Sketchfest 2008: Now with more meta

After a few restful days off (in Sketchfest terms), I managed to make it back out to the Theatre Building last night to catch the 9:30 sketch shows. As is customary before the packed weekend hits, Thursday nights are reserved for local groups and act as somewhat of a trial run for those looking for coveted Friday or Saturday night slots next year—or so it seems. I was pumped to see Barb Lamenter, a show from the twisted minds of Jet Eveleth and Holly Laurent, but I arrived to the theater only to discover that they had been replaced by the Cupid Players. I later found out from my Chicago Reader buddy Ryan Hubbard that Jet was auditioning for Saturday Night Live. Um…wow.

What I did end up seeing was a wonderful surprise. B.S., a duo consisting of Sean Cusick and Blaine Swen, brought the house down. I've seen Sean before in Annoyance shows and given his directorial work good reviews, and I've got nothing but nice things to say about Blaine and his near-magical Improvised Shakespeare Company. But this was a combination of talent I hadn't caught before, which can be a delicate maneuver for Chicago comics.

Chicago's a unique city for comedy. Individuals can, and do, decide at the last minute to cobble a show together for a festival—there's enough experienced talent out there that this can be a fairly viable option. This comes with a caveat, however, as people tend to overextend themselves and, in the words of Playground Theater president Matt Barbara, "confuse being busy with making progress." Groups crop up that bear so much resemblance to their individual players that it's almost funny in and of itself. Case in point: Heavyweight is Brady Novak, Nick Vatterott, TJ MIller and Mark Raterman; Chuckle Sandwich is the same group minus Brady, plus Micah Sherman.

I don't know where B.S. spawned from, though I'd imagine it fell somewhere along those lines—Blaine and Sean wanted to do a show together, so they cranked something out for Sketchfest. But here's a fine example of a time where it worked. The show was a parody of Blue Man Group performances, finding the pair, in full make-up, running down ideas for a show they wanted to create. Should they end by covering the audience in toilet paper? Throw marshmallows at each other? And what's this buckety thing in the corner of their apartment? Should they drum on it while pouring water on the top? As it turns out, the future Blue Men incorporate their showbiz tactics in real life, like the stand-out scene where Sean uses cue cards to break up with his way-over-the-top girlfriend. At one point, while debating the merits of including a Waiting for Godot reference in their "show," one character wondered aloud whether their idea would resonate with the audience because "if they haven't seen the play, they won't know what we're talking about." Whoa guys—way meta.

Thus B.S. joins Hey You Millionaires and Heavyweight as shows that successfully broke down the base conventions for what a sketch comedy show should be about.