Grateful student of The Comedy

Went to a women-of-color comedy show last night at UMASS, and it was one of the few times in my life I was grateful to be a pasty white person (only since it meant I would not be performing). The show was held in the Campus Center's auditorium, an enormous poured concrete room that evoked images of WWII bunkers (it looks like whoever designed the space had spent most of his---and I'd be shocked to learn it was a she--career designing fallout shelters). Worse, there were only about 20 people in the enormous gray room--and that includes the handful of comics who chose to hang out in the back.

And if the large, gaping space and the deafening silence that followed most comic's attempts weren't enough, the mic was screwed up--every so often, it sounded like a Slinky. To add insult to injury, the darn thing up and died--right in the middle of the last comic's set.

In a word: Brutal.

Despite all this, the show went on, and I thoroughly enjoyed (just about) every set. A few of the Asian comics relied on sexual stereotypes to an uncomfortable degree--to me (but then I'm Midwestern and Catholic/Presbyterian, so just about anything of a sexual nature makes me uncomfortable). It just seemed that they worked the "yellow fever" angle to excess (on the verge of sounding hack, if that's not too harsh a term). The most successful comics put themselves out there as individuals, not types--they acknowledged the prevailing views regarding their particular demographic, then proceeded to personalize, if not dismantle, these stereotypes with riffs on their own unique (and hilarious) life experiences.

Do wonder why UMASS had such a hard time getting crowds to this event, though--the comic running the show told me they'd packed the place in the past. The UMASS rep reported that the calendar was clear when she planned the event, but then student government debates had been scheduled at the last minute for last night--perhaps that was the cause.

Whatever the reason, it was a shame that more people didn't hear these comics--and I'm very glad I did.