A Boom Better Unheard

Boom Chicago’s formula of pop-techno music, neon lights, young urban professionals, and alcohol provided a setting in which an audience could relax and laugh. If comedy were as simple as playing the right music and installing mood lighting, then Boom Chicago’s recent production of “Branded for Life” had a shot. Yet, the art of comedy is one that favors delicate balance over crude maneuvers. Except for a few infrequent strokes of genius, “Branded for Life” ultimately failed to function as a well-rounded show and, in the process, missed the mark of creating quality comedy.

            One of the most identifiable aspects of “Branded for Life” was that it eschewed the minimalist stage of a typical comedic routine. Instead, a large LED screen hung from each of the three walls in a trapezoidal configuration that framed the performers. As the show began, and the opening monologist entered to booming game show-style music and multicolored stage lights, the LED screens changed to display matching swirls of color. While the extra light from the screens created the illusion of a stage soaked in loud colors, the screens felt ancillary to the colored lights, which, by themselves, already engendered an enthusiastic atmosphere.

            As the show continued, it became even more evident that the LED screens were a superfluous sidepiece rather than an instrument crucial to the comedic intent of the performance. Despite this criticism, I would briefly like to recognize that, in a handful of skits, the screens functioned as the primary vehicle for humor. For example, in a sketch titled “Boom People,” the comedians poked fun at random audience members whose faces were projected onto the LED screens. The reactions of these unsuspecting victims instigated roars of laughter. Aside from such isolated instances, however, the screens had no clear role in furthering the humor of a skit, and the unmotivated use of the screens ultimately distracted from the impact of the show. In one particular scene, three performers portraying Apple employees distinguished their characters by wearing familiar blue shirts with a white Apple logo on the front.  While this costuming decision conveyed the setting quite clearly, the screens also showed the interior of an Apple store, pushing the sketch from fittingly comedic to unnecessarily specific. Because the background projection failed to add to the show, its continued self-indulgent use stole attention from the action onstage.

            The ineffective use of technology during the show was due in part to the hyper-literal interpretation of the role that technology could play. The spectator failed to laugh at screens that depicted an Apple store background because such a technological choice made too much sense and failed to challenge the spectator in any way. Alternately, there were a few transitional moments in which disconnected video clips played alongside music that was also unrelated to the stage action. These were delightful and stimulating moments of dissonance and perplexity that elicited feelings of amusement because they made no sense and coaxed the spectator out of a complacent state. In the end, such moments of creative multimedia use were too few and far between to carry the show.

            The jokes and the comedians’ performances fell into a similar trap of overindulgence and crudeness. Given that the performing group of Rob Andristplourde, Drew Marks, Marcy Minton, Lolu Ajayi, and Sam Super were mostly American, they expectedly presented several jokes that catered to Americans. In particular, an entire sketch focused on the racism that black people still encounter. The “Successful-Black-Man-Who-Is-Still-Oppressed” sketch was nothing new, but the comedians performed this sketch early enough in the set that its comfort and familiarity was excused, if not welcomed. The punch line never changed, but when performed with conviction and timing, the sketch managed to draw a number of laughs.

            What “Branded for Life” failed to do, however, was to understand when a joke had lived past its due date. When Ajavi, the night’s lone black performer, consistently adopted characters that were noticeably black and in which the race played a significant role in the humor, then the punch line was too obvious and ceased to be humorous. When Minton, the cast’s lone female participant, repeatedly played roles like an overly enthusiastic flight attendant or the promiscuous female professional, she ceased to be funny the fourth time around. Jokes that play on race or sex can be funny when performed well, but rarely do they succeed past the initial deliveries, after which they quickly migrate from the realm of “familiar but funny” to “overdone and boring.”

            Similarly, “Branded for Life” failed to find the right balance between high- and low-brow comedies. A few sketches ridiculing Greece’s debt crisis and Holland’s president provoked quite a few laughs, as did cruder jokes about “dicks” and “blowjobs.” As the night progressed, it became evident that the performers favored sexual jokes and cheap laughs over well-timed wit. That is not to say that jokes about “dicks” and “blowjobs” lacked value, but when the entire performance disintegrated into shocking sexual references, then the jokes became neither shocking nor humorous. The humor became too easy, too predictable, and the audience no longer experience the delayed gratification required by an intelligent joke. Perhaps the most telling moment of the night occurred when one of the comedians asked for a suggestion of “a strange request.” The audience shouted many ideas, and after careful deliberation, one of the performers announced, “I think we’ll go with ‘Suck My Dick.’” The table of drunken college boys exploded in cheers while the rest of the audience chuckled wearily under the harsh lights, waiting out the last ten minutes of a 2-hour, too long show.