Tag Archives: comedy

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Calling in “The Wisemen” on a Wayward Spirit of Christmas

WisemenThere’s a lot to laugh about in the comedy-musical The Wisemen (at ACT Theatre through December 22; tickets): the story of the Wisemen Law Firm (Goldberg, Frankenstein, and Murray) is an extended riff on “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” focusing in this instance on what you’ve been told about the Nativity. It’s both gleefully profane and absurd, opening with a song-and-dance commercial for their sponsor, the Puerto Rican restaurant La Isla.

In the course of the evening (overstuffed at an hour and forty-five minutes) a simple paternity suit to determine the parentage of the infant Jesus Christ widens to involve the a gangsta Easter Bunny, the Pope (complete with fabulous hat), and Santa Claus, who, naturally, has ties to Big Oil.

Backed by a three-piece band (Bryant Moore, composer/songwriter and musician; Cameron Peace, guitar; and Sam Esecson, drums), Goldberg (David Bestock), Frankenstein (Gavin Cummins), and Murray (Matt Fulbright) try to discover for a suspicious Joseph (Eli Rosenblatt) who exactly Mary (Dorcas Lewis) managed to conceive a child with.

That they do this while singing songs that sound like klezmer, hip-hop, funk, and salsa adds to the show’s charm, along with the cleverness of Moore’s lyrics [Correction: Eli Rosenblatt and David Bestock wrote the music and lyrics], which will have have you hanging on most every word. As directed by Mathew Wright and choreographed by Ricki Mason, it’s at times hilariously inventive (there’s a camel made of stools, a ’60s LSD-tinged number for Lewis, and a daytime courtroom TV show send-up). It also takes awhile to get to its feet, as the law firm members each get a big number to introduce themselves (all are Jewish, but one’s a Ukrainian cowboy and one’s Irish).

I don’t think most Christians would be put off by the show’s indictment of Santa Claus as a consumerist junkie who needs regular toy “fixes” to keep it together, but this isn’t a show about restoring the Nativity to pride of place, either. It turns out that Mary really gets around, and the belabored treatment of this discovery (specifically the interviews with her exes where they reminisce about doing her) eventually begins to feel like someone has issues that musical comedy can’t resolve.

You don’t have to be Christian to find this set-up tiresome. If you’ve heard one joke about virgin birth you’ve heard that one before, and for another, there’s only so much comedy in slut-shaming these days. Another line-walking bit is that of a limp-wristed proprietor who, so far as I can tell, is supposed to be funny because super-fey and yet also slept with Mary. These unfunny, awkward moments mar an otherwise likably dyspeptic show.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Breaking The Habit in Just Five Questions

Seattle comedy troupe The Habit, formed in 1995 at the U-Dub, reunited last year with a well-received new show. Starting tonight, and for the next four weekends, they’ll be performing another new show at Green Lake’s Bathhouse Theater. As their tickets page promises–“No improv!” (Thank Jeebus.) We caught up with original member David Swidler for five quick questions.

Are you getting funnier as you get older?
Yes, and much more concerned with Hispanic voting trends.

What would’ve been better for ticket sales–Obama winning or Romney winning?
Our projections show that a 269-269 tie with the House of Representatives deciding would have been the best. For comedy sake, however, the election of Kansas governor Farts VonTinkledouche.

If you guys were One Direction, who would be Zayn?
Jeff, since he has six million underage Twitter followers.

How are Green Lake audiences different than Capitol Hill audiences?
Green Lake audiences are the best audiences in the world!!!

Will Mark Siano be singing a song in the show? (His audience sort of expects it…)
All of our shows start out as an hour-long Mark song, and then through the rehearsal process are whittled down to thirty seconds.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Igudesman & Joo Bring Madcap Mozartian Comedy to Town Hall

Apparently, there’s nothing that tickles this city’s funny bone more than Mozart. In their first Seattle appearance, classical music comedy duo Igudesman & Joo reduced a packed Town Hall to guffaws and giggles. Full of slapstick, musical hijinks, and general silliness, the pair’s popular show “A Little Nightmare Music” easily won over the enthusiastic Monday-night crowd. No “Seattle freeze” here! Igudesman & Joo had the audience singing, clapping along, and even mooing like cows. Victor Borge would have been proud.

Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo met as youngsters while studying at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Groomed for careers as professional classical musicians, the pair discovered a mutual interest in creating comedic skits. “A Little Nightmare Music”, their first comedy show, debuted in 2004. In the following years, the pair garnered worldwide fame through their numerous YouTube video clips, which have been viewed over 28 million times. The duo has also collaborated with many classical music luminaries, creating comedy skits featuring Gidon Kremer, Emanuel Ax, Janine Jensen, and Mischa Maisky.

Igudesman & Joo (Photo: Julia Wesely)

Like classical music itself, Igudesman & Joo’s comedic style combines physical, intellectual, and emotional elements into a single package. Much of “A Little Nightmare Music” is pure physical comedy at its best. It’s clear that these two musicians love clowning around, whether it involves dancing an Irish jig while playing the violin or pretending to fall asleep while playing Beethoven’s “Für Elise” on the piano.

But there’s a lot more to “A Little Nightmare Music” than just slapstick. As a fan of wordplay and wit, I enjoyed Igudesman & Joo’s clever puns and music-related jokes. In my favorite skit of the evening, Joo pretended that the piano had turned into an ATM-like device. After “swiping” a credit card, he was instructed to enter his PIN and guided through the menu of options: “For beginner level, please play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ or press ‘C’. For professional level, please play the first five measures of the Grieg Piano Concerto”.

In addition to their careers as performers and comedians, Igudesman and Joo are both professional composers and arrangers. In their comedy skits, their musical arrangements blend jazz and classical, Piazzolla tango and Schubert’s “Ave Maria”, and just about everything else. “A Little Nightmare Music” features many humorous musical juxtapositions, cleverly sneaking the James Bond theme, “The Final Countdown”, and countless other familiar tunes into popular works by Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and other classical greats.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of “A Little Nightmare Music” is the sheer musicianship on display. Despite all their silliness, it’s apparent that Igudesman & Joo are high-caliber classical musicians. The flashy musical material in “A Little Nightmare Music” isn’t easy stuff by any means, and the duo performs it with flair and impeccable timing. They’re also versatile. Several skits show off their jazz improvisation chops, while others give them the opportunity to serenade the audience with a couple of songs.

Following in Borge’s footsteps, Igudesman & Joo has created a winning formula of musical comedy that’s clever, entertaining, educational, and (mostly) appropriate for all ages. At Monday’s performance, I heard several children’s voices screaming with laughter, especially at the slapstick routines. Today, many classical music organizations are realizing that they must change popular perceptions of the art form in order to survive. Musicians like Igudesman & Joo, with their unique approach and refreshing sense of humor, are a critical part of this movement to re-package and re-brand classical music as a vibrant and relevant cultural element of the 21st century. Besides, sometimes we all need to be reminded not to take ourselves too seriously.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Le Frenchword Does It For Comedy

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(Photo: Le Frenchword)

The audience that attended the performance of Le Frenchword’s Fancy Mudthat I saw was diverse—in age and gender, if not race—and included a number of families with pre-teens

The large percentage of kids in the audience combined with the clarity, simplicity and weak comedy of the opening monologue on astronomy had me cowering in anticipation of an evening of Bill Nye the Science Guy meets The Flying Karamazov Brothers minus the juggling. I felt a nightmare creeping up on me, rife in awkward puns and low-energy silliness wrapped around PBS weekday-afternoon didacticism. Glimmers of hope flashed through the sketch as the silliness slipped into absurdism. Then suddenly, out of a transition so seamless that it was over before I realized it had started, a monologue of strange and unnerving beauty drew together everything that had transpired into an précis of Creation and I was hooked.

Le Frenchword is a talented trio of performers who excel in all they do (outside their opening scene) and they do a lot. This production, directed by George Lewis and created by Sachie Mikawa, Carter Rodriguez, Lewis and John Leith features clown, dance, singing, quirky instruments, puppetry, and physical theatre, and some of the most finely executed stage combat I’ve seen. Mikawa does Hello-Kitty kawaii and plays melodica and toy piano. Rodriguez is the big man of fragile dignity playing guitar and teaching a master class in the power of pre-emptive sympathy. Ben Burris is an excellent physical comedian and a excellent singer who plays glockenspiel and finger-cymbals. They are so much fun I just want to run away from my life to go play with them.

The unfortunate astronomy lecture diffuses into something of a wallpaper theme that runs throughout the performance but never aspires to profundity or education even while it suggests universal truths. This is rough theatre that sometimes approaches the holy. It shows its work, but seeing the structure does nothing to diminish its efficacy. The lame three-legged cow is funnier because we can see that it has three legs so the actor’s other hand can make the udder. The work is so fresh and in the moment that it’s often unclear whether it’s being improvised on the spot or has just maintained the vibrancy of creative gestation.

There are puns, but not too many and some are downright clever. There is silliness but it is either completely absurd or totally integrated into the rest of the performance. There is a cappella, but it’s often quite good and ranges from Night on Bald Mountain to outlandish and hilarious word music.

This show has its version of a gun hanging over the fireplace and that gun gets talked about a lot but it never goes off. Yet, contrary to Chekhov’s dictum, this is part of the show’s charm—along with the house lights that never dim more than halfway. After all, plot is not the point here. Not much is explained in Fancy Mud but everything gains context. A large part of the fun comes in following the actors on wild tangents only to discover that each tangent returns to the same basic themes, rearranged to change our perception of them. The closest Le Frenchword comes to explaining Fancy Mud is when one of the actors asks, “Why are we doing this?” Their answer: “We do it for comedy,” and in the name of comedy no opportunity for ribaldry or vulgarity escapes Le Frenchword.

So what happened with that opening scene? Was it poor timing that made the lecturer seem over-indulgent with his colleagues and his outbursts unjustified or was it poor writing? Or could it be that some of us are too serious and too narrow-minded to enter easily into the world of Le Frenchword? Whatever the reason the first five minutes pass quickly and the rest of the show is as pleasing a trip into the mythology of the cosmos as you’re likely to find—or at least one with great music.

The Seattle run of Fancy Mud has come and gone so to catch the next performance you’ll have to make for the border. Le Frenchword plans to perform at the fringe festivals in Winnipeg (July 18-29), Calgary (August 3-11), and Edmonton (August 16-26). Help them show los Canucks what Seattle theatre can be through LF’s soon to be launched Kickstarter campaign or by checks made out to Sachie Abrego C/O Le Frenchword, 1122 East Pike St. #929 Seattle, WA 98122.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

5 Questions with Seattle Comedy Group The Habit

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The Habit perform Friday 9/16 (8 p.m.) and Saturday 9/17 (8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.) at the Bathhouse Theater. Tickets!

Seattle’s The Habit were kings of the local sketch comedy scene in the early 2000s. Now, older and wiser and bearded-er, they’ve come together to write their first all-new show in ten years and perform it for two weekends. Weekend the first just passed–earning a rave review from the Seattle Times (and everyone I talked to after the show). This Friday and Saturday are the final shows. Anyhoo, chatted with the guys, including Newly-minted Stranger genius John Osebold and comedy cabaret master Mark Siano, about the past and present of sketch.

1) I know you guys used to do comedy on the same bill as Reggie Watts…what happened to that guy?

John: Now we manage him. He’s our #2 client. After Dale Earnhardt.

Jeff: Conan asked us to perform on his tour with Reggie. I forgot to tell you guys. But I told him no.

John: To his face, I hope.

Mark: I remember those shows. The Habit would take turns farting into a sampler and loop it as a beat. Reggie Watts stole our act.

2) With John being named a Stranger Genius in the middle of your rehearsal process, have you had to change the show at all?

David: We’ve had to learn his name.

John: It’s pronounced “Magical Wonderkind Wizarding Orgasm Machine.”

David: Seriously though, we’ve all worked with Johnny since the mid-’90s, so we’ve gotten to see his genius up close and watch it grow into the amazing life force that it is now. However, many people might be surprised to learn that he can’t rhyme. Doesn’t even understand the concept.

John: But I can’t being the french doors simple put together having I think thoughts regular help me.

3) Can you please describe for The SunBreak audience what it was like trying to break into sketch comedy in L.A.?

Jeff: So, this is an unfair question, because it’s like asking us to dig into a gaping wound. Basically asking, “What did you do wrong?”

And the answer to that (sorry to not have a funny response) is…just about everything. We were obviously unprepared about how much effort we’d have to actually put in. And how “the industry” works, and how to best position ourselves, and what steps to take to increase our likelihood of succeeding. We performed shows for three people. That was humiliating. Plus, we didn’t know as much about comedy as we thought we did. We really weren’t ready to make that leap.

Also, in hindsight, I think it’s wrong to assume that a group can pack up and move to L.A. and find success. To be “successful” (in the Hollywood sense of the word) in L.A. you have to be an individual and a whore. A good whore, I don’t mean that in a bad way. You have to create every opportunity for yourself, and put yourself out there as much as possible, and network nonstop and go to every improv joint or comedy club, and just keep plugging away for years. Luck is about being in the right place at the right time. 99 percent of those individuals will never get a shot. But, 100 percent of groups who pack up and move will never get a shot. L.A. isn’t looking for unknown groups. Groups don’t succeed. You have to prove yourself as an individual comedian, and then you group together with other successfully networked individuals who are themselves proven.

Quick story–to this already too-long answer–when I first moved to L.A., I was doing freelance training for Adobe software. Completely coincidentally, I showed up at a guy’s house to help him with his computer, and it was Ross Shafer of Almost Live! fame. I was flabbergasted. (This was like meeting my idol at the time.) Instead of accepting money from him, I insisted on being paid in advice.

My question to him: Any tips to succeed in L.A.? His answer: “You don’t need to move to L.A. If you have a good product, people will find you. Stay where you are and build a crowd and word will spread if your product is truly good.” (This was two months after packing up and moving. Insert sad trumpet music: “Wah wah wah wahhhhh.”) You know what–he was right. Too bad for us!

David: I would also say you have to work 24/7. You have to meet people and audition and do open mics and perform, perform, perform. You can’t have a real job and try on the side. It has to be what you do, and even then, you need luck. The thing that amazed me was how many funny people there are in L.A. going nowhere. I mean FUNNY, amazingly funny. People performing at Improv Olympic, who just blew the roof off the place every week, and maybe I’ll see one of them in a commercial every once in a while. Whenever they talk about athletes making the jump from college/AA to the majors and getting lost, I know what they’re talking about. I guess if you really want to know what it’s like to make it in L.A., go to a batting cage and try and take a few swings in the 100mph cage.

4) You wrote all-new material for this show. What’s different about comedy writing in the 2010s?

Jeff: We can no longer rely on our bread and butter: Y2K jokes.

Mark: Writing comedy is more difficult now that television is no longer the god of entertainment. If someone suggests a commercial parody, half of us haven’t even seen the commercial in question. You have to be more clever now, and not rely on pop culture to do the funny for you.

Also, now that we rehearse in a mansion and not a crumbling basement in Wallingford, there are a lot of distractions.

John: Like gorgeous sunsets over the Olympics. Thanks a lot, God.

(Apparently the fifth question is for Elijah.–ed.)