When executive producer Tristan Kruth ‘12 took the makeshift stage of a lecture hall in the geology corner lit by floodlights and swathed in black sheets last Friday night, audiences may have expected a show of ghoulish creeps and haunted mansions from the Robber Barons’ end-of-quarter show “Mystery House.” And they delivered, in time and moderation, a ghost story in four parts, with interruptions of sketches diverse in matter and manner.
The Robber Barons, Stanford’s only sketch-comedy troupe, performs original sketches à la “Saturday Night Live” and “MadTV” but, in true Stanford fashion, have an air of self-deprecation and relevant kookiness that, shall we say, pushes boundaries. The Robber Barons’ players collaboratively authored the show, and their energy permeated the chamber as initial chuckles built to full-fledged guffaws. The show played out like a train wreck, with cars piling up one atop another until the caboose piles on, but instead of ending in calamity, these train cars carried a precious cargo of top-notch jokes secured to hilarious players. The result? A conflagration of comedy.
The show started slowly but amusingly with a squirrely tour guide too emphatic about home improvement despite the corpse in the closet, but quickly elicited audience approval with a myriad of humor styles, from parody to sing-a-long to “realistic” comedy. A few gems included boys going gaga for Lolcats, an old grump’s caustic yet playful harassment of a pestering child and that awkward bed situation when the male denies any true relationship, escalated to ridiculous proportions.
Relevant songs cued the transitions almost in reprise of the preceding jokes, like last-call punch-lines with a badum-bump-chh flare. Sophie Carter-Kahn ‘13, the head writer, sang a mini-guitar manatee panegyric, decorated with undulating boys and an angry captain to marry hilarious dancing with lurid violence; “Under The Sea ” followed. Henry Schreiber ‘15 performed a meta-skit, pitching possible sketch ideas to Andrew Luck that revealed an escalation of obsession and split personality as the Robber Baron came on to the quarterback in awkward bromance, a phenomenon perhaps not uncommon to Stanford’s male population. “Why Can’t We Be Friends” trailed.
Other notable performances include Kevin Hurlbutt ‘14 as a crazed office man in the guise of Satan, churning out a bottomless peroration with such expression and cadence, a truly grand gymnastic feat of words. In “Scary Story,” Mari Amend ‘13 played a freakish spinster with an equally halting execution replete with quivering moans that incited due chortles.
Of all the skits, though, “Girls Are Funny” proved the most dynamic and, in turn, won the audience’s full-bellied laughter. The ‘50s piece suggested an homage to “Mad Men,” then quickly recanted. Instead, the ensemble poked fun at the customs of the era in a sophisticated jeer at racial and gender comedy. Doused in (fake) alcohol and boundary-pushing, Kruth, Carter-Kahn and Sam Corrao Clanon ‘13 (director) captained the skit, proving the cardinal rule of Robber Barons: no sketch will turn out how one expects, but it will definitely make the audience laugh.