“What is the penis to me? What is its nature?” Jacqueline Novak asks early in her show, “Get On Your Knees.” After some consideration she concludes that the penis is tender, responsive, and has “the soul of an artist.”
Like the organ it explores, “Get On Your Knees” has a tenderness at its center, wrapped in a package of genital humor.
It is a show that exists in the liminal space between comedy special, one-woman play, and long-form essay. It’s brilliant. It’s hilarious. And it’s about… the blowjob. What started as the germ of an idea in the form of a piece she wrote for a creative writing course as a student at Georgetown University in the early aughts ultimately became a 2019 New York Times Critic’s Pick, a 2020 Drama Desk Award nominee, and now, a 2024 Netflix special.
After watching about 10 minutes of the 90-minute Netflix special, which dropped Jan. 23, will surprise no one to learn that Novak studied creative writing in college, in addition to doing improv alongside a young Joh…
