UNR Comedy Night full of both laughter and awkward silence

By Patrick McNabb

Walking into the Joe Crowley Student Union theater, a single microphone stood on the stage with a massive sign behind it that said “comedy night.” Students waited in the theater for a night of laughs and knee-slappers as the University of Nevada improv club performed to an almost full house for comedy night, hosted by the Joe Crowley Student Union.

Comedy night started with a performance from the improv club. This quintet, led by club president Noah Ahmed, started the night with a lot of crowd work. According to Ahmed, that’s what improv is all about: being able to take suggestions from your audience and come up with a skit on the spot.

“Improv is something weird,” said Ahmed while coaxing the shy audience into participating.

After Ahmed used his high energy levels to break the audience out of their shells, the show began. The four other members of the UNR improv team walked out from backstage to begin their first game of the night called “What?”

The premise of this game is simple: the audience gives the performers a scene and relationship, and those performers have to act it out. However, when the host, Ahmed, says “what?” they have to redo whatever the last thing they said was, and make it the opposite.

The designated scene and relationship for this were cousins from south Florida, even though the audience wanted them to be from Alabama — Ahmed had to make some changes to keep the game relatively family friendly. This game was the shortest of the night, but it did give some good laughs.

The next game of the night was “Replay,” a game in which the audience would give a suggestion for a scene, then one minute later they would have to do it in a different genre. The scene given to the performers was a clown going to mime school. Then, after one minute, the performers did the same scene, except this time in a murder mystery genre. After this, they did the same scene, as a nature documentary. As a final scene, they performed a musical. This game was probably my least favorite of the three they played, but the audience interactions definitely helped.

The final game that the UNR improv team played would be “Four Square.” In this one, the actors were separated into four different individual scenes, and every time the performers switched positions, the scene would change.

The first scene given to the performers was a meet-cute between a butcher and a customer. The next was finding your girlfriend’s husband, and the scene after that dealt with a pumpkin and a fairy godmother. The final scene was at the entrance of a K-pop concert.

This game was definitely the highlight of the improv team performance. Each scene had high energy, and the jokes and interactions that the performers had made were unique and very creative. My favorite of the four scenes was the K-pop scene due to how random the interactions were.

Overall the performance by the UNR improv team was pleasantly surprising. Their next outing, on April 15 in the theater on the third floor of the Joe, will be in head-to-head competition with the University of Nevada,

Las Vegas improv team.

Then, the headliner for the night took the stage. Fumi Abe was born in Ohio and moved to New York when he was a kid. After going to school in New York, he moved to Los Angeles where he now lives and performs. Abe has never been to Reno, which he made clear in the first lines of his act.

“What’s the vibe in your city?” he said in his introduction. “Are you guys horny?”

A highlight of Abe’s performance was definitely his crowd work. In almost every joke that he made, he interacted with the audience in some way. He would tell his joke, and once he saw how the audience reacted to it, another would roll off.

A lot of his humor was very raunchy, for the first 15 to 20 minutes of his 45 minute set, most, if not all, of the jokes he told had something to do with sex. Whether it be sexting, dating over the pandemic or losing his virginity at 22, sex was a consistent theme in the opening of his set.

After those 20 minutes however, Abe could tell that the audience was getting tired of innuendos and explicit sex jokes, so he transitioned to his next theme of the night: talking about how old he was. Abe is 33 years old and he made it known to the audience. In almost every joke for the rest of the night, he would bring up his age. While some of these jokes were funny, the effect of hearing about how old he was kind of grew old — pun intended.

Despite his overused shticks, Abe seemed to be a crowd favorite of the night. His jokes were funny, his stories were intriguing, crowd work was top notch and the crowd was consistently laughing.

The night took a turn at the start of the open mic session. In this, students from UNR were able to come onto stage and tell jokes that they had written to see if the crowd liked them — here is where awkwardness ensued.

The first comedian took the stage and had a promising start. He told a few jokes that got some chuckles out of people, but then he started doing accents. Accents in comedy tread very, very thin ice, due to the possibility of racism if you do not do them properly, or say the wrong things. Unfortunately, our comedian said all of the wrong things, and definitely stereotyped several groups of people.

The next two comedians were honestly nothing special. Thankfully, In their sets they didn’t stereotype marginalized groups of people, but they weren’t exactly saying anything funny either.

The next set was another problematic one, with our comedian coming on stage and immediately pretending to be a blind person. His set was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable due to his mannerisms. He talked very quietly, and didn’t really make any jokes, but told more strange anecdotes.

The final comedian of the night was more of a motivational speaker than a comedian. He was very affirming to the audience with him calling multiple people beautiful and telling us that we are worth it. While it was great being able to hear that, it wasn’t really comedy.

The open mic session was a very strange experience. Between the racism, the ableism, and the awkward laughs, UNR comics definitely need to work on their material.

By Peregrine Hart

This spring, the University of Nevada, Reno’s season of live theater came to a close with many f—s to give.

The potty-mouthed play in question is Aaron Posner’s “Stupid F***ing Bird.” A loose retelling of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” the play follows Emma, an aging actress, her son Con, a struggling aspiring playwright, and a string of supporting characters who either love them unrequitedly or don’t love them back.

If this sounds complicated, it’s all in keeping with the original. Emma loves Trigorin, a famous author. Con loves the aspiring actress Nina, who doesn’t love him back. Trigorin also loves Nina — who reels with guilt as she finds she returns his feelings. Mash, a young, ukulele-playing pessimist, loves Con — who, heartsick over Nina, barely knows she exists. Finally, Con’s pithy friend Dev loves Mash — who might be able to settle for him — maybe.

In short: everyone’s feelings are misplaced. Everyone’s set up for misery. The universe doesn’t care.

Besides, there’s a mounting modern crisis to worry about. Posner’s adaptation lifts “The Seagull” from its original setting at a nineteenth-century Russian country estate to the present day. On top of being lost in love, the play’s young characters stare down the barrel of a bleak economic and ecological future. As many of us have already loudly proclaimed: f— this s—. If hearing those words on stage will validate your feelings, “Stupid F***ing Bird” is the play for you.

And it is said. Often. But, thanks to great performances from UNR’s student actors, “f—” never loses its f—ing power.

The play’s small cast of seven is well-fitted to the task. They’re loud about their characters’ mundane problems, but it never feels overblown. They make convincing strikes at their characters’ deep flaws, but manage to entirely avoid the impression that they’re looking down on them. Under the compassionate

By Quay Skankey

Despite being on its fourth installment, the “John Wick” franchise shows no sign of slowing down.

Like many others, I did not watch the “John Wick” movies until they arrived at HBO Max. I watched the first movie and was deeply unimpressed.

While its premise is iconic — a retired hitman loses his puppy to mafia members and seeks revenge — its execution was lackluster. Keanu Reeve’s line delivery left a lot to be desired and the fights had yet to shine as the ones in later installments do.

Despite this, I am glad I continued watching the later installments because, with each movie, the action became more creative, and the story more engaging.

direction of UNR acting instructor Rosie Brownlow-Calkin, that last skill really gets a chance to shine.

Anson Wapstra Scott helms as the play’s fumbling aspiring playwright, Con. He’d be a standout if his peers weren’t so f— ing good. He takes a deeply volatile, needy leading man at his word and gets his insecurity across with full force. Con’s drastic emotional changes can sometimes set in over the space of a few lines — a perilous transition that only a fully-committed actor can handle.

Similar demands fall effortlessly under the feet of Alyssa Granger, who plays Nina. Much like her delightfully dialed-up performance in last semester’s one acts, Granger anchors a larger-than-life aspiring actress in unabashed need. Big gestures and a big voice generally evade modern, realist acting, but they can play beautifully off of other, more grounded players. Granger knows this well, and she’s a joy to watch because of it.

Meanwhile, Maya Wolery, who played Big Pharma in the one acts last semester, returns to medicine as the middle-aged doctor Sorn. Sorn is Con’s kindhearted uncle and Emma’s older brother. He’s the only character free of the play’s romantic angst — though not entirely of his own volition. His are the regrets of a cautious, prosperous life already lived. How did I get here? How can I go back?

Wolery is an unconventional choice for Sorn, but that only works in their favor. They imbue him with age without ever resorting to “old man” tropes. Though usually a quiet presence on stage, they make him shine when his solemn moments finally come.

This season, what would already be in-your-face talent is even closer than usual. Without technical support, “Stupid F***ing Bird” takes to the Redfield Studio Theatre with intimate seating and only minimal lighting at its disposal. Like Cabaret, it’s a script well-chosen for the venue, though for

“John Wick: Chapter 4” does not stop that trend, as it is easily the best movie in the franchise.

Taking place six months after the events of the third movie, John Wick hunts down members of the High Table with the help of The King, played by Lawrence Fishburne, when he finds out he must face a new foe, the Marquis, played by Bill Skarsgård.

The action in this new installment is just as good as you’d hope for. The cinematography by Dan Laustsen, who had previously worked on the 2018 Oscars Best Picture winner, Shape of Water, enhances the fight scenes greatly. They are only made better by Keanu Reeve’s physical acting and the numerous stuntmen and women who did excellent work making the fights seem brutal and exhausting.

This movie introduces many new faces, but all of them get outshined by the two standouts, Donnie Yen as the blind assassin, Caine and Shamier Anderson as Mr. Nobody. These two characters steal the show with their creative fight scenes and sympathetic motives, especially for Yen’s character.

Another performance standout was Scott Adams as the outrageous and sleazy mob boss, Killa. His performance was as if Colin Farrell’s Penguin from “The Batman” had a lemon in his mouth the entire time. His performance was so entertaining that I often wished he was the Continued online at nevadasagebrush.com slightly different reasons.

Playwright Aaron Posner breaks the fourth wall all the f—ing time. This has mixed results.

Some are a committed and effective use of the audience. At one point, Con, befuddled by his romantic misadventures, literally asks the audience what to do. With viewers well trained to sit back and shut the f— up during a performance, he has to press hard to get replies. When he does, it’s a genuine dialogue, embracing the theater’s spontaneity with refreshing results.

Some of Posner’s swipes, however, feel like just a cheap wink in the audience’s general direction. It’s powerful when the characters break from the dialogue’s form to recognize the silliness and futility of their situation, but it’s very easy for the “guess what, we’re in a play!” vibes to stop at the first laugh they get.

Every now and then, Posner’s self-awareness ventures into sobering cynicism about the state of theater, which Con is already bemoaning at the start of the play. Some of it hits hard, but some of it assumes, shakily, that everyone watching is part of a captive audience, desperate to check their phones and move on with their lives. In these moments, Posner is a bit like a professor who starts every lecture with the premise that their students want nothing more than for it to end.

It’s an assumption I can hardly fault theaters for making, especially this one. An outside observer might even think that the University of Nevada, Reno actively wants its theater program dead, what with the state of its funding and facilities and no word of its need for additional faculty ever being met.

That doesn’t mean the modern script’s new responsibility is to assume you think it sucks, though. Far from it — perhaps the opposite is necessary instead.