Stand-up comedian, actress and writer Giulia Rozzi is the smart friend everyone needs in their lives. An intelligent, perceptive mind that’s almost painfully aware of the foibles bound up in modern day living, Rozzi spins that awareness into an amusing perspective.
Her topics range from romance, her immigrant parents, living in New York City and Internet trolls (among others), which might feel well trodden within the world of stand-up comedy. Rozzi, however, approaches them with a wry take that breathes new life into each one.
The first half of her comedy album True Love deals largely with Rozzi’s many romantic failings, from her first oral sex experience to her marriage and subsequent divorce. Lucky for listeners, those failings are hilariously relatable in a way that other comics don’t always achieve.
Although she can venture into female comic shock jock territory like Amy Schumer and others who aim to be brassy in order to convey their coolness, Rozzi’s jokes never feel crass or egregious. For her, it’s a quick dip into dirtier thinking before she’s off to make her point. For every joke detailing her sex life, she offers an observation keenly conscious of how relationships work nowadays. When discussing her ex-husband, she readily quips, “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was probably co-dependent.”
It’s that particular material—her past relationships and their mounting idiosyncrasies—where she succeeds most. As much as her dating stories and jokes land well (and they do), Rozzi’s comedic nuance finds its footing when it ventures off that much covered path and approaches love in other ways. For a writer of her caliber (she’s the mind behind UCB Theatre’s 30 minute show Bad Bride), she brings a stronger edge to her work when she focuses on the meatier experiences in her life, rather than the passing beats.
Discussing marriage, she says, “I feel like marriage licenses are the one license that you don’t have to renew that you should have to renew.” Proposing that couples should be required to visit the Department of Marital Vows (DMV) every seven years to reevaluate whether they should continue, her point not only provokes a laugh but actually doesn’t seem like a half bad idea.
Rozzi’s jokes are quick, most falling around the two-minute mark, but given her writing background it would be worthwhile to see her develop longer narratives like she does at the end when discussing her more disgusting moments in NYC. Still, for the purposes of True Love, these shorter jokes with their brief punctuation convey a comic ably handling her craft.
It seems like only a matter of time before one of the major video streaming services (Netflix, cough cough) gives her a one-hour standup special.
Amanda Wicks is a freelance journalist specializing in comedy and music. Follow her on Twitter @aawicks.