Movies

In You Can See Everything , All the World’s a Stage

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos via A24.

This article contains spoilers for You Can See Everything .

In one of You Can See Everything ’s key—and most discussed—scenes, Nathan Fielder sits with convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans, and shows them Abbott and Costello’s legendary “Who’s on First?,” which Fielder hails as “maybe the most famous comedy routine of all time.” “Who’s on First?” is a bit of complicated rapid-fire wordplay so important to 20 th -century culture, and so perfect in its construction, that I performed it in sixth grade drama class opposite a kid I despised, and we still killed. After they watch the routine, Fielder asks Holmes if she understands why it is funny. At first she says yes, but it becomes clear as he questions her further that she does not understand it.…