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Entries in Show Recap (163)
Wednesday Dec 15 2010 THE C WORD @ THE UCBT-NY - 12.9.10
Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 11:46AM Pam Murphy | Photo: Ari Scott By: Lucas Hazlett
There's an old cliche that states, "Time + Tragedy = Comedy." If that's true, then consider Pamela Murphy a comedic-quantum mechanic who throws a few new variables into the mix. With her one-woman show, "The C Word," Murphy demonstrates that comedy could perhaps more precisely be defined as "Time + Tragedy + A Series of Tightly Written Sketches Performed With High Energy and Inimitable Commitment."
Directed by Second City alumnus Rebecca Drysdale, "The C Word" opens with Murphy explaining to the audience that the journey she is about to take them on -- a journey that seven out of eight women fail to make -- started three years earlier when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer.
Calling it a "gift" she "didn't know she wanted until she got it," Murphy presents a tableau of absurd characters and painfully awkward scenarios that she experienced over the subsequent three years. To wit, she finds herself listening to a meathead doctor tactlessly explain what she could expect in the aftermath of her surgery ("Imagine a bowl of rice. Now imagine 2% of that bowl of rice"). She deals with a friend whose alternative-medical suggestions include the healing properties of the island on LOST, and anthropomorphizing a coping mechanism that rationalized six months of cancer treatment downtime as "lying around, eating crap, watching television and being considered a hero."
All of this is performed with a diligence that balances the ridiculous and the relatable in such a way that by the time Murphy recreates failed attempts at picking up men and suffering friends' attempts to commiserate through the most obnoxiously tenuous comparisons of tragedies, the audience nearly forgets the real miracle: That Murphy beat breast cancer.
"The C Word" is as good a show as it should be. Great writing and great direction aside, its success rests primarily on the strengths of Murphy as a comedic performer, who proves her real gift by simply walking out on stage, introducing herself and savoring one of the night's richest laughs.
* THE PLUG: Don't miss "The C Word," happening MON, DEC 27 @ 9:30PM at The UCBT-NY | $5
--Lucas Hazlett is a comedy geek who improvises with anyone he can. He has performed with Nobody's Token in their monthly variety show "The Soul Glo Project" at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and performs monthly with Herschel at the People's Improv Theater.
keithhuang | 1 Comment | 3 References tagged Pamela Murphy , Rebecca Drysdale , The C Word , UCBT-NY in Show Recap Monday Nov 15 2010 Citizen Rothstein @ UCBT - 11.12.10
Monday, November 15, 2010 at 2:42PM Nicole Shabtai in "Citizen Rothstein" | Photo: Melissa Gomez
By: Lucas Hazlett
Earlier this year, legendary theater scribe and executive producer, David Mamet sent a memo to the writing staff of the since-canceled television show "The Unit" wherein he proffered advice on how to avoid writing bad drama that bores audiences.
Among the list was the simple idea that "anytime two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of shit." Well, it isn't often that maxims of this power are challenged, let alone successfully. In the one-woman show Citizen Rothstein, the audience is treated to six different characters talking about a "third" and never once is shit-crocked.
The brain child of writer/performer Nicole Shabtai and director Caitlin Tegart, Citizen Rothstein is a 30-minute character study centered around Ava Rothstein, a privileged 13-year-old girl who is days away from a highly-publicized Bat Mitzvah promising to be the social event of the season.
Though we never actually see Ava, we learn about her through a gauntlet of troubled friends, family and personal employees who shape the context of her adolescent life. From Ava's mentally-broken rabbi, whose reluctance to perform the ceremony parodies the opening moments of Apocalypse Now, to Real Housewife Jill Zarin desperately fishing for an invite via incessant Facebook videos, Shabtai and Tegart delicately navigate Ava from a spoiled brat to troubled youth to fetishized fashion accessory, creating an engaging tableau evoking the screwball pictures of George Kukor and Woody Allen's Jewish neuroticism.
Citizen Rothstein has all the elements one expects from a good show, namely, big characters with clearly defined behavioral quirks and strong points-of-view, but because of the compelling narrative around which the piece is wrapped, it never feels like anything other than theater.
It is a comedic-drama that explores the tragedy of characters who are ridiculously overwhelmed with the absurd pressures they're facing in life, in this case, being rich on the Upper East Side. And because Shabtai delights in the struggles of her characters, who are essentially hapless victims of circumstance, the audience takes delight in both laughing at and commiserating with the affected. It's an incredible testament to a writer/performer who I don't see requiring any memos from the desk of David Mamet any time soon.
* THE PLUG: Don't miss Nicole Shabtai in "Citizen Rothstein," happening WEDS, NOV 24 @ 8PM at The UCBT-NY | $5
-- Lucas Hazlett is a comedy geek who improvises with anyone he can.
keithhuang | Post a Comment tagged Caitlin Tegart , Citizen Rothstein , Nicole Shabtai , UCBT-NY in Show Recap Friday Oct 01 2010 La Bête @ The Music Box Theatre - 9.25.10
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 4:45PM
I generally don't see a lot of Broadway shows because the tickets are too pricey, but someone offered me a comp for La Bête and how can one resist? -- it features AbFab's Joanna Lumley! -- I bit. La Bête is a comedy that made its Broadway debut in the early 90's, lasted a couple of weeks and was buried for nearly two decades before someone decided to cast an undead spell on it and run it past London audiences with the intent of bringing it back to New York. So now, the show is back for a "strictly limited engagement" which may or may not be Broadway speak for "We have a hunch that approximately 2 people will like it! But if more than that do, then I guess we'll keep it going."
Click to read more ...
The Apiary | Post a Comment | 2 References tagged Broadway , La Bete , The Music Box Theater in Reviews , Show Recap Monday Sep 27 2010 MyDamnChannel.com 3rd Anniversary Party @ The NYTVF - 9.24.10
Monday, September 27, 2010 at 11:36AM Photo courtesy of My Damn Channel My Damn Channel, the online home for original web series produced by the likes of comedy gurus like Harry Shearer, David Wain, A.D. Miles and, uh, Coolio, celebrated the 3rd anniversary of the site's existence at The NY Television Festival with a Q&A with Harry and freeflowing beer and wine in the lobby of Chelsea's SVA Theater.
NOTES
--During the panel, Shearer called My Damn Channel a "revolutionary business model" in that, when working with the site, you receive no notes, have the funding to create what you want to create, and receive a generous split of ad revenues.
--Harry spent some time plugging The Big Uneasy, a factual documentary he produced which promises to tell THE TRUTH about Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans. (Was Katrina an inside job??) It's running through September 30th at the NYC IFC center.
--Harry cited longtime collaborater Tom Leopold as the funniest person he knows. According to Wikipedia, Tom once bought a house from former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. That is sort of funny I guess.
--SPOTTED: Once the panel wrapped, the audience spilled into the theater's foyer where I got SICK VIEWS of party people like Craig Bierko, Jon Friedman, Catie Lazarus, Matt Koff, Justin Tyler, Michelle Vargas and perennial NYTVF contender Dan McNamara.
Flyers for The Big Uneasy
Craig Bierko stopped by and it seems like he was saying something really important here.
Photo: My Damn Channel Photo: My Damn Channel
MDC founder Rob Barnett and Harry Shearer shared a warm bro-hug.
The Apiary | Post a Comment tagged Harry Shearer , My Damn Channel , The Big Uneasy , parties in Show Recap Friday Sep 10 2010 The Paul Downs Syndrome @ UCBT-NY - 9.9.10
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 12:11AM Paul Downs | Photo: Ari Scott
By: Binu Paulose
Paul Downs is an irresistible performer to watch onstage. If you've ever seen him improvise at any of the local theaters, he carries with him at all times the energy of a whirling dervish, and a cachet of characters who speak, stroll and sideways glance in the most hilarious of manners.
So to isolate Downs in his one-man show, "The Paul Downs Syndrome," is to isolate his comedic mind and to display it in full, vibrant color for better or worse. Longtime collaborator Lucia Aniello directs Downs, corralling the funny as he sports tight, bright red stretch fabrics to demonstrate high-level art projects at Oberlin College, hosts an MTV Europe show called "Hey Guys!" and invokes everything there is to be loved and hated about Euro Trash as Euro-pop star-sex symbol Tudu.
But Downs is also endearing, as he is able to ground his emotions while playing ludicrous characters, despite every possible absurdity being thrown at them. In one scene, Downs plays a seven-year-old child star named Mikey Starr who faces exploitation at every angle.
In another interesting turn, Downs trots out celebrities in his video bits: He pitches a sketch idea to one and creepily massages another. But for anyone in the audience who saw this show, it should be quite clear that Paul Downs is on his way to becoming a star himself.
* THE PLUG: Don't miss the next "Paul Downs Syndrome," happening THURS, SEPT 23 @ 8PM at The UCBT-NY | $5
keithhuang | Post a Comment | 4 References tagged Paul Downs , UCBT-NY in Show Recap Friday Aug 20 2010 Jeff Garlin's Combo Platter @ The UCBT-NY - 8.18.10
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 2:00PM Jeff Garlin at the UCBT-NY | Photo: Paul Gale
Jeff Garlin's Combo Platter generally takes place every Sunday at the UCBT-LA but since Jeff's been holed up in NYC shooting a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, he squeezed his platter into the UCBT-NY calendar. What a treat!
NOTES
--Garlin's act is that he doesn't have an act--he potters around onstage streaming his consciousness while telling funny stories that lead to funnier asides.
--The opener was a band of tiny tweens called Supercute!. I imagine the biggest concern now of most people their age is whether Target will be having a Back-to-School sale on pencils, but these girls problems deal mainly with where to relax in Stockholm, the Netherlands, and Berlin while they're on their fall tour through Europe. One of the members of Supercute! is also the daughter in The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.
--Garlin spent a considerable amount of time giving things away. He said he gets lots of free stuff he'll never use, so he just doles it all out at his shows. Stuff tonight included: gourmet chocolates, screeners from the Discovery Channel, and Lopez Tonight DVDs (amongst other things). There wasn't much of a barrier to entry to win or whatever--he'd hold something up and an audience member would say "I want that" and then he'd hand it to them.
--A strange moment occured when someone tried to gift something onto Jeff during his giveaway: a Curb Your Enthusiasm spec script. Jeff backed away like it was new strain of flesh eating bacteria, saying that a) Larry writes all the scripts and b) every idea he's ever heard for an episode of Curb is unfunny. The guy insisted he just take it and Jeff insisted that he wouldn't. The oddest part about the incident was that Garlin knew the guy--he was someone who had booked him decades ago at The Village Gate when Garlin was a rising comic.
--Amy Schumer and Jessi Klein rounded out the show.
Supercute! | Photo: Paul Gale
Jessi Klein, Amy Schumer and Jeff | Photo: Paul Gale
The Apiary | Post a Comment | 2 References tagged Amy Schumer , Jeff Garlin , Jessi Klein , Supercute! in Show Recap Monday Jul 19 2010 The 2010 Pitchfork Music Festival @ Union Park, Chicago - 7.16.10
Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:18AM Michael Showalter | Photo by Clay Adamczyk Festival-goers at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival were already ready to escape the 90 degree sun when comedy took the stage at 5:30 on Friday, the first day of the three day event. Kids with varying degrees of mustaches, baseball jerseys, feathers, and tattoos spread themselves out in the shaded, woodland area of Stage Balance, the smallest and furthest removed stage (yet situated closest to glorious beer). Tim Harrington, flamboyant lead singer of Les Savy Fav, 'hosted' the first ever comedy presentation at Pitchfork, mostly by throwing giveaways at kids sat closest to the stage and inviting contestants up to the stage for a marshmallow eating contest. The whole production ended up coming off as a hokey advertisement for Kraft, and ended with one contestant getting ‘sick’ (cue an absurd flood of multi-colored gag vomit). Harrington was amusing in and of himself, but his hosting didn’t do much to set up the showcase of some of the hottest comedians working right now.
Chicago’s own superstar Hannibal Buress opened as the first comedian to do Pitchfork, commanding the stage while also fighting the band playing simultaneously across the park. The opposing performers were dance punk trio The Liars, who at one point seemingly got louder at the exact time Buress was taking one of his signature pauses. This elicited one of the funnier quips about the perpetual sound bleed, as Buress asked the band, “What? You got a problem? That’s it! We got beef now. This is going to be one of most obscure beefs ever.” All in all, Buress commended the experience, saying, "I was really excited to be able to perform at Pitchfork; it was definitely fun to do a large outdoor event like that in my hometown."
Buress rumbles through his 45 minute set only slightly distracted from that point on, and the crowd is responding. However, their laughter kept drifting away in the wind, and the music across the way was sometimes the only answer the performer could hear. This was evident when Michael Showalter took the stage, first “competing” with his rock enemy, by faux-DJing on a laptop. He tried to get off some bits and stories, but soon was overcome with distractions, and became nearly hostile at suggestions from a few that he “do” some of his State characters. He attempted to address the situation of doing comedy in the out of doors at a music festival, saying you have to essentially be autistic to be able to perform in this setting, and luckily he has tendencies towards that condition. As he continued to meander and falter, the mostly supportive crowd began to drift, and at one point the singer on the opposing stage asked his crowd, “How we doing?” which elicited some cheers and whoops. It was getting increasingly surreal. Showalter mused, "All that’s missing is 400 people banging pots and pans together." He ended up leaving the stage approximately 15 minutes early.
Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac managed to smoothly incorporate his stories in a rhythmic overlap to Robyn’s sunny pop. More people were drifting over to the shaded area, spreading blankets and eating their festival dinners. Some napped.
The wind picked up and the temperature began cooling off. Eugene Mirman was the comedy closer for Pitchfork 2010, and he handled his business downright professional. The sound bleed was acknowledged, as he remarked that it sounded like a musical spaceship was landing in the field, and then soldiered on. At one point he was having so much fun and so was the crowd, both with his material and his asides about the weirdness of the venue, that he exclaimed, “This is actually fine!” And it was fine. Sure, it wasn’t 100 percent optimal conditions for a stand-up comedy set, but it ended up feeling like everyone was in it together, and it was a blessed reprieve for festival attendees who needed to take a sit-down-and-laugh break.
Mirman’s not a stranger to festivals, having performed in “ten or twenty” of them, he said. In reflecting on the Pitchfork experience the next day, Mirman said, “It went pretty good during my set. There were only a few moments that it was so loud that it was weird. With these things, often the audience is fine; the music is facing the comedians and the comedians can’t hear how loud they are through the sound… In general though this was fun; this is a very fun festival. The reason I come out is partially to see the bands and see friends and hang out.”
“I could see that people were laughing and that it was essentially going alright,” he added.
--Kristy Mangel
kristymangel | 2 Comments | 6 References tagged Eugene Mirman , Michael Showalter , chicago , hannibal buress , pitchfork music festival , show recap , wyatt cenac in EXCLUSIVELY at The Apiary , Show Recap Tuesday Jul 13 2010 Michael Patrick O'Brien: SHATTER @ The UCBT - 7.7.10
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 12:01PM By: Paul Gale
SHATTER is a journey into the absurd notepad of Michael Patrick O'Brien, a former Second City Mainstage performer, founding member of the Chicago improv troupe The Reckoning, and current SNL writer.
With SHATTER, O'Brien creates a spectacular hour-long solo show, filled with bizarre short scenes and smart satire, which is sometimes gut-wrenchingly funny. Like any form of art, comedy is just as much about what's not there, and O'Brien's one-sided conversations, as well as a glass-aided makeout session, highlight the humor in the absent.
I talked to the now Emmy-nominated man behind the (giraffe) mask while we were waiting for John Lutz' and Peter Grosz' 2 Square to start. We discussed his process as well as what he's currently up to.
What's the difference between writing at Second City and SNL?
Almost all of the writing at SNL is group--you write with one or two other people, so that similarity actually translated nicely--getting together with people in a room to talk about something until it makes you laugh. The difference is at Second City, the writers would put up the sketch together, and for SNL, we hand it over to the actors, who might even be in the room with you while you're writing it. With Saturday Night, instead of getting more nervous, I am kind of done, you know? At 11:30, I hand it over to the trusty actors, and I'm like "You guys are hilarious, go rock it," whereas my nerves used to get heightened at Second City as the evening came, because I had to perform it.
So, when you're writing for yourself, do you go through the same motions? Is it harder to write by yourself?
Writing for myself, for a solo show like this, is easy because it's not as regimented of a process as writing other material. I don't set down a time, sit, and mathematically calculate solo stuff. This is all of the stuff that comes into my head while life is happening. I have a little notebook where I keep these ideas. So it's actually kind of a by-product.
Is this show especially fun, now that most of your work is behind the scenes?
Definitely. I love getting to go back to Chicago and do a Reckoning show too, because I miss playing with people. But the cool thing about solo work is that you can control everything, which is also the fun thing about group work -- you can't control, and you have to learn that lesson: something goes weird, and you just have to go with it and be weird. But with a solo show, I can literally be like "I want this song, at this volume, at this point in the song." For example, during SHATTER, I picked the middle of the Black Eyed Peas song to get loud, because it's most annoying there. For a somewhat-control freak like myself, the solo work is fun for that reason. After a lot of that, I just want to be with a group, and let it be a mess.
Yes, that Black Eyed Peas part was a very weird, very great part of the show. How long is the run?
Well, this was to get me ready for the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival and then one more here on July 26th. This is the first performance here, besides the one I did in March.
Anything else you'd like to let the readers know about?
Well, The Reckoning will be at the Del Close Marathon in a couple of weeks. I'm also going up at little open mikes, but those are just me starting to figure out standup.
Had you done any standup in Chicago?
Oh, probably only five times the entire time I was there.
Wasn't your thing?
No, it's just that I had four improv projects, three others that I was coaching, and your time just gets eaten up by it. I wanted it to be my thing, but I just never got out to do it.
Catch both The Reckoning as well as one last performance of SHATTER at the UCB Theater later this month.
The Apiary | Post a Comment | 3 References tagged MIchael Patrick O'Brien , POB , Shatter , The UCBT in Interviews , Show Recap Page 1 2 3 4 5 ... 21 Next 8 Entries » Copyright © 2011, [theapiary.org]. All rights reserved.