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First, the bad. Devlin 008, with its enormous 300-plus person capacity, was not particularly friendly Friday night for the main fall semester My Mother's Fleabag show. The room's neutering lights exposed everything and absolutely killed the focus and attention span of the crowd.
There's something to be said about a crowd in darkness, something about the sweet anonymity of being able to shout wildly without fear of repercussion. Unfortunately, every audience member was just as clear and visible as any of the Fleabaggers.
Audience members chatted periodically among themselves. Frequently, conversations were loud enough to overpower the dialogue going on in the skits, and occasionally one or two audience members, perhaps in a drunken stupor, would rattle off one or two inane comments to no one in particular. That was definitely one of the more painful aspects of the show.
Whether it was the acoustics in the room or the perpetual banter going on in the audience, some of the skits were difficult to hear and from time to time a punch line or joke would get lost in the mix. Those moments necessarily threw a lot of comedic momentum out the window. Where, typically, one would be waiting in anticipation for the next skit or joke, there were merely strained efforts to discern what was happening.
This, in some of the longer skits, seemed to hurt the group chemistry. They just weren't gelling the way they had, in say, last year's alumni show, which was some of their best work. That's probably because they're not the same Fleabag. Last year's veteran anchors Katie Thomas, Erik Graham-Smith, and Juliet Mohnkern, all BC '05, rolled with the punches seamlessly and could, if a joke flopped, bounce right back from it. Newcomers Nick Ackerman, Cameron McCall, and Walt Hartley, all A&S '09, are simply undeveloped. Their potential is high, and they certainly showed their own moments of comedic flair. They have yet, however, to mature to the next level of natural showmanship. When they felt awkward, the audience could feel it too, and that's not a good sign. It'll just take a little bit more time and a little bit more experience to make these newcomers into fine additions to Fleabag.
To their credit, the Fleabaggers were able, in some regards, to overcome their unfavorable situation Friday night. This is where the veterans made themselves prominent and known. The upperclassmen injected a lot of enthusiasm into the atmosphere and spoke through and over the ambient noise by projecting their voices. Finally, they kept their wits about them and stayed cool under pressure. Anyone of lesser mettle would almost certainly have cracked under the pressure of trying to mime out the name of transvestite Ru Paul.
In the older members of Fleabag, there was a lot of consistency, people that could be counted on for a laugh. Nijah Cunningham and Clara de Soto, both A&S'07, held the show together along with Tim Lawlor, CSOM '08, and Janice Pardue and Peter Sherer, both A&S '08. They were the best reasons to stay at the show and stay through the opera at the end, The Shining set to Elton John. Conceptually, it sounds great. Unfortunately, the technical details didn't pan out quite so well. Yet, these upperclassmen kept it going and kept it fresh.
This new squad is young and untested; maybe they're not ready just yet. Give them some time, though, and they'll be able to turn any noun, verb, gerund, adjective, and pretty much anything else into a comic gem.
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