CP wows, Amy hits an iceberg
When I heard that Chris Powell and Amy Silverberg, two comedians whose names I recognized, would be coming for Wabash Always Laughs, I couldn’t wait to get my tickets. If anything, I was much more excited to hear Silverberg, who tears it up on Comedy Central. But at the end I was loving Powell’s set and disappointed by Silverberg’s.
The highlight of the night, Chris Powell, was probably cancelable, but frankly riotous. He definitely toed the line with some jokes and was unafraid to have a laugh at anyone’s expense, including his own. There’s plenty to say about how long and sometimes unfocused Powell was, yet I think he made up for it with jokes that had the audience equal parts aghast and gasping for air. It felt like Powell was trying to engage with the audience. For better or for worse, Powell’s humor was unforgettable.
Amy Silverberg spent a solid chunk of her routine reading from a list of campus stereotypes provided to her by a student. This included such forward thinking jokes as “Sig Chis are dumb” and “TKEs are nerds.” She may have been a bit less meandering, but at least Powell eventually made it to a joke. In her defense, she had to follow a killer act, still I left with the impression that Silverberg mailed it in. I definitely remember laughing during her set, but for the life of me I can’t remember what the joke was.
Both comedians took the liberty of cracking a few jokes at the most obvious feature of Wabash — at least to an outsider — the lack of female students. Neither particularly shone during this section, but I felt Powell did better by asking real questions and letting the answers do the work. Silverberg was happy to categorize everyone as weird, which could have been forgiven if it was funny. This head-to-head comparison stood out to me as a good microcosm of the different styles that Powell and Silverberg brough to Ball Theatre. They both said just about the same thing, but one said it and one forced us to say it.
I really don’t want to be too hard on Silverberg, but I can’t think of one criticism (barring run time) that applies to Powell that Silverberg wasn’t at least partially guilty of. They both spent a lot of time between jokes. They both took the low-hanging fruit of ragging on a school they’ve never heard of (DePauw) for cheap laughs and cheers. I found Silverberg’s flow of bizarre sexual observations to be equally grating to Powell’s more unforgivable bits. Maybe I wasn’t her target audience, which is fine. I was just surprised that a comedian who I usually love just didn’t perform well.
Less Chris Powell, more Amy Silverberg
Wabash kicked off its student life activities for the semester with Wabash Always Laughs, a comedy event and the debut of the Donahue-Billups slate of campus-life-reviving activities. Two very different comedians took the stage last Saturday: actor and writer Chris Powell and USC creative writing professor Dr. Amy Silverberg. Both entertainers had lively sets, each with their fair share of raunchy material, but I left Ball Theatre on Saturday night with very different impressions. I’ll cut to the chase: I didn’t like Chris Powell’s set. I’ll talk about my gripes with the subject material, but at the end of the night, it came down to vibes. I think that the difference in the two performers, and especially the difference in the audience reaction to them, reflects some worries I have about Wabash.
Anyone who was in Ball on Saturday knew that CP’s brand of humor was pure depravity. He started strong by telling a story about laughing at amputees. It only got better from there as he explained why he should be allowed to ogle at breastfeeding women in the airport. Mixed throughout were a few more healthy doses of veiled homophobia, ableism and not liking his wife. The worst was the misogyny. “Women” was not a word in this man’s vocabulary: “b***es” seemed to suit him fine.
Silverberg, on the other hand, was immediately charming. She did have a rocky start – I guess we’ll never be free from the gratuitous “visiting performer mispronounces Wabash” bit. She recovered though. Her comedy was witty, it was personal and it didn’t rely on shock factor alone to get a reaction. She also made it clear she could tell a dirty joke or two as well, after sitting through all 80 minutes of the opening act. Was it a 10/10 set? Probably not. But the vibes were better. Silverberg’s comedy felt like it was performed for an audience of Wabash students – Powell’s comedy felt like it was performed for a bunch of men.
What I worry about is that CP seemed to find his audience a little too well in Wabash. I didn’t like how it felt like he had us pegged, like he knew exactly what we wanted to hear. Is the idea of sexualizing a breastfeeding mother in public really that funny? I mean seriously, do Wabash men really interact with so few women that we think they’re that one dimensional? I don’t mean that as a dig fellas, I’m just saying I genuinely think CP would’ve bombed in front of an audience of women. Silverberg certainly got that treatment in front of our audience of men, although perhaps the idea of a woman who is comfortable talking about sex was just too disturbing.
Credit where credit is due, I thought Powell had some good bits. He was a good physical comedian, and I think with some heavy edits, I wouldn’t have found his set so uncomfortable. I understand that comedy is subjective. It’s fine if I don’t find someone as entertaining as my peers, or if my palate for controversial topics is a bit more sensitive than somebody else’s. It might be worthwhile, though, to consider the effect, cognitive or social, of entertaining such casual use of grating, disrespectful language towards women. Wabash is supposed to be a place where we help each other consider what manliness means in practice: I bet many Wabash men would put caring for women high on that list. It’s important to live that at all times, not just when there’s a woman sitting next to you.
I’ll say once more that, as always, comedy is subjective. I liked Silverberg’s vibe, and Powell’s vibe wasn’t for me. If you feel differently, let’s talk about it. That’s what Wabash is all about.
