Going Long

One to the Right

Running Time: 50 min

If you've yet to receive your Recommended Daily Allowance of sight gags concerning groin injuries, jokes involving bodily fluids, and comic bits based around slang terms for sexual organs, you might forgo renting another video from the Farrelly Brothers and take in this boisterous little escapade from I Megalomani, the performance arm of the Austin Commedia Society. For within its roughly three-quarters of an hour running time is jammed more wacky, tacky raunch and nutty, smutty slapstick than you can shake a shtick at. A shrewd, lewd servant stutters when she has to say the p-word (you know, as in the pet who says "meow"); a feminist takes hedge clippers in hand to snip male aggressiveness off at the root; people slip on the, um, residue left by an over-the-hill hooker. You get the picture: Crude and Cruder.

Of course, that's the point. This is the kind of broad comedy that ridicules human appetites by pushing them to extremes -- grotesque extremes. Hard as it may be to believe, these pumping pelvi and lascivious leers, the dick jokes and fart gags and such, are classical theatre, and I Megalomani is just keeping alive that grand and emphatically rude tradition of no-holds-barred physical humor.

And man, does this troupe work at it! There are paramedics who don't pump as much energy into keeping a patient breathing. The seven performers in One to the Right run, jump, slide, stumble, tumble, and roll across the stage, all the while throwing themselves into their comedic bits as fully as they're able. And it's clear that they've carefully rehearsed these bits; the moves of the actors are consistently fluid, and when they connect, they do so in harmony. These folks have taken pains not to look sloppy.

Alas, at this point, maybe too many pains. For what the actors have gained in smoothness for their physical shtick, they've lost in spontaneity. Too often, bits still have the look of rehearsed routines, and when the seams of choreography are visible, it saps them of their comic punch. Likewise, the cast members, almost to a person, are prone to selling their shtick when they only need to deliver it. When they strain to be funny, they aren't. They could take a lesson in looseness from Aaron Johnson; he plays the ingenue Flavio as a lights-on-nobody-home doofus, with an adorably vacant expression next to nothing can rattle. His laid-back attitude and elastic physicality make even his most casual lazzo laughable.

Most likely, the comedians of I Megalomani will settle more comfortably into their pratfalls and double takes. They're still a young troupe, making only their fourth foray into commedia together. And broad and crude as commedia may be, it's still a hard style to master. If they aren't yet flawless at serving up every gross-out gag they do, I Megalomani are well on their way to giving There's Something About Mary a rambunctious run for its money. (Feb 4, Fri, noon; Feb 5, Sat, 2:15pm)