Stand-up comedian and professional violist Isabel Hagen performed at Bing Concert Hall Studio on Jan. 16. As both a classical musician and a stand-up comedian, Hagen often gets asked if she ever combines her two skills into a single act. Don't worry, we'll get there.
Hagen's act was the first Comedy Live performance of 2025. A subset of Stanford Live, the organization brings comedy programming to Stanford's campus.
Before Hagen's set was the opening act, a stand-up set from San Francisco comedian Arthur Gaus. Gaus performed a high-energy routine about the proliferation of the Netflix serial killer docu-series, the merits of drunk newscasters and a plea for "more interesting terrible people." His delivery was wacky, loud and gesticulatory. His focus on pop culture topics seemed a little hit-or-miss for the Palo Alto audience. "You guys are a weird crowd," he said at one point.
My guess is it's difficult to be the unannounced (and un-introduced) opening act for the comedian who people actually bought tickets to see. While Gaus's routine was too long (pushing 30 minutes of the one hour show), he did seem to hit a stride towards the end of his set.
"The U.S. and Russia are different kinds of nationalists," he began. The U.S. is "exclusive," generally not being open to incomers, whereas Russia, Gaus joked, wants every country to be Russia. I thought the clever and unexpected framing of geopolitical tensions worked well. Then, he discussed the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The comedian closed out with a clear cut reminder to the president: "Trump, this is America -- everybody gets shot."
When Hagen took the stage, she said, "I'm going to bring the energy way down. That's what I do." And that she did. After the high-energy opening, Hagen had a chill presence that paired well with her darker, more sarcastic comedic style.
Hagen moved seamlessly from topics relating to existential dread and lifelong regrets to small moments of social awkwardness and unwarranted anxiety. Her routine raised questions of whether the existential and the trivial may be closer together than they first appear. She gave the example of being in heaven for all of eternity and still beating yourself up about "that thing you said that one time." Small, painfully awkward moments can be the ones that inspire the most existential dread.
In a departure from a trite saying, Hagen reframed regret. "The deathbed is the best time to have regrets. You don't have to live with them for very long." Soon after, she discussed the irrational anxiety of not offering to switch seats on a plane so a couple can sit together, and the embarrassing situation of scheduling meetings when you are too available. "I have to make up fake windows of availability. It's too sad to be like, 'how about now?'"
Hagen quickly established herself as a relatable character. She came off cool, deadpan and caustic. She was charismatic with modest delivery. Her jokes largely centered on questioning social conventions and subverting society's standards of politeness. Hagen's set encapsulated 'what we are all thinking,' but framed in a way I had never thought of before.
Despite her likability, the comedian also found the crowd odd. (Is this the first time an audience bombed a standup show?) "We have a weird dynamic, and that's alright," she said to the crowd.
Being a professional comedian and violist, she said she often gets asked if she ever combines these two art forms in her shows. It was then that Hagen introduced her experiment. She switched back and forth from playing beautiful classical excerpts on the viola to telling raunchy one-liners. The transitions were awkward and hilarious. She had to readjust her viola and play classical music after saying something like, "I hate when people show me pictures of their kids. We get it, he's missing."
I was impressed that Hagen balances such a serious 'high art' with deadpan stand-up comedy in her career. And to pull off a rapid switch between the two in a single performance was just epic.
The audience was laughing at the quips, and at the transitions back and forth from the viola solos. Then, Hagen fell into a longer stretch of a Bach excerpt. It lasted about five minutes. Because she'd been playing excerpts, it wasn't surprising that she kept going. She fell effortlessly into a piece and while she played for longer, it didn't feel dragged out. The music was calming, especially after the attentive and reactive act of listening to stand-up.
After the excerpt, she transitioned to holding and plucking chords on her viola like a ukulele. She opened her mouth to sing. "What were you thinking about when I played that Bach just now?" she sang, correctly predicting that the audience's minds would be wandering while listening to classical music, and poking fun at it. Hagen's closing song had the repeated chorus, "You wanted to pay attention, that was your intention, but that's not what our minds do anymore."
The whole performance was a special thing to see in person. Her closing song was complete with a melody, verses and great vocals -- a triple threat. Seriously, what a creative and weirdly hilarious way to comment on our shitty post-pandemic attention spans.
Through the existential, the everyday and the musical, Isabel Hagen won over audience hearts with a charismatic kick-off to Comedy Live, 2025.