‘Mister Show’ shows off sketch comedy

Lights out and two screens on either side of the stage flipped on to show Neil (Baron ’10) and Andrew (Powers ’11.5) sitting on couches watching TV, discovering that their show, “Mister Show with Neil and Andrew,” had begun and that the stage was empty. The camera followed them as they rushed out, attempted and failed to hitchhike, walked though Axinn where Andrew washed his hair in the waterfall in order to “freshen up,” and ate a Love Me Tender from the Grille — all necessary stops on the way to their delightful, silly, and side-splitting sketch comedy show.

The two burst onto the stage in sync with their video images to start the live portion of the performance. Scenes alternated between video clips and live sketches, inspired by HBO’s “Mr. Show,” a sketch comedy series that ran in the mid-90s.

Mixed media paid tribute to the basic TV material, but it also created a clever nuance of exploring the possibilities of medium.

Capitalizing on theater’s potential for physical dimension, actors Wyatt Orme ’12.5 and Alyssa Limperis ’12 emerged from the audience to join Neil and Andrew on the stage. Laughs, too, underscored the entire spectacle, grounding even video portions with the reminder of theater’s distinctive feature of a live audience.

Performers enacted several skits that ranged from scenes in office buildings to major corporations, airport customs to a mafia hang out. The choice of selection was very smart and often self-referential, considering their choice of medium.

One scene was about a pre-taped call-in show. Consequently, the audience called in about the topic they were watching rather than what the moderator, Baron, wanted to discuss. Throughout the piece, he shouted at an audience that could not hear him (until next week) about how they were calling in about the wrong topic and that they should have listened last week, which was now this week, to know which topic to discuss this week. The scene mocks the disjunction between live and pre-recorded material.

Communication breaks down because of the disconnect between media.

The skit “The Audition” also poked fun at miscommunication; however, it shifted its focus to acting and the blurring of fiction with reality. Powers played an actor who auditioned with a monologue about a character who is, himself, also auditioning. He asked, “Can I use this chair?” and the people viewing his audition responded, “Yes.” “No!” He exclaimed, explaining that he had already started his monologue. This occurred over and over again, until the other two characters were practically biting their tongues as Powell yelled at them and the monologue heightened to a cry against injustice. In its own right, the scene was quite funny, but stepping out and hearing the audience reaction, remembering that the entire entity was a fiction, made for an even greater level of absurdity.

Transitions from scene to scene were seamless. Witty plot ties and video interludes pulled together the skits with ease, leading the audience through a meandering tour of hilarity.

But perhaps the most impressive part of the whole experience was the quality of the films. They were shot incredibly well with an attention to detail that riffed on the camera style of the original “Mr. Show,” and again, attention to the capabilities of film brought on big laughs. Co-director Brad Becker-Parton ’11.5, responsible for the film aspect of the show, shot scenes with intentionally familiar images of the Middlebury campus when representing far off places — a CEO golfed in front of Axinn, bikes on a bike rack covered in snow stood in for Amsterdam — heightening the comedy’s sophistication by mocking the illusion of video reality.

Another great scene in that regard was one in which Ben Orbison ’12.5 asked the person working at Midd Xpress, Orme, for change for a dollar. Unable to decide whether or not he has the authority to grant this transaction, he appealed to his manager, played by Orbison. Again, Orbison was uncertain, so he called his higher up, which was, in fact, another character played by Orme. The two alternated positions of authority until Orbison finally called the president who told him to deny the transaction. The scene took advantage of film’s ability to distill moments in time, allowing the actors to play many parts within a matter of minutes and forming the crux of the gag.

All in all, “Mister Show with Neil and Andrew” exhibited a remarkable amount of talent on many levels. It was funny and smart, swarming with subtleties, and offered a refreshingly new type of humor to the Middlebury theater scene.