Revue to the Infinity, Part II

5. The Big Show.

Here’s my rundown of the show itself:

Dickey Poetry – Ryan had Dickey’s gruff demeanor down, and it set a nice, offbeat tone for the show. “Read the statutes. Read the statutes. Read the statutes. …Read the statutes.” So true.

Althouse blogging: I wasn’t a big fan of this - - mostly it just tied things together.

Family Feud: Other than a few unnecessary expletives, this worked well. Macauley is hilarious, Clauss was disgusting, but also hilarious. Overall this had a lot of energy to it, and it worked well to start off the sketches.

--- An aside here: Don’t get me wrong - - I’m all for swearing when it’s funny. But it’s not funny when it’s repeatedly used as a joke in itself. Throwing in the F-bomb in each line to get a cheap laugh is just that - - cheap. It should be used sparingly, to make the jokes where it is used more of a surprise, and to give them more weight. For instance: Last year, Sean Penn scornfully glaring at the audience and saying: “You people are all fuckin’ pathetic.” Or this year, with the Community Justice Commandos: - Smash Bob Kasieta in the face, then: “Justice is served, motherfucker.” Anyways…

Kidwell Juice: I liked the use of this. A little breather in between the larger sketches. My favorite line: “Did I ever tell you ladies about Ambrose Bearse?”

Vying For Tenure: This one I was pretty iffy about throughout rehearsals, because it was kinda awkward and the jokes didn’t seem that great compared to other sketches. Still, it worked much better in the performance - - this was one of those that just gelled toward the end. Once again we had great performances from Ryan and Chris as Dickey and Palay, although their jokes were better used in other sketches. I absolutely loved Smith running in and out though, and the audience did too. Plus, I got a cameo as Cliff Thompson, randomly wandering in, informing everyone I was off to Indonesia, then wandering off - - classic Cliff. By far my favorite character to play.

Hardball/Zombie Rehnquist: I loved this sketch, and everybody seemed to enjoy it, though I was a little dissatisfied because I asked the wrong person a question, which screwed up the order of the lines. As a result, a couple of my favorite jokes got cut because we were scrambling to cover for it. Oh well - - I still got in a solid amount of shouting and insults. And there’s one thing you can’t argue with: “Sometimes you can’t be afraid to lift up the hood and see who’s tickling the Chinaman.”

Being Ruth Robarts: This one was a little more esoteric - - a play on an offbeat comedy movie, with a concept that might have been a little tricky to grasp. But Hendrix’s Ohnesorge was great - - of course his play on “Office Space” and his speed trip about the LLLLLLLP’s were great, but my favorite part was more subtle. This exchange always cracked me up: “Hey, Professor Ohnesorge?” “No….yeah.”

Brokeback Hill: A great idea all around. The lunchbox, the herd (with Kreple as the stray, and Stacey breaking down into tears), the tender scenes at base camp. I don’t know if the audience responded as much as the show deserved. My favorite part: Hendrix as Dean Davis: “Bring ‘em home…(looks toward sunset, wistfully) Bring ‘em home.”

Community Justice Commandos: This was a lot of fun. Andy got a star turn, with a 12(b)(6) to be reckoned with. More than anything, this sketch was cathartic – smashing the rolling backpack, beating the crap out of Kasieta (and pointing out that he drinks the blood of children), finding actual undergrads with actual graphing calculators in the library, who were gracious enough to allow us to destroy them. Favorite lines: “Why do you wear the ski masks and sunglasses? Because justice is blind. ….And black.”
*There was a big snafu here though, which was disappointing – the tech guys started rolling up the screen too early, cutting off the ending, where we saw a slow motion replay of Andy and I going to town on the rolling backpack. Still, I’ve had several people say this was their favorite sketch out of everything.

Faculty Sketch: Eh…this was alright. Mike Hall fumbling with those pants forever, I couldn’t tell if that was staged or just a problem, but I think it was staged. Still, pretty funny.

Gunners in Love: This was easily my favorite sketch (that I didn’t write – I’m partial to MZRM), and I figured this was going to be great all along. Zachar has the Palay mannerisms down cold, and this was a great sketch for Palay. So many great lines - -“I would also like to comment on the sexiness of your bowtie.” “The grading is anonymous…and completely random.” “Let’s spend the next 30 minutes graphing the Hand Formula…incomprehensibly.” And for writing the Hand formula, he just wrote “HAND FORMULA” in giant letters – genius. Becky and I-Chi were great as the gunners, and the final collapse on Ryan’s lap…everything about this sketch was perfect.

Real Evaluation Party: Great moments here too – Dean Davis taking a phone call from his flask. Pretty accurate statements about Palay. “Entrap me, Walter.” The scary-accurate Weston, especially her outfits. Good performances from everybody, particularly Joel.

Becky dancing: Becky is just hilarious. It takes so much courage to even get out there, but to go out and dance all by yourself, I don’t know if I could do that. She was so good at it too – she got a lot of comments saying she must have spent hours choreographing it, trying to get all the Napoleon Dynamite moves. In reality, she just went out there and did it, which is all the more impressive.

Anything Goes: Ryan, I have to give you props here – this was a phenomenal idea. Once I heard Kristen singing in Weston’s voice, I was just dying. Especially when she hit the notes at the end of each, and her voice was really low – like “pimpin gigoloooooos.” Kristen was awesome as Weston, and the phone call was great too. Favorite part: “Oh, you’re calling about the dog-sitting job. Well how many years of legal experience do you have?”

MZRM: Absolutely flawless. This sketch worked so well, and it sounded like the audience loved it. Chris, Ryan, Texas Scott and I each hit the partners’ lines perfectly, and Stacey played the righteous indignation perfectly. Even Andy got into the act, reading the rejection letter for us. We had threats of cockslapping, we had accusations of “ragging it,” we had Paul Bunyan and Johnny Fuckin’ Appleseed founding America, we had Ben Franklin blowing away foreigners with rocket launchers, we had the rights of women according to Texas Scott, we had killing power, we had questions about killing wild animals, robots, and ninjas, and we had a live ninja fight. We called out the douchebags one after another. And, oh yes, we had an alleged vagina. It was glorious.

More Dickey Poetry: Ryan closed out the show on a high note, swearing at the audience and storming off. So very Dickey.

Overall, this was the greatest experience I’ve had in law school so far. My problem now is that I’m going to be having ideas hitting me left and right, keeping me awake for the next few weeks. I’ve already got several ideas for shows, including a CJC sequel, a full sketch devoted to Crazy Cliff, a search for lost grades, and many others. Plus Chris came up with a great idea about a religious sketch involving our Crim Law professors that is sure to offend everyone.

If somehow I could do this for a living, I would give up law and politics completely, without hesitation. But since that’ll never happen…..here’s looking at Law Revue ’07.

Oh yes, one more promise: Next year, there will be much more Mothra.