Let me tell ya, folks, there is nothing like raunchy humor in improv comedy to really get you in the holiday spirit.
Before the show, instead of plum fairies or whatever on my mind, I thought only of finals and what the hell I was going to get my brother for Christmas. Afterwards, here I am in full St. Nick mode, my cheeks flushed, my voice jolly, my generousitity with baked goods at an all-time high. My mood has been lifted from its normal haunt (the gates of hell) up to the North Pole. I am only a little bit terrified of a future full evolution into that bearded chimney penetrator.
When I stepped into Angell Hall Auditorium A that evening I was shocked to find the crowd so large I couldn’t find a seat. Almost every event I review hosts a meager audience, sometimes no more than an infant’s handful of people showing up. It was refreshing to see so many people showing up to support the school’s longest-running comedy group.
The show was structured into several creative exercises they called games. There was I like my men like I like my _____, a chaptered story, another with characters who could only say the same two sentences, and others. While the scenes almost always slapped, the way they accepted suggestions from the audience wasn’t optimal. Often a repeated, audience-endorsed phrase would be ignored in favor of another they deemed usable. A true improv artist would never cherry-pick in this way. But regardless of this minor transgression, the group showed how deeply talented they are at coming up with often complex jokes and wordplay on the spot. I was most impressed with how long they kept up the full novel about the murderous reindeer, though they had to scrap a few chapters early on because they weren’t panning out well.
I’m sure it takes a lot of confidence to get on stage without a script and play a fool for a room of peers paying $2 a ticket. And I’m sure the power of making an entire audience dissolve into laughter from something you came up with a second ago is worth much more than most other pursuits. There are few opportunities like this that so fully improve the mood of everyone involved. It takes a certain kind of person to pull forward such powerful extroversion for a constructive use.
If you posess any rational thoughts at all, you will be wondering when the next Comco performance is. You’ll be able to attend another in mid-January after the semester begins, again in Angell Hall Auditorium A at 8pm.
