JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME . . . AND EVERYONE ELSE AND THEIR UNCLE BOB
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Maybe it’s the mellowing that comes with middle age, but the David Letterman style of humor–“I’m hip, they’re not, are you with me or against me?”–is beginning to bore me. Likewise the “men are all assholes” gags that were supposed to redress past wrongs but didn’t. Put-downs are as disposable as Kleenex: what’s put down today may be hip tomorrow. But humor that endures is ultimately life-affirming–it likes people, even while it laughs at the strange things they sometimes do. (This is the secret to Bill Cosby’s popularity, and that of Chicago’s own Aaron Freeman.)
As the various modern single women, ranging in age from preadolescent to geriatric, Lori Klinka and Virginia Smith make great play with their delightfully mobile faces–the latter has a piano-sized smile that manages to be charming as well as funny. And they display an attention to detail that makes their characters real, even when we only see them for a few seconds. In a movie-watching sketch, for example, Smith absentmindedly digs a popcorn hull from between her teeth with a fingernail. When was the last time you saw an actor who remembered that popcorn hulls stick in your teeth?
