{"id":15717,"date":"2014-12-09T10:24:28","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T18:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=15717"},"modified":"2014-12-09T10:24:28","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T18:24:28","slug":"history-of-comedy-is-zany-amusing-yet-uneven-romp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/history-of-comedy-is-zany-amusing-yet-uneven-romp\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018History of Comedy\u2019 is zany, amusing yet uneven romp"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 2.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Writer-director-actor Austin Tichenor communes with the skull of Yorick, a dead Shakespearean jester, in \u201cThe Complete History of Comedy (abridged).\u201d Courtesy photo.<\/p>\n

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Writer-director-actor Reed Martin impersonates Rambozo the clown, in \u201cThe Complete History of Comedy (abridged).\u201d Courtesy photo.<\/p>\n
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Dominic Conti depicts Abe Lincoln doing stand-up in \u201cThe Complete History of comedy (abridged).\u201d Courtesy photo.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The woman sitting behind me kept laughing so loudly I thought she\u2019d wet herself.<\/p>\n

She was an exception.<\/p>\n

The woman sitting next to me barely smiled throughout \u201cThe Complete History of Comedy (abridged).\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the Marin Theatre Company audience, including me, was somewhere in between.<\/p>\n

Which translated on opening night to laughing aloud more than a few times, grinning a lot, and occasionally yawning at professorial explanations that obstructed the rapid-fire delivery of punch-lines and screwball, high-energy performances.<\/p>\n

The three-man Reduced Shakespeare Company troupe emulates the way-back zaniness of the Ritz Brothers, Marx Brothers and Three Stooges as well as the way-way-back cerebral intricacies of Chekov and Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

They insert pie-in-the-face, rubber chicken and Muppet-like gags.<\/p>\n

They deploy limitless props.<\/p>\n

Austin Tichenor, a classically trained actor who sports pants intentionally too short, and Reed Martin, a former circus clown who wears his head without hair, are the show\u2019s writer-director-actors.<\/p>\n

Dominic Conti, a physically flexible actor who sports cutoff shorts, fills out the trio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Complete History of Comedy (abridged)\u201d starts with the ostensible origin of the genre, a cavewoman who ludicrously distorts the birthing process.<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t proceed chronologically.<\/p>\n

Instead, the speedy 90-minute romp divides itself into chunks \u2014 about clowning, Commedia dell\u2019arte, violence, fooles (ancient and current), the best and worst all-time comedians (with slides and snide commentary) \u2014 cemented by a series of marvelous puns that draw loud groans from an appreciative crowd.<\/p>\n

Add to that the references, beyond caustically skewering religious and political hypocrisy, to virtually everything relating to comedy.<\/p>\n

Like George Carlin and his seven dirty words, minstrel shows, Monty Python and its dead parrot skit, Sigmund Freud and his psychological deconstruction of jokes.<\/p>\n

The threesome acts out an Elizabethan rendition of the classic Abbott and Costello \u201cWho\u2019s on First?\u201d routine, presents a two-man Greek chorus, and offers up a solo Abraham Lincoln in the guise of a stand-up comic.<\/p>\n

Wigs are plentiful.<\/p>\n

Coupled with enough pieces of fabric to facilitate scores of instant costume changes.<\/p>\n

So much happens so fast it\u2019s easy to miss something amusing. But you can be reasonably sure something amusing will come around the bend in another split second.<\/p>\n

The funniest bit, in my estimation, was a look at the U.S. Supreme Court with each performer manipulating two puppets \u2014 vigorously.<\/p>\n

Except the one representing Clarence Thomas, who, like in reality, sleeps through the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Close behind was a segment in which two theatergoers were dragged onstage, then basically left to their own devices to provide sound effects.<\/p>\n

Their lack of skill ended up being hilarious.<\/p>\n

Squeezed between the infinite jokes and sketches were a handful of quick but serious moments \u2014 such as that provided by an archetypal character, Rambozo the clown, derivative of both Sun Tzu\u2019s \u201cThe Art of War\u201d and a 1986 antiwar song by Dead Kennedys.<\/p>\n

The Reduced Shakespeare Company began in Marin in 1981 as a pass-the-hat troupe at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Novato.<\/p>\n

Its first actual production was, fittingly, \u201cThe Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).\u201d<\/p>\n

The current original production is the company\u2019s ninth.<\/p>\n

Some, I believe, were more successful than this \u2014 \u201cThe Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)\u201d and \u201cThe Complete History of America (abridged),\u201d for instance.<\/p>\n

The company, which works exceedingly hard onstage, has publicized the phrase \u201cSaving the world one joke at a time.\u201d But it tries to cover too much territory in \u201cThe Complete History of Comedy (abridged),\u201d resulting in the show being slightly uneven.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why, in a theater in which standing ovations are de rigueur<\/em>, it drew only moderate applause at evening\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

“The Complete History of Comedy (abridged)\u201d plays at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Dec. 21. Performances Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Thursdays, 1 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $20 to $58 (subject to change). Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

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[Woody’s [rating: 2.5] The woman sitting behind me kept laughing so loudly I thought she\u2019d wet herself. She was an exception. The woman sitting next to me barely smiled throughout…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"