It’s kind of eerie showing up late to a comedy show. From every direction you see and hear people laughing at full volume, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, but since you haven’t heard the joke it all seems confusing, ethereal and distanced.

This out-of-body experience was mine when walking into comedian Aziz Ansari’s sold-out Madison show Thursday night at the Barrymore, the ninth stop of his “Buried Alive” tour.

Ansari was quick-witted and came prepared with joke after joke that pushed comedic boundaries of humor, each more risqu? than the one before. Ansari did not ignore his roots: the energetic quirks that made him famous in past projects, like playing Tom Haverford on “Parks and Recreation.” Many jokes targeted the large number of 20 and 30-somethings in the audience, and his skits were punctuated with club-scene, party-boy humor (in most cases, a desperate party boy who refuses to get turned down). And although there was a long line already formed outside for his second showing of the routine, Ansari ended by serenading his audience with a lengthy array of squeaky, sardonic pop songs.

The name “Buried Alive” hints at a few highlights of his current stand-up routine, or rather lowlights, which brought out the darker elements of Ansari’s humor — a side of his comedy that many fans familiar with his “Dangerously Delicious” act may not have known existed.

For example, one bit he performed focused on the institution of marriage, and jokingly accused several couples in the audience of being unprepared for married life and likely to get a divorce. Many jokes dabbled in race and gender, another touched on teen pregnancy, and yet another visited the issue of child molestation — in which Ansari plays with the idea so abstractly that audiences are left wondering if the hypothetical perpetrator, not the victim in his scenario, is in fact deserving of sympathy. It’s tempting to decry these controversial pokes of fun as indecent or in bad taste — until our funny-bones remind us what’s what.

This handful of on-edge jokes acts as a necessary reminder to us, the viewers, that professional comedy is meant to be entertaining but also thought-provoking. The art of telling a joke involves delving deep into issues so unbearably heavy that laughter is often necessary to discuss them, and understand them fully.

Some comedians may be truly ignorant. But jokes like Ansari’s, that are mostly thoughtful and informed by observation, help people to explore and confront complex topics. By bringing up these issues in a stand-up sketch, a comedian is laughing in the face of hate, not making light of it. It may be a concept the casual comedy-goer rarely thinks about — until, like in this case, it is done well.

All seriousness aside (which isn’t something one normally hears in regard to a stand-up routine) Ansari put on a great show. His was a hilarious class act, and fans would have accepted nothing less.

Sarah Witman is a writer for the ArtsEtc. section, and would love to receive feedback and responses to this review at [email protected]. For all your Aziz Ansari needs, his site azizisbored.tumblr.com is updated by him regularly. The nationwide “Buried Alive” tour is ongoing until July 21.