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52 DGA QUARTERLY Beyond the Brick Wall and a Microphone E G I N N I N G W I T H t h e 2 0 0 5 t h e a t r i c a l r e l e a s e Jesus Is Magic, Liam Lynch has directed all of Sarah Silverman's comedy specials. It's why Lynch tends to know what Silverman will need even before he knows what form their latest collabora- tion will take. His metaphor for this is matrimonial. "You're really planning a wedding. It's this one-day, or possibly two-day, event," Lynch says of the deceptively straight- forward challenge of directing a comedy special. "You have to, as a director, get into their psychology and really fi nd what gives them confi dence so that they have their best performance." When Jesus Is Magic was released more than a decade ago, it was meant to announce not only Silverman's brazenly impolitic jokes but PHOTO: COURTESY OF STEVEN AGEE IN THEIR DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE TAKES ON THE STANDUP SPECIAL, DIRECTORS APPROACH THEIR SUBJECTS FROM THE INSIDE OUT BY PAUL BROWNFIELD also her comedic range. There were fantasy musical interludes and backstage characters, providing a template for the pilot of Silverman's subsequent Comedy Central series The Sarah Silverman Program. In Jesus Is Magic, there is a noticeably large picture frame, with sparkles behind her. A Speck of Dust, her special that debuted on Netflix last year, goes the other way—a curtain, a stool and less showy lighting. The choice for both director and comedian is whether the basics— comic, microphone, stage—call for additional visual elements or so few that the focus is de facto on the performer. In A Speck of Dust, the latter prevailed. That's because the show was fi lmed at Largo at the Coronet, where Silverman appears monthly. "She wanted it to look like Largo always looks; she didn't want it dressed up," Lynch says. "The idea was to also document Largo as a place." Lynch shot A Speck of Dust over two nights, with six cameras, in- cluding one tucked at the back of the house with a very long lens for close-ups. "I don't want the crowd distracted by cameramen, and I B