“˜Hidden Sunday’ offers up healthy serving of sketch

  ACME Comedy Theater "At The Theatre," a spoof on
"thumbs-up" movie critics, is featured in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Sunday Show," a sketch comedy show.

By Amy Shen
Daily Bruin Contributor

Despite its title, the sketch comedy act “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Sunday Show” has absolutely nothing to hide.

Offering up a variety of short comedic sketches that shed a wild
and humorous light on subjects ranging from sex and illness to
karaoke and roller skating, the show uses a no-holds-barred sense
of humor that will take audiences by surprise.

“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sunday Show,” so named
because of its opening parody of the award-winning movie
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” is directed by M.D.
Sweeney and performed by the Bravo Company every Sunday through
June 10 at ACME Comedy Theatre.

The show is filled with many gut-busting skits. In
“Relationshape,” for example, a loud and eccentric
drill sergeant, played effectively by Liam Sullivan in a warm-up
suit and aviator glasses, whips four clueless men into
perfect-boyfriend shape. The sergeant ferociously instructs the men
on how to answer man-killing questions like “Does this dress
make me look fat?” and “Do you think she’s
prettier than me?” with woman-friendly answers. When a pupil
fails to answer his girlfriend’s question in time, Sullivan
screams, “He who hesitates, masturbates!”

The comedy continues with the skit, “Let’s
Swap,” a parody of a radio trade show in which listeners call
in to chat with the show’s hosts, who are actually Dan Fester
and Sullivan dressed up as two reserved old ladies. The ladies
repeatedly remind their audience of their dislike of
“risqué language,” but clever plays on words leave
the ladies’ otherwise-clean show littered with dirty double
meanings.

In “What Dreams May Come,” such tongue-in-cheek
humor is also evident, as the angel and devil of a
13-year-old’s conscience wage war over the content of his
dreams.

The devil, dressed in leather and playing a guitar, fills the
boy’s dreams with teenage thoughts of sex, while the angel
interrupts with scenes of grassy hills and singing birds. What
ensues is a hilarious battle between good and evil with a
teen-ager’s dreams hanging in the balance.

Many other sketches in the show are equally as funny and loaded
with sarcasm. A wide variety of themes can be found in each skit
and include parodies of the novel “Waiting for Godot,”
as well as plots from Star Wars, Greek mythology and the
Elizabethan era.

At its best, the show’s plots, themes and characters smack
of the ever-hilarious sketch comedy show “Saturday Night
Live.” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sunday Show” is a
nice change of pace from the comedy often found in TV shows and
movies, due to its live and up-close staging.

Of course, with the good comes the bad. Of the show’s 19
sketches, only about half of them will truly have audiences rolling
in the aisles. The other half are either only funny enough to
elicit a warm chuckle, or flat-out drab and not entertaining.

It seems that the sketches’ funnier moments center
disproportionately around in-your-face sexual humor. Although
effective at drawing big laughs from the audience, constant sexual
innuendoes make the show seem like little more than a string of
high school potty jokes.

For instance, the sketch “Music Magic” revolves
around a drunken master of ceremonies at a karaoke bar, gyrating
and making lewd gestures behind the couples singing on stage. While
most audiences will still find this sort of humor amusing, the
show’s inability to generate creative and truly comical
sketches without relying heavily on bathroom humor is its major
downfall.

The no-frills production features live music played by a
keyboardist off stage, simple props and set design and clever,
comical costumes, allowing audiences to focus their attention on
the players’ performance. Impressively enough, the players
write and star in their own sketches.

Most of the players fit their roles well, playing their
characters with humor and enthusiasm; however, some characters are
a bit overacted. Look for the male players to dominate the stage
““ in both acting ability and presence. The female players
most often act roles that merely support, or serve as background to
the sketches’ male leads.

Despite some minor downfalls, the show is a fun, entertaining
change from the typical weekend movie. Those who enjoy the witty
antics of “Saturday Night Live” and brash, in-your-face
humor will definitely get a kick out of “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Sunday Show.”

THEATER: “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sunday
Show” shows every Sunday through June 10 at 7:30 p.m. at ACME
Comedy Theatre, 135 N. La Brea Ave. in Hollywood. Tickets are $12.
For reservations call (323) 525-0202.