THE ANSWER MEN
They do in fact offer up improv, a few sketches, some stand-up, and feints at audience participation. But most of it isn’t convincing. Topicality–a staple of political comedy, particularly improv–is curiously absent. The political satire includes a bad Bush imitation and dated jokes about canned presidential aide John Sununu. There are no issues here, no ideas. In fact, there’s little to distinguish the Answer Men from any of the other improv groups in the city, with or without a political billing.
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Most of the time the Answer Men tried desperately to be wacky. Every now and then one of them would go darting across the stage for no apparent reason, shouting out something like “Surf’s up!” Because the other players seldom seemed to know how to play off this kind of absurdity, these antics were merely distracting.
