I saw this student-written play last night called "Debbie and the Green Devil." I'd read a little bit of the script ahead of time, and in a particularly jealous rage obsessed over seeing this show that at first glance seemed ten times funnier and more absurd than anything I'd ever written. Thank God my high theatrical standards prevailed over the sweetness of the script, and I can successfully say that I am still awesome in comparison to my peers. It would have been such a terrible disappointment if I'd had my own work put to shame by someone, but thankfully, the incompetence of those around me solidifies my reign as King God of all I survey, comedy-wise. Not to say that the show didn't have its moments. A pseudo-friend of mine played a giant, animate Legoman and turned out to be the funniest thing the play had going for it. In all honesty, I was pretty sad that some odd directorial choices kept the play from reaching the kind of frenetic absurdist heights it could have achieved. A major flaw of Northwestern theatre is the overwhelmingly bizarre impetus to back-pocket casting (which I really shouldn't judge so much, since it's the only way I was put into a play last year) and the foresightless placement of AC-TORS in roles designed for comedians. That is not to say that you cannot be both, ladies and gentleman. But it's easier to learn the fine art of staring pensively at an audience, feigning crying, and waiting for blackout than it ever is to understand the momentary altercations in timing that can save or malign an oddly-placed spit-take. If your show is absurd, let it be. Don't hamper it with reality when there's no place for it in the universe of the story. Neither titular character, Debbie or the Green Devil, was anything more than one-dimensional, and when a story's major plot points surround the throwing of tacos and exploding soul balloons, the audience quickly gets the feeling that they're watching a live-action cartoon, not a story-driven character piece. I'm not faulting the show for being a cartoon. Fuck, I love cartoons. But in order for a show to elicit the sort of Looney Tunes-esque, childlike glee that it needs to succeed, everyone needs to accept and embrace the cartoonish tone. Cartoons are not people; they aren't three dimensional, fleshed out characters. They're two-dimensional devices used as catalysts for entertaining events. That's the way everyone is written in this show as well. Unfortunately, the actors wanted desperately to make Debbie empathetic and the Devil frightening, neither of which really matter to the audience in a world where marbles materialize out of people's toes. The only character you ever care about is Legoman, and it's only because his robotic naivety rivals the Scarecrow or the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz movie in terms of its performance. We like him because he's both funny and real. Well, as real as a giant plastic yellow block-person can be. Debbie is a whiner and the Green Devil does nothing to distinguish himself from any other singularly evil villain, especially since the voice affected by the actor made it near-impossible to understand any of his fucking lines. There's a purposefully absurd character named Red Steve, defined by his own randomness and his inability to do things with...well...purpose. It's a well-written character bastardized by the lame, ineffectual regard that the actor had for any comedic timing or method.

I really didn't want this entry to be a rant about a play that 7/8 of you reading don't even have the capacity to see, but fuck--it's stuff like this that makes me want to be a writer. I don't know why I'm so uber-critical of comedic works or why I love tearing things apart and seeing why they tick (or in this case, don't), but it's all I really care about.

I guess all I really care about any more is making jokes.