Laughter good medicine for food bank

The Knitting Factory, the Hollywood club usually known for
musical performances, seductive red lighting and a somewhat
eclectic crowd, has been welcoming a new genre into their Sunday
night lineup ““ comedy.

As a benefit for the Westside Food Bank, the show titled
“Comedy Freak Out USA” features two hours of comedy in
the form of stand-up and sketches. UCLA alumnus Josh di Donato
created the show in November 2001 and now serves as co-producer
along with another Bruin graduate, Tom Hicks.

“We’re trying to go for something slightly
different. It’s more of a “˜thinky’ style,”
di Donato said.

Basically, the comics give the audience more credit
intellectually by not setting up the jokes too much. This way, they
intend for the audience to put two-and-two together and find
laughter in the punch line as well as in the process. While this
less-obvious form of comedy may make understanding a joke more
rewarding, what happens when the punch line is so unclear that no
one laughs?

“You just keep going or try something else,” di
Donato said. “It can be pretty horrible.”

Luckily, “Comedy Freak Out USA” produces more spurts
of laughter than awkward pauses. But when 13 different comics
perform and they have their own personal style of comedy,
it’s only natural that some performers will be more accepted
by the crowd than others. Di Donato and Hicks do not screen the
comics’ acts for content, but instead they look for comics
who present new material.

“It doesn’t feel like something you could have seen
10 years ago,” di Donato said.

While the material may be new, at times it feels almost too new.
The jokes sometimes are on the verge on being offensive. For
example, one of the comics last Sunday joked about the Space
Shuttle Columbia. She claimed that the space shuttle was older than
her car, and she would never think of driving her car a long
distance. Another comedian also poked fun at NASA’s tragedy
by comparing it with September 11, 2001. He said that while you
could “almost” know someone who lost their life in New
York City, you could never “almost” know someone who
went onto the space shuttle. While these comedians did receive some
amount of laughter, it was more of a nervous laugh followed with
whispers of “I can’t believe she just said
that!”

“It’s definitely edgy … but I feel strongly that
the issues that concern us should be worked out on the stand-up
stage,” di Donato said. “There’s no such thing as
untouchable subject matter; it’s just how you treat
it.”

While some of the comics were “edgy,” other bits of
it were down-right hilarious. The comics satirized restaurant
slogans, celebrities (like Michael Jackson in his
“20/20″ interview) and even themselves.

Since the show is part of a benefit, the comics receive no pay,
and the show donates 70 percent of its proceeds to the food bank.
While di Donato performs nearly every week, most of the other
comics perform once every two to three months. Despite the lack of
pay, Hicks said that on several occasions they were able to include
relatively famous comics in their Sunday night lineup. Among those
mentioned were Scott Thompson from “Kids in the Hall,”
Zach Galifianakis from the film “Out Cold,” and Sarah
Silverman, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member
from films such as “There’s Something About Mary”
and “Evolution.”

Maybe it’s because of the talented performers, the
inexpensive ticket prices ($5 per ticket) or the zero drink
minimum, but for the last four months the show has managed to
sellout every Sunday except for the night of the Hollywood
Christmas Parade. The show is even beginning to have Sunday night
regulars, according to di Donato.

“People are really excited when they go,” di Donato
said. “There’s something happening that isn’t
part of the mainstream.”

For more info, call the Knitting Factory at (323) 463-0204.