After another week filled with challenging classes, students looked forward to weekend events to alleviate some stress. Nothing helps lighten the mood like some good humor. Thank goodness for the Idiots and their improv!
Sheer Idiocy is RPI’s only improv troupe, a group of fellas just trying to tickle our funny-bones. Formed in 1997, the Idiots—as they are lovingly called—have gathered quite a successful following, and they are still going strong today. In fact, a number of orange shirts with eerily warped faces have been found around campus these days, signs that an Idiot was lurking around.
The group has been known to use audience participation for its shows as often as it can. In fact, quite a few of its previous volunteers loved being part of the show so much that they’ve been vying for another go at it—much to the Idiots’ amusement, I’m sure.
Friday’s show opened up with the Idiots setting up some ground rules on allowing improv into the campus. Of course, unless you were 36 and in a building that rhymed with ‘macaroni,’ improvisation is definitely forbidden. People would definitely heed to those rules, especially when the punishment was reality T.V.
One of the first games that they played was something called “Slide-Show.” While two Idiots left the room, the audience provided a vacation spot, a famous companion, and six things that happened during the vacation.
The two actors came back to freeze into new positions as a “picture,” or event, is explained. The audience was then taken to an adventure in Jurassic Park, where two vacationers went hunting for Easter eggs and dumpster diving. They also shot each other with tranquilizer darts, stole dinosaur belongings, and made s’mores, among other things.
Another game played was called “Columns,” where two audience members were asked to complete the sentences between two Knights of the Round Table. At the end of that act, the Idiots came up with a conclusion: “It doesn’t take two knights to make love.”
“Famous Person Café” was another game played that had three of the actors playing different famous characters or people. It didn’t take long for the audience to convulse into laughter when the Idiot playing Mr. Rogers ordered a whiskey on the rocks, while Jane Jetson and Billy the Kid watched in amazement.
Then, Robin Hood and Little John entered the scene speaking gibberish whenever one of the Idiots clapped. It ended up with a Robin Hood who lost his English accent after having to revert back and forth from speaking in English to gibberish.
Sheer Idiocy also decided to play the game of “Minor Characters,” where the audience chose a location and a relationship between the two Idiots starting the scene. What started out with two cousins who had problems communicating (playing “hide-and-no-seek”) led to a kid becoming a “body pillow” and then an army sergeant yelling for people to stop cheating—or else risk being shot with a bazooka.
After Minor Characters, a ninja and a pirate had a conversation while the pirate discretely stole from the ninja. Due to the fact that the audience wrote down a number of phrases for the characters to say, it was just interesting how the ninja’s welcoming statement became, “I just called to say I love you.” It became even funnier when the pirate retorted later on with “Hillary Clinton is not a woman.” Where is the relevance, you wonder? Who cares?
“Sit, Stand, Kneel” had three Idiots in a nuclear power plant trying to keep track of what each one was doing, since each of them had to be sitting, standing, or kneeling. The stage became chaotic afterwards, when one of the Idiots decided to pull quick sitting, kneeling, and standing positions (unfortunately for the other two Idiots).
One of Sheer Idiocy’s new games was also put into play during the show. Called “You Sick Bastard,” an audience member was pulled up on stage to sit on a chair and watch as two teams of Idiots tried to make a certain controversial topic funny. The two topics covered were the death penalty and dead babies. The audience had to yell out “You stupid bastard!” quite a number of times as the volunteer continued to laugh in most of the scenes played out.
The Idiots continued to play a various number of other games that kept the audience roaring throughout the night. In the end, people were teeming with laughter as a struggling depressed teenager tried to stand in the metaphorical sunlight and impress his father as a couple of Idiots quickly acted out scenes by the seconds.
Yes, it definitely was one funny night.
