An Introspective Two-Sided Comedy
Pas De Deux is a two person sketch show fueled by the idea that there are two sides to comedy. Stephanie Anderson presents a more intellectual side of comedy and Peter Kim presents the “dumb” side of comedy. Do you laugh at wit or flatulence? To each their own and with a comedy dual-sided, one may be torn.
These two have a really strong opening. Completely unexpected, filled with clever rhyming Elizabethan couplets. They set the tone of the show and initiated the battle of the two comedy styles right away by counterbalancing the Shakespearean undertones with a choreographed hip-hop dance number. It was very clear what the content of the show was intended to portray, however, I had difficultly pairing the styles against one another as the show progressed.
Anderson first stepped out as Doris, a truck driver, self-proclaimed “Ritz” (crackers) woman and friend to the “hard-working toll booth operators.” She was my favorite character of the whole night. Probably because she felt the most authentic and fully-developed. From there the greatest distinction of two separate anythings was the slew of strong female characters from Anderson and mounting masses of weak, submissive characters from Kim. The first scene he stepped out in, he started crying real tears, which was impressive and showed dedication to character. But from then on, it it seemed that every character he played was either crying or dropping f-bombs like D-Day… or crying while dropping f-bombs like D-Day. I left asking myself, “Why did Peter seem to cry the whole time?” It just made me want to give him a good hug, but I’m not sure that was the intent…
One of my favorite moments was a short scene where Kim played his mother. He comes out that he’s gay and we are granted the privilege of witnessing the range of genuine emotions that I am led to believe his mother may have actually experienced. It was quite emotional but I wish it would have been toned down a bit to allow the reality of it to sink in. I so greatly appreciated the honesty and vulnerability, even though it was painful, and as an audience member, I wanted to let it sting a little more instead of ending in satire.
My least favorite scene in this show was watching Kim lay on the floor with his ass in the air and his face on the ground pounding on his backside trying to squeeze out a fart. I kid you not. It was so uncomfortable to watch because I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen or not, but what I did know was that I did not want it to happen. That was probably the best example of “dumb” humor in the show. Now, I know some people tinkle their panties giggling over jokes like that, and like I said, to each their own, but for me, I would happily do without.
There were a number of call backs throughout the show, but I’m not sure they were strong enough to be clear indicators for the audience to pick up on. I felt that the attempts at intellectual humor had a much broader range of comedy to play off of whereas the “dumb” side to comedy was filled with sexual innuendos that seemed to fall rather flat. All in all, Pas De Deux is founded on a really interesting perspective on comedy, but could have used some stronger driving forces.
Pas De Deux has their last show tonight, February 27th at Chemically Imbalanced Comedy at 8pm. You can find more information here.
