Sheer Idiocy performed its last show of the semester this last Friday in the McNeil room, leaving the entire room laughing and nearly in tears by the end of the performance.
If you’ve never been to a Sheer Idiocy event, you should go to one; they’re funny. They “organize” improv comedy for everyone, where they make use of audience suggestions in playing an acting game, making up the scene as they go along, in a style similar to that of “Whose Line is it Anyway.”
They started off the night with an Easter-themed skit, where they showed the Easter bunny in all of the previous jobs he had before becoming the Easter bunny, from the Duracell bunny to Bugs Bunny’s stunt double. The unfortunate stunt double took a bullet to the gut and collapsed to the ground before the next real improv scene began.
The next act involved five people on the stage, starting with one person acting out his own scene, and as each person joined they’d use an element from the previous scene to shift the scene into an entirely different direction. So when they grabbed a cardboard box as a table, the next Idiot ran in and demanded the kids stop building a fort, and the two already in the scene instantly knelt to the floor and reverted to immature four-year-olds throwing pillows at their dad from their cardboard fort. The game allows the Idiots to demonstrate creativity in their scene-switching abilities, but the game itself wasn’t as funny as those to come.
One of the best scenes of the night was one where three party guests each had a fatal flaw that was suggested by the audience. One person exploded randomly, another peed his pants every time the party host touched someone, and the third was Scooby-Doo. The party host had to guess what each character’s flaw was based on their actions.
The Scooby-Doo character was extremely well done, with the laugh almost indistinguishable from the original. Plus, when he jumped into the host’s arms when the bomb-girl exploded, it set off a wave of appreciative laughter from the audience. Anyone that has seen Scooby-Doo knows that Scooby will jump into Shaggy’s arms roughly 80 times in any given episode.
Another good scene was a charade-like game, with an adjective and a noun suggested by the audience. Then two pairs of Idiots solved two phrases each. It was good mainly because the first phrase was “iridescent giraffe,” and the fact that it took the two an almost painful amount of time despite a clever breakup of the word made it memorable.
My favorite part of any scene was when the Idiots all spontaneously pretended to be fish. It was all miming and acting, but how easily they transferred the scene from admiring an aquarium of fish to an ocean of six puffy-cheeked people was amazing. A two-man crazy fish team began viciously devouring the other fish, and the scene then changed into a press conference involving the killer fish.
There were plenty of other great scenes and games played. The fact that the audience is a part of the game makes it more interesting to just be there, let alone watch them improvise an entire scene with your suggested theme. Overall it was a fun show, and I’ll be going to the earliest one next semester.
