The first thing to know about Asperger’s Are Us is that they only want you to like them on their terms. They are the only comedy troupe where all the members are on the autism spectrum, but if you’re supporting them as a cause, they’d just as soon have you stay away.
“People say, ‘You’re so courageous and as a mother of someone with autism you’re such a great example,’” says Noah Britton, 34. “But we want people to like us because we’re funny. If we’re inspirational, fine, but that’s not the idea behind the troupe and it never was.”
The Massachusetts-based quartet is now the subject of an eponymous documentary, directed by Alex Lehmann and being released by Netflix theatrically in New York on 11 November and in Los Angeles a week later. The foursome includes Jack Hanke, 23; Ethan Finlan, 24; and New Michael Ingemi, 24, who changed his name to distinguish himself from his father, old Michael Ingemi. The comedians met more than a decade ago at a camp where Britton was a counselor.
They want audiences to come because they share a sense of humor – Britton says they chose their name “because we do comedy we think appeals to other ‘aspies’” – but their sketches are aimed at anyone who enjoys Monty Python’s absurdism and Airplane’s deadpan wordplay.
In the Rap Sketch, Hanke’s beat-boxing consists of him pummeling a cardboard box; in Foster Parents, a couple goes to foster care to get a child only to find they’ve been assigned the “perfect match” – the son they ditched years ago (“You were too young for us,” they casually explain before rejecting him again). In I’m Pregnant, a woman’s announcement prompts her lover to explain that he’s not actually a man, he’s bubble-wrap and their conversations are all in her imagination. When she muses that their child-to-be is genetically predisposed to becoming “a rapper”, he counters: “I hate to burst your bubble...”
“Some people have booked us out of a sense of guilt or charity,” Britton says. “We always accepted their money. But ideally they like us because we’re funny.”
They acknowledge their dilemma with a skit called Blind Man Stand-Up that pokes fun at audiences who go to see the show out of pity. (They also often don shirts declaring, “I Don’t Want Your Pity.”)
When Louis Faranda, the influential executive talent producer at Caroline’s on Broadway, was approached about booking the group for their summer tour, he checked out their videos first. “I did not want to say yes just to be nice because that would be patronizing and could be a disaster,” he says. “But they are really witty and funny.”
In Washington DC they indulged their own sensibilities, hiring a CPR instructor as an opening act. “It had the surprising side effect of putting the audience in the wrong mood for comedy,” Britton notes dryly, “but conceptually we were really pleased even if in practice it was really stupid.”
At other shows the warm-up act was a can opener on a stool, which confused audiences until the group came out and Hanke said: “We’d like to thank the opener.”
“It was also a joke on the audience because a lot of them are delayed like us, so this was a delayed reaction for delayed people,” Hanke says.
Interviewing three members via Skype (Ingemi did not participate) is like watching their shows – they riff constantly, interrupting each other and neglecting the questions to make a joke.
They frequently followed shows with Q&As, during which they did embrace the idea of seriously discussing what being “aspie” means. But they also trashed the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which they feel pokes fun at people with Asperger’s.
“I’m not a fan of The Big Bang Theory,” Hanke says in our interview, dryly adding: “I believe Earth originated on the back of a huge turtle.”
“See, that’s a funny theory about how the Earth began,” Finlan adds. “But The Big Bang Theory, there’s just nothing funny about it at all. And we dislike it for that other reason as well.”
The tour, in a rickety RV, was challenging, Hanke says, not just because of vehicular breakdowns but because the members all need alone time, which was scarce. Yet they wrote new material on the road and emerged closer then ever. Now they are bracing for the changes wrought by the fame that will accompany the documentary.
Lehmann was researching Asperger’s for a feature script when he stumbled across an article on the group: “They defied my preconceptions.” He set out to make a short film but realized there was “a much deeper story” exploring the foursome’s camaraderie and occasional tensions, as well as their relationships with their families. “I didn’t want to make a pity piece though. I thought they were really funny.”
It took time before Lehmann overcame their skepticism. “Aspies don’t trust people who haven’t earned it,” Britton says. “When I meet a stranger I assume they are bad at analysis and their opinions don’t mesh with mine, and that’s almost always correct.”
Eventually Lehmann won them over and captured them at their most creative and at their most vulnerable. “They are incredibly self-aware and can be introspective in a way that goes against the terrible stereotype,” he says.
The group, which had extracted a pledge from Lehmann that they could kill the movie if they were unhappy with the finished product, nearly did that. “They were really uncomfortable when I showed them the first cut but then they realized the value in showing their struggles,” the director says.
But the comedians say they had other qualms.
“The first cut was not great,” Finlan says.
“It was just an hour and a half showing a wall and we didn’t understand why it would sell,” Britton jokes.
Hanke jumps in, saying, “I liked that version” only to be told by Britton that “Pink Floyd beat us to it”.
But seriously folks, the real problem, Britton says, is “we wish they’d cast us differently”.
Actually, they felt Lehmann short-shrifted the comedy. Their humor comes across in interviews – Britton shows his “Ask me about my fear of strangers” T-shirt and explains that if someone inquires he runs away – but their culminating performance was just truncated moments of a few sketches.
Finlan credits Lehmann with making some improvements and Britton says while that shortcoming “makes us very sad, we are grateful the movie exists”.
The movie, Lehmann believes, will lead to more bookings and bigger audiences. (They open for Emo Phillips at the Boston comedy festival and play twice at New York’s Magnet theater in January, with another tour possible next summer.)
But with greater exposure, the comedians worry, will come greater responsibility imposed upon them. The film’s thoughtful and moving relationship scenes has them concerned that the movie audience will be “middle-age women who gave up hope for their aspie child for whatever reason – we didn’t tell them to do that and it sucks that they did”, says Britton, who got a master’s degree at Hunter College and has taught psychology in addition to working as a counselor.
But actor-director-producer Mark Duplass, who along with his brother Jay serves as executive producer on the film, thinks their material will carry the day – and that they can also shoulder the mantle of role models.
“They are kind of resistant to the idea of being important in the community and just want to be themselves, to be comedians,” Duplass says. “But I see only positive things coming out of this movie – it will allow their comedy to be seen more. These guys also are inspiring to parents of children on the spectrum and I’ve been watching them struggle with that but I hope they’ll be the leaders the world is begging them to be.”
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