REVIEW: Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre's Sketch-Off Competition
Harvey
Liu attended this year's annual Sketch-Off Competion, hosted by
Vancouver Asian Comedy Theatre. Here is his review – special to
www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com
Each year, Vancouver
Asian Canadian Theatre offers an “Annual SketchOff* Competition.” Now for those
of you who are wondering what this is, just try and imagine Russel Peters x 6,
minus the brown, mixed in some yellow, and voila! (groups of Asian comedians,
in case you didn’t catch my drift) . For some background
information, VACT was made to promote and increase Asian
actors on stage, and what better way to do this than with laughter?
This years’
SketchOff* performance was my first, I must admit, but it surely will not be my
last. Two performances were held this year on May 18th and 19th,
and with team names as SLANT EYED PEAS, LICK THE WAX TADPOLE, SFUU MAN CHU, THE
YANGTZERS, BANANADRAMA, and DISORIENTAL, I find it hard to
believe that anybody would want to miss out.
Throughout my entire life (19 looong years), I have never
EVER seen an Asian comedian. Maybe it’s cause I was in Canada most my life, but
still!
All 6 teams were given 2 weeks to come up with their skits,
and boy o boy was I amazed at some of the absurd yet hilarious jokes that were
brought out of nowhere. They weren’t all original, but hey, they still did the
trick, cause my chin was bruised from laughter by the end of the night.
Most of the jokes incorporated Asian aspects such as hygiene
issues (eww…), stereotypical Chinese accents, STRONGLY over-emphasized Chinese
accents (hehe, fork… f-o-o-r-k…. f-o-o-k…. f-u-o-k… f-u-u-k… :P), and many
more. But best of all, everything that they did had a Western spin on it (like…
white style chinese comedy).
I would go on… but you guys can catch another showing of something
similar if you’re interested.
I HAD A BLAST, well, almost a blast… cause I went late and
got a shitty seat on the side where I couldn’t see everything… and I bought a 2
hour parking pass, but the show went on for 2.5hours and I got a $40 dollar
fine… SO, if you go early, and pay for 3 horus worth of parking, than I can
guarantee you (in spirit), that you’ll have a blast!