THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN

Comedy Show Starts Slow But Has the Last Laugh

by Nick Moore

Slide Show

Comedy is a stressful business, especially when it's live. Performers depend on applause like a car depends on fuel, and no matter how generous an audience, you have to earn your laughter. It helps when you give out free beer.

These realities proved to be more than true Saturday night at the opening weekend of PianoFight's fifth SHIT (Stop Hating Imagination Time) Show, a sketch-comedy production at San Francisco's cozy Off-Market Theater.

With an audience full of vocal friends and supporters, the fresh-faced cast of performers began the show with a brief introduction, during which writer/producers Duncan Wold and Devin McNulty handed out, one by one, a 30-pack of Budweiser. Good start.

What ensued was a series of short sketches, around five to 10 minutes each, consisting of various exhibitions of crude innuendo, eerily vibratory flesh and just general silliness. In the first sketch, a smooth talking corporate salesman (Jed Goldstein) reveals to his boss why their company's sales have dropped so dramatically. Mocking boardroom protocol, Jed's slimeball suit uses a Powerpoint presentation to explain that his penchant for cocaine and hookers (which combine to produce what he calls "the vicious cycle") is primarily responsible for the company's sudden shortfall.

If that doesn't sound all that funny, it's because it wasn't. That's probably why it was first. The SHIT show did well to follow a helpful rule of performance-start with your weakest stuff. Sketch by sketch, the SHIT show grew funnier and more ridiculous. Though the cultural satire, which targeted the corporate world and social sites like MySpace, was on point, the most hilarious moments came with the over-the-top absurdity.

Certain members of the cast excelled at this kind of exaggerated physical humor. Among the show's many sordidly behaving stars was Rand Courtney, whose two characters were possibly the funniest of the entire set. A sketch entitled "Hypoman" began as a humorous, albeit conventional, caricature of the good-cop, bad-cop style of suspect questioning seen so often on TV. When the two cops fail to get the desired information out of their purp, they nervously introduce "the Hypoman," a supposed master of interrogation. Courtney emerges onto the stage in a shocking outfit (think Superman in a Speedo), creeping out the cops, the criminal and the audience in his bizarrely effective, homoerotic, hilarious approach to cross-examination.

The show's writing had a tendency to dip a little too far into crude lowbrow humor. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm of the performers helped endear the audience to what is in some cases overly unsophisticated writing. One of the best sketches was, more than being devoid of sexual humor, downright cute.

In an innovative technique, Eric Reid and Devin McNulty stood on stage next to a projector screen that played a slideshow of sequential photos taken of the pair on an "accidental bro-date." While the photos rolled, the two comedians acted out what each appeared to have been doing at the moment the corresponding photograph was taken. Their timing was exquisite, perfectly matching up their gestures and dialogue with each hilarious photo. Besides showcasing Reid's and McNulty's naturally comedic personalities, the skit indicated the amount of behind-the-scenes effort the show required.

Despite an obviously low budget, the performance came off as rigorously rehearsed and well produced, a testament to the cast's dedication. The performers and producers apparently put a lot of work into a project that certainly won't pay them well-a case of a full-time project squeezed into part-time and overtime hours. In making it a success they proved yet another rule of live performance-if the performers are enjoying themselves, the audience usually follows.