Still Standing: Documentary by Elizabeth Zephyrine McDonough Shows Great Comedy Is Ageless

Some say that starting in comedy is a young person's game, what with the running from open mic to open mic at all hours of the night just to get some stage time.  Natalie K. Levant and George Saltz, the subjects of the short documentary Still Standing, show that just because you've made four score-plus trips around the sun doesn't mean you can't make people laugh, including those young enough to be your grandkids. 

Director Elizabeth Zephrine McDonough, who is also an actor and writer for The New Yorker and Full Frontal, was working on a documentary about the comedy scene in New York.  At one open mic, she was blown away by Natalie Levant, a tattooed, shaggy-haired octagenarian in sequined boots who dropped f-bombs and shot out jokes about sex, love, her kids, and more, leaving the audience in paroxisyms of laughter.  McDonough found a muse.

Enter George Saltz, another 80+ year old.  Both he and Natalie got into comedy in earnest when they became widowed.  While Natalie pursued her love of performing through community theater over the years, George first tried his hand at performing comedy in the Catskills when he was 18. (He bombed badly and became a clinical psychologist instead.)  Their approach to humor is different, but their result is the same - hysterical laughter.

Still Standing, which premiered at the Lower East Side Film Festival in New York City, will be making the film festival circuit, and will hopefully be available in the future either in theaters or via a streaming platform.  In the meantime, you can satisfy your itch for documentaries about mature merry makers with Lunch by Donna Kanter and If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast by Danny Gold.

(😁😁😁 out of five Smilies)