having gone for it with hosts Derek Jeter and Jeff Gordon turn to an expertly timed, unspoken hard pass on Kevin Spacey’s picture.)
Here, Chirpy returns as himself, the conceit being that, in addition to occasionally donning spiky COVID headgear, featured players have to do page duty, with Rudolph blowing off her long-waiting car in favor of checking out the very real, photo-festooned 8H hallways. In her monologue, Maya regally talked down to those aforementioned new kids, Andrew Dismukes, Punkie Johnson, and Lauren Holt (sorry, Chirpy, Little Deedee, and Callista Vagina), assuring them that, someday, they, too, might be just as great as Maya Rudolph. This is neither, a serenely inventive, patiently constructed paean to the show’s past (and Maya Rudolph’s place in it) that still manages to be funny and pointed enough to remind us why we should care in the first place. The Best: Since I already played my hand, let’s talk about “The Maya-ing.” Some behind the scenes pieces are-if I may-so up the show’s own ass that they come off as cloyingly cutesy, or exhausting. (Which is probably how long SNL will run.)
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Sure, Maya was three when the show premiered, and I shudder at the thought of how a Black woman would have fared on 1975 TV (just ask Garrett), but it’s such a fitting tribute to someone whose talent will linger at Saturday Night Live, inspiring the new kids each year until the end of time. And, apart from the able photoshopping job, she looks right at home there with her arm draped over the slim shoulder of the shockingly young Dan Aykroyd. The final (and best) piece of the night was an elaborate filmed The Shining parody, where, after a hauntingly funny trip through the memorabilia and ghosts of Studio 8H (scored to “Midnight, The Stars And You”), Maya is seen in a photo among the original seven Not Ready For Prime Time Players. While her second time hosting her old show and launching pad bewilderingly didn’t allow Rudolph to truly bust loose, the evening was a gently funny reminder that the multiple award-winner is an all-timer. You’re goddamned right, you are, Maya Rudolph. I still can’t tell if this is beneath me.” “I’m not an actor, I’m a star!!”
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