Elaine Phillips at Elgin Fringe Festival

Elaine Phillips is not the Zingbot you're looking for. Bringing thoughtful humor to her show "No Place Like Home," she uses observations from her extensive travels abroad to touch on themes of privilege, provinciality and "otherness" as experienced by a white American woman.

Elaine Phillips at the Elgin Fringe Festival.

Trained as a teacher, she knows how to stick with a topic for while, using the stage to inform as well as entertain, and you can see the wheels turning in her head as she pauses between riffs. Going from country to country in her set, she has no problem using her own homebody tendencies to set up jokes on wildlife, sunburn, foreign language or cuisine.

Ironically, Sunday's audience seemed to laugh loudest at her personality characterizations and physical humor during a bit on Israel. She's easy to watch, never talks down to you, and no, she's not Jewish.

Elaine Phillips at Elgin Fringe Festival

Elaine Phillips

The brick interior of Imago Creative Studios is a perfect set for stand-up comedy, and you'd think you were in a big city club with Elaine Phillips at the mic. She has all the right credentials: ex-wife, ex-history teacher, and self-described feminazi.

Throughout her set she criss-crosses through any and all dangerous subjects like human trafficking, genocide, abortion, imperialism, political correctness and public toilets. But Phillips can work both sides of the street on these topics, inserting political statements between humorous jabs at people and power structures. And she has no problem sneering at herself.

Though the 10:30 pm time slot might be after Elgin's mental bedtime, the audience giggled through bits on men's grooming, women's bathrooms, ketchup stains and Jewel grocery bags. Yet her show gravitates toward sharp commentary on bigger, tougher subjects that no "mom jeans"comic would even dare to touch.

For a classic urban stand-up experience of intellectual humor with an attitude, check out "Didn't Know I was Dangerous" Saturday, Sept. 17th at 7:30 pm at Imago Studios.