EVIL SKETCH COMEDY
KIND WORDS
From Matt Byrne at Time Out Chicago
EVIL is a promising duo with youthful energy, whose Sunday afternoon set offered a nice balance of one-off throwaway jokes and longer, more story-driven scenes. They peppered their set with a few recurring bits, like a series of sketches following David Crockman: Lawyer of the Wild Frontier, which were 95% theme song, 5% dialogue, (Crockman's familiar refrain was sung by EVIL's Amy Thompson, who was accompanied by a banjo player seated in the back corner of the stage for the entire show). The show was well-paced and cleverly written, with a strong dynamic between Thompson and her teammate Sam Roos, especially in the show's most prominent storyline, about a pair of rivals with too much in common.
"Promising... cleverly written"
From Kiley Peters at "Life's a Funny Scene"
"Grounded and Earnest... Smart and paradoxical... Refreshing"
Sam Roos and Amy Thompson were another great example of a well-prepared duo. At the top of the show they established that they were both pining for the affection of a woman in the front row. So throughout the show, they both took turns trying to woo her by showering her with candies, stickers, flowers, chewing tobacco and booze. It was definitely a fun twist to the show and ultimately lead to the ending scene which tied up all story lines quite nicely. One of the things I enjoyed the most about watching Sam and Amy was their grounded and earnest sense of humor. This show was smart and paradoxical in the most obvious yet unexpected ways. I never felt that any sketch was laced with shock factors, but instead they all felt very real, still comical, but then again, life is funny just as it is. One of of my favorite lines was during a dispute where Sam asked what was wrong and Amy responded, “Nothing” from which a very fast-paced debate sparked ending with Sam stating, “Amy, I have a girlfriend. I know that sometimes ‘nothing’ means something.” Silly nuggets of truth. It was very refreshing to see so much life and so much fun come out of such a grounded performance. This was the first time I’ve ever seen either of them on stage and I look forward to seeing many more shows from both of them.