'The Odditys' brings a new twist

Eight people have banded together to offer the humor-deprived a long-form sketch comedy group called The Odditys. Based at the Bloomington Playwright's Project, Odditys presented its first show at 11:30 p.m Friday night. After considering many of the other groups in town as either "just not funny" or including too many "ego-stroking" jokes, the group sought to create its own odd genre of humor.\nThe 45-minute show revolved around a central topic of "war and politics," but this main theme served as more of a suggestion than a fast rule. The group carefully managed to keep this topic from becoming too bogged down, but still tied the entire show together well.\nUnfortunately, the production suffered from a lack of experience among the performers. While many of the ideas behind the sketches held promise, the grouped lacked cohesiveness as well as timing. Some of the sketches could have been trimmed of excess material and a general smoothing out of transitions would have been much easier on the audience.\nThe group worked very well together and managed to present a nice balance between offensive throw-aways and clever twists. The group's three writers put forward some very good ideas for sketches and the performers all maintained a high level of energy throughout the show. \nIt takes an admirable amount of courage to step forward and take the risk of presenting something you believe in. These performers should be congratulated for being daring enough to fight for their cause and making such a bold stand.\nThe Artistic Director of the BPP, Richard Perez, helped support this group during its formation. He said he aided this group in its development because, "it's important to encourage people who are courageous to start new work."\nSuch new work is vital to communities and creates discussion and a continual redefining of our society. Once people stick with the safe comedy, it no longer retains its humor. Comedy should never be safe or routine.\nThis group will be very interesting to watch in the next few months as it learns and gains experience. It showed great potential during its first show and should improve greatly with practice.\nThe cast of all IU students includes seniors Kenny Dellinger, Ambur Lowenthal, Mike Mauloff, and Greg O'Neill; juniors Amy Backes and David Mickler; sophomore Jeremy Weston; and freshman Aaron Henze.\nTickets are $5 for the next show at 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 2 at the Bloomington Playwright's Project, 312 S. Washington St.