Awful imagination
“Marcel Lucont: Les Enfants Terribles. A Gameshow for Awful Children.” | Spiegeltent | Sept. 21 | From $25 | All ages
“Kids say the darndest things” is a cliché, which is why, on Marcel Lucont’s stage, kids seem to speak only in Dadaist maxims.
The misanthropic French showman hosts a so-called “game show for awful children,” and indeed, the “winner” is crowned the most awful child in Rochester. He does this in four rounds, then with a final vote. Children in the Spiegeltent audience come to the stage to be asked questions, but they only get points if they get the answer wrong.
Such improvisational comedy works wonders because most of the time, the kids simply aren’t trying to be funny. They just are. When Lucont asked one participant how to spell the word “dog,” she responded with one incorrect, and thus correct, single word: “eyebrow.”
“A surrealist genius!” Lucont retorted. He both means it and doesn’t. Such a reply is part of the bit.
Lucont is the alter ego of English comic Alexis Dubus. This is not a bombshell revelation; in fact, knowing Lucont is a performance makes Dubus’s work all the more impressive. After all, children by and large want to be treated like adults. As Lucont, he offers humorous contempt, which most of the contestants adored.
The panoply of free-associative responses by some participants was enough to inspire. (Q: Where does a pirate live? A: “In windows.”) One round enlisted two children to create a proclamation together using only one word at a time. “Everyone eat floorboards and glass unlimited” was top-tier, yet still not the winner. That’s how fierce the competition was.
Lucont’s talents lie in his commitment to the bit. He doesn’t dumb down the gameplay, even during a round where the objective was making fart sounds. At the end of the program, one child is indeed ordained the most awful of them all.
But for a show that so hilariously and organically captures the glee and madness (and boundless imagination) of childhood, what could be a higher honor? —PATRICK HOSKEN
Laughter for all seasons
“Stand-Up Through the Ages” | School of the Arts: Club SOTA | Sept. 21 | $12 | Ages 18+
The premise of “Stand-Up Through the Ages” is a simple one: comedians from various stages of life perform. Regardless of one’s age, humor is an important part of how we process life.
To their credit, none of the seven stand-up comedians relied on their age as material for a bit. If anything, age was simply a jumping off point, and the performers relied instead on their ability as storytellers to carry them. Charlie Frusci, Kelsey Claire Hagen, Bob Holzwarth, Tori Hosier, Dan Mulcahy, Miriam Zinter and host Phyllis Reed all had a conversational delivery, and their approaches were generally subtle and low-key.
The topics tended to be slice-of-life: Hagen spoke about raising her young daughter. “She was so easy,” she said. “But then she turned 3. Now I’m in an abusive relationship.” Hosier shared how he guessed the IQs of his fellow drivers in order to manage his road rage. Zinter told a relatable story about pulling a muscle in her right buttock when waking up, which provided an unexpectedly sexy moment with her husband when she asked for a message.
Throughout the show, some of the jokes were hacky and dated. There were references to the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the TV show “Survivor,” and Cialis commercials, none of which really landed. The evening closed with a set from Dan Mulcahy, who killed with his absurd story about discovering sea lions in a neighbor’s barn in Buffalo as a child. The collective performance was a mixed bag, with occasional moments that sparkled.
—DANIEL J. KUSHNER
Looking glass karma
“Alice Through the Bardo” | MuCCC | One night only
Word Consortium’s “Alice Through the Bardo” had a lot going on. On the visual level, the event projected a 1915 silent film adaptation of “Alice in Wonderland,” including the original interstitial slides of dialogue as well as newly added subtitles commenting on how to view the film. These subtitles reminded viewers that this film was made before television, radio and the atomic bomb, and, that “what you are watching is a vehicle for introspection.” They offered mindfulness maxims like “Be in a place where you can just be.” Were they supposed to be kind of hilarious? I don’t know. Nobody laughed. But surely “Feel physically as if the top of your head were taken off… this is poetry” was meant to be at least a little funny.
While the film screened, G. E. Schwartz read an original piece — part prose narrative, part rhyming poem — about Alice returning not to Wonderland, but to the Bardo, a Tibetan word meaning “gap” or “intermediate state” referring to the period between death and rebirth. This new Alice included the Cheshire Guru and the Looking Glass of Karma. The spoken words didn’t align with the narrative of the film. For example, she meets the Red Queen while images of a dodo bird appear on film. But given subtitles like “Here’s a Ted talk topic: do we see reality as it is?” what the audience heard and saw was supposed to be at odds with each other. They had to pick whether to focus more on the spoken word or the film and its subtitles, or just let it all wash over them without looking for meaning.
The spoken word narrative, at times verging on a rap-like chant, was accompanied by Dave Esposito playing repeated phrases on electric guitar and synth. When Alice reached enlightenment, he switched to electric banjo.
Schwartz finished the hour with a brief kazoo flourish. After the applause, he asked “Any questions?” Was their goal to induce a psychedelic experience in audiences through whimsical strangeness alone? I don’t know. Nobody asked. —KATHERINE VARGA
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2024.
