Last night I took in the MSROE MRSOE! at the Panasonic Theatre last night. Fun stuff. Absolutely good value considering that you get to see 8 acts for under $30. This is my second year going to see it, and I was having a great time. Thing is, I think this year it was a lot more hit and miss than last year’s show. My friend and I were discussing it after the show, and we weren’t feeling some of the acts all. I don’t know.
Culturally based comedy is a lot of fun, because it’s easy to pick out absurdities that, when you step back, really are worth laughing at. I don’t think good cultural comedy comes from actually insulting the culture, but from finding an aspect of it that everyone can laugh at. Does that make sense? That type of stuff does not originate from hate. The ones that keyed into that last night did really well. Despite the irreverence, you can tell there was an undercurrent of respect for what was being sent up. There were a few of them though that totally missed and were cringe worthy. Yes, at the beginning of the someone had a small disclaimer that some of the stuff would make the audience uncomfortable. Going into a show like that, you’re going to expect something that are going to make you feel a bit uneasy. Thing is, if the comedian hit it right, you’ll know that someone in the audience was identifying with it and laughing along, allowing you to drop the guard and laugh along. That’s the beauty of doing a show like this in Toronto where the audience is ridiculously diverse.
For those few comedians that didn’t do so well, they did the insults without really turning things around. While I think they were just as offensive as some of the other better acts, there wasn’t anything obvious to let the audience in on the joke. In one case I guess I could characterize the person getting many small digs in which may have been mildly innocuous on their own, but when the person piled them up it just seemed like the person was being entirely hateful–which doesn’t make for a fun show.
Anyway, I plan on going to the show again next year when it rolls around. Hopefully next year everyone will get it right.
ETA: Fixed that acronym.
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