Light Comedy Blended Well

Traditional Hollywood-style comedy is not done particularly well by Hollywood. Watch nearly any traditional light comedy from the past ten years and you'll see something that is screamingly desperate to be funny. With The Comedy Kid, writer/director Patrick Schmitz manages a light comedy that doesn't seem ay all over-eager. That lack of desperatino translates into a far more comfortable and far more fun experience than one is likely to have at the next Adam Sandler movie.

Three First Stage Actors from the Patrick Schmitz-formed comedy group Lights! Camera! Improv! star alongside more seasoned talents in a story. Maxwell Zupke stars as the title character--a kid with aspirations of being a stand-up comic. His love for comedy is only matched by a love of Star Wars. When he's targeted as potential talent by a comedy club run by the Mafia, things get weird. 

The show is one hour long and feels very much like a breezy Hollywood comedy with heart. Emily Lozier plays a girl who likes Star Wars every bit as much as he does. Joey Fliegel-Misholve plays her ex-boyfriend--a thick, faux hawked bully kid who can't seem to get the message.

Schmitz' work as writer and director seem to be working in equal parts here. That's likely where the more substantial end of the success of the show seems to lie. While there are some really clever lines in here (a couple of them almost brilliantly funny) most of this is really simple stuff. Giving the right roles to the right actors and giving them room to breathe allows the cast to adjust for the weaker ends of the script. What could've come across as being exceptionally weak in places ends up being fun even when it isn't funny.  Just when i thought I'd never laugh at another Star Wars reference, Schmitz paraphrases and entire dialogue between Yoda and Luke and it works. Like so much else in the script, all Lozier and Zupke have to do is play it with a straight enough face and it comes together. The John Williams playing in t he background doesn't hurt either . . . 

Patrick Schmitz' The Comedy Kid  closes its two-night run with a 7pm show tonight at ComedySportz on 138 E Washington St. Tickets are $10 at the door.