April 25th, BA Comedy Lab, Buenos Aires

Sigh, I knew this day would come. Last night took me across town to a trendy bar in Palermo and my first show by BA Comedy Lab. Ninety minutes, four comedians, and one Aperol Spritz later, I emerged to clear skies and quiet streets. Such idyllic conditions demanded a stomp around the block, plus after last night’s show I had plenty to think about. Stomp, stomp, stomp I went to the tune of The 1975’s latest album turned way up. I bought two chicken arepas. They were bland but I was too distracted to ask for salt. 

I hate to say this, but for me last night’s show flopped. It flopped for the sole reason that the energy in the room never made it off the ground. It wasn’t all the comedians’ fault; I can chalk it up to three factors, the Holy Trinity of Floppage if you will, and I want to discuss each one. I hate to seem cruel for writing this because comedians are so brave and you all have my heart just for getting on stage. Seriously. I also want to be sensitive to the fact that for all the comedians last night, as far as I know, English was a second language. That’s an added challenge that I want to be respectful of. I do sincerely appreciate that comedians in Buenos Aires have provided a space for English-speaking fools such as myself to get their stand-up kicks. You all keep me going while my Spanish remains parked at the A1 level. And yet. And yettttt, a critic’s got to critique so here we go. 

Let’s start with the room. It was a long skinny number with a black stage at the front, tall tables lining the sides, and an aisle down the center. The setup was very sleek and hipster but it was also isolating. Everyone was cordoned off at their individual tables like little planets. All by my lonesome, I felt miles away from my fellow show-goers. I guess some of this loneliness could have been mitigated by bringing friends??? But even so, cramming tables together and forcing people to congregate like salty, sweaty sardines really helps brew an excitement I just didn’t feel last night. In cramped quarters something kinetic gets passed around. Individuals start operating as one entity that coagulates in the darkness and ambient heat of bodies. Your laughter doesn’t fizzle into the ether as mine did last night; it becomes part of a larger pulse. So there’s that. Also, the stage lighting could do with a rejig as the comics were in the shadows for a lot of the show. At least that was the view from my lonely planet near the back. 

The second ingredient in last night’s flop-tail was the audience’s state of comatose. There were some objectively funny jokes (art is objective when I write about it) that barely got a spattering of laughter. A prime example is MC Felix Buenaventura’s remark that the way he is on stage isn’t how he normally talks, accompanied by an impression of him chatting in stand-up mode at a grocery store. A clever jab at the artifice of comedy?? J’adore. Kiki Bosma also had a great impression of her date ordering coffee like he was giving a TedTalk. I don’t know if she worked on it since my last review, but this rendition had me chuckling. Actually my own laughter was sadly all I could hear. A shrill, faceless solo in that vacuous room. To be honest the crickets made me want to laugh louder because dead-eyed audiences exasperate me so much. They’re just not team players. They don’t understand that their belly laughs, whoops, cheers, *respectful* participation, and openness to being delighted will make or break the show. Live performance isn’t predetermined; it’s formed in the moment and it needs you. When Buenaventura asked if anyone had seen Eat, Pray, Love he was met with silence. Chilling. 

Of course, a sleepy audience evokes the old question of the chicken and the egg: does the zombified crowd maketh the lack-luster show or is it the other way around? In this case I think it’s a bit of both, which brings me to the third part of the Trinity: the comedians. To. Be. Fair. They all had some good bits. I enjoyed Maria Añez’s jokes about messing with her family on WhatsApp after the first trans candidate for the Venezuelan presidency was announced. Likewise for Frank Traynor’s mocking claim that, as an Argentinian man, of course he can drive a manual Vespa. Spoiler: he can’t. My issue isn’t with the individual jokes, but with a general lack of attention to the connective tissue around the jokes. I’m talking about the MC turning to his notes as soon as he got on stage, instead of having his material nailed down so he could captivate the audience’s attention from the get go. Or Traynor–the closing act–telling a long-winded story about how he tried to get a job in the States and ended up getting high and crashing his friend’s Vespa, with no care for the individual beats in the tale or ending on a crescendoing punchline. Yes, stories are a great way to build tension, but only if the payoff is worth it. Also no harm but after 45 minutes of dead air and half-hearted laughter, I really don’t think a bit about the pipeline from masturbation to pedophilia was going to save the night. Know your audience and frankly, ew. 

I guess this was my main problem with the show: it kept reminding me that I was at a show. All throughout there were moments when the ball would drop, either from checking notes, waffling, or clumsily transitioning between jokes. Each time, I’d reawaken to the fact that we were all just a bunch of people in a room and some of those people were trying to make the rest laugh. Buenaventura is right, stand-up isn’t real life. It’s a peculiar space where audience and performers invest in a fantasy together. That fantasy can’t survive on punchlines alone, it needs all the stuff. The lights, music, crowd work (of which there was almost 0), thoughtful set-ups and segues, an ability to read the room — it all matters. And so does getting jazzy and having fun, obviously. I’m not totally obsessed with everything being orchestrated, but I do prefer my comedy polished and well lit, that’s for sure.💫