Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Sketch Mayhem
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2006 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
I met up with an old friend of Nandini's on Saturday night to watch some sketch comedy. Incidentally, Nandini is not only pursuing two simultaneous Master's degrees, she also just visited China for a few weeks. When we were kids we'd pretend we were jet-setting millionaire witches. She is much further towards that goal than I am. Although I think neither of us is making much headway on the witch thing.
Anyway, I got to see Slightly Known People (they perform at 8pm every Saturday night at Rififi/Cinema Classics on E. 11th St.) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I laughed at every single sketch, which is quite rare. They remind me of the sadly defunct Fresh Robots.
Saturday night's show included a sketch set on a subway platform. In one part of the scene, one character rather slowly and methodically listed, to an unwilling listener, various strategies for getting to one's destination while expending a minimum of time and money. I found it hysterical and yelped in laughter while the rest of the audience was silent. This caused other audience members to laugh and caused one actor to break character and laugh. The actor tried to stifle her laughter, but this only caused her eyes to tear, making her mascara run. After the show, I heard that this was incredibly rare, as she never breaks. What can I say; I'm a demolition derby of suspension of disbelief.
