BEATING THE SHABBY CAT
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The youthful members of Richter’s Thing, the group presenting the revue Beating the Shabby Cat Wednesday nights at the Roxy, display one impressive quality as aspiring comic performers: they are willing to make complete fools of themselves onstage. Nothing, it appears, is too low or too embarrassing for them–which makes them either really gutsy or really self-indulgent. I’m sure they think of themselves as gutsy–their press release is filled with hype about “comic brinksmanship”–but paying audiences aren’t likely to share that opinion. Even favorably inclined customers–i.e., the performers’ families and friends–will find their tolerance tested after an hour of the tedious, adolescent sexual comedy that dominates this show.
As its title indicates, Beating the Shabby Cat relies heavily on jack-off jokes. This turns out to be an appropriate subject for the group. Masturbation is a form of sexual expression in which one is concerned only with pleasing oneself; the kids in Richter’s Thing seem to be amusing themselves so much that they don’t really care whether anyone else thinks they’re funny. And the show’s approach to a joke certainly resembles the basic technique of onanism: pull at it long enough and something will come out.
