Since the entertainers who make up The Capital City Showcase change from production to production, the only useful thing a review can do is address broad themes. The broad themes to The Capital City Showcase are this: DC’s got funny, and DC’s got music. My review is: yeah.
The production I saw featured the comic stylings of Patrick Riley (fat jokes, race jokes, dating jokes, especially computer dating); Chelsea Shorte (race jokes, dating jokes, lesbian dating jokes, lesbian computer dating jokes); Randolph Terrance (race jokes with a little edge, day drinking, grandma jokes, daughter jokes) and Danny Rouhier.
They were all funny and charming but I think I liked Rouhier, who hosts a radio show on 106.7, the best because his humor comes out of self-recognition. I particularly liked a scene when he sat at a restaurant with his wife’s brilliant, accomplished friends and – the lizard brain ascendant – mentally dismissed them because their mammary glands weren’t large enough. Despicable? Yes. True? Yes. Make you uncomfortable? That’s what comedy’s all about, my brother.
Which is not to say that the other comics lacked merit. Riley (no, not that Pat Riley) has a fabulous voice and an ingratiating manner. The bow-tied and bejeweled-sneakered Shorte, a playwright, probably had the most ingratiating manner with the audience; she would describe some outrageous event from her life, and then catch some audience member nodding, as if to say me too. The fast-talking Terrance, who has done some time on NPR, has mastered the comic’s art of reusing an image – in yesterday’s show, a woman who has put her cat in her baby-pack and has a kindle in one hand and a Starbucks in another – to startling effect.
The Capital City Showcase
conceived by Christian Hunt
90 minutes
at Baldacchino Tent Bar – Fort Fringe
607 New York Ave NW
Washington, DC 20001
Details and tickets
Take me to the DCTS 2014 Capital Fringe Guide
Folk singer Rachel Levitin showed strong guitar work and a powerful voice during her twenty minutes or so on stage. I must say that I didn’t find her songs particularly interesting, either by way of music or content, but I know that there is a great deal more (and more interesting) in her oeuvre after looking at her website.
Finally, I am delighted to salute the work of Yellow Tie Guy (the most excellent Daniel Hill, vocals; Jason McKinney, lead guitar; Mary Celeste on bass and Ralf Madrigal on drums). They dole out the rock, uninhibited and a little dangerous, just as it should be. Their concluding number, “War”, brought the festivities to a sober conclusion, as is appropriate.
In a previous screed, I had complained about the noise from the Baldacchino bar drowning out the talent on stage in the Baldacchino tent. This was not a problem during the 1.15-3.15 shift I attended; let’s hope it’s not a problem for you.
The red-suited, ever enthusiastic Christian Hunt served as host.
Hmmm, loved all the males didn’t care for all the females. He loved the joke about big boobs. I’m going to take stab in the dark and call this review misogynistic. My review of the review: Nah.