I know what you’re thinking. “I see enough idiots every day! Why should I spend time seeing them intentionally?” Sheer Idiocy, RPI’s own improvisational comedy group, offers hours of...well...opportunity to do something that doesn’t involve a monitor or your right hand—on your mouse.
The Idiots, as we fondly call them, presented Improv Attack, as their latest attempt at entertainment, an invitational show also featuring three guest groups from other colleges around the region.
With a running time of nearly three hours, the Idiots and guests packed Mother’s Wine Emporium in the Union.
First up, after a delightful introduction song by the Idiots, was New Teen Force coming to us from Wesleyan, Conn. New Teen Force presented a different style of improv that Idiot fans might not be used to.
Explained later to me by Idiot Nate Bragg, “There’re two types of Improv: short form and long form.” New Teen Force asked for the audience to suggest an object, and then did a 15 plus minute skit based on that. Long form skits involve several different scenes and locations that are quickly announced on-the-spot, and presents a fast-paced comedy act, in this case, all based on the audience’s suggestion of “an apple.”
On stage next was SUNY Oswego’s Shaun Cassidy Fan Club, who gave us a more Idiot-like approach. Short form involves several shorter skits and games, much like the popular television show, “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” One such game started out asking the audience for names or professions of people for a court trial, and in the end, based on arguments from the Fan Club’s cast, the audience would determine the guilt of the accused. Based on the evidence of his wife’s lobotimist and a sanitation worker, Saddam Hussein was declared not guilty by the audience. Perhaps the name “Sheer Idiocy” is truly referring to the audience.
After a brief intermission, the third act was Mount Holyoke’s Unusual Suspects. Being an all girls’ group, we naturally should thank the Idiots for nearly doubling RPI’s female population for the night. That said, the Unusual Suspects offered up quite a few laughs in their short form-style performance. Their games included one in which two audience members were selected to complete lines for the actresses at their request. This somehow resulted in the desire of two of the Unusual Suspects to go to Mexico in order to be better Mexican Hat Dancers ...and you thought RPI girls were weird!!
At last, it was the Idiots’ turn to rule the world—or something like that. The Idiots performed eight short form and one long form skit. One of their skits, called “Chain Murder,” involves the audience choosing a location, weapon, and culprit of a murder while two Idiots and an audience member wait outside. The first Idiot is then brought back to the room where another Idiot acts out the three characteristics of the murder to him.
Then, one by one, the rest of the people were brought back to watch as the previous Idiot acted out the scene for them, presenting a scenario much like “The Telephone Game” that we all played in elementary school that shows how things change as they’re retold from one person to the next. At the end of the game, the Idiots each tried to identify what was acted out to them.
The long form skit by the Idiots involved an exploding cheese factory—don’t you hate it when that happens? Taking the look and feel of a fast-paced one-act play, this would seem to be an extremely difficult task for them to pull off, and the Idiots did a beautiful job of it.
Overall, the Idiots provided quite an entertaining evening, and one has to be impressed with the natural flow that they present. While the other guest groups were good and kept the audience laughing, it seemed like being an idiot came naturally to RPI’s bunch.
You can catch them next on May 2, same place, same time, and for more information they’ve brought their idiocy to the web at http://www.sheeridiocy.net.
