If last week's Laughter Arts Festival at the Paramount Theater is any indication, Charlottesville is ready for a comedy revolution.
March 17, an eclectic, packed house welcomed The Paramount's stand-up comedy premiere. Gary Gulman from NBC's "Last Comic Standing" and Ed Helms of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" headlined an evening of often amusing, rarely raunchy material.
D.C. Comedian Andy Campbell opened the show with cliché-laden, unoriginal material. And though his occasionally energetic female enactments and bodily contortions breathed life into such tired topics as weddings, booze and razorblades, Campbell's act was, for the most part, forgettable.
Boston-born Gary Gulman started his set with safe, self-deprecating material before finding his stride. The mixed crowd -- equal parts students, young professionals, families and older couples -- would challenge most comics, but Gulman's clean, casual, everyday-observances schtick was well received.
Gulman riffed on grapes' imperviousness to the insidious, omnipresent juices of grapefruit in fruit salad and celebrated the Fig Newtons' creative fillings. In fact, most of Gulman's show featured food -- safe material for a varied audience.
A joke or two fell flat from poor development and his 50-minute set ended with a lackluster, uncharacteristically profane punch line, but Gulman's ably presented and universally applicable material captivated the crowd.
After a 15-minute intermission, a momentum-obliterating interrupt in any comedy show and something the Paramount would do well to eliminate in future stand-up performances, Campbell returned for a few minutes before Ed Helms took the stage.
Unlike Gulman's locality-free set, Helms opened with a hilarious account of his senior-year trip to the University as a prospective student. Winning over the crowd with material on Southern accents and Monticello, Helms made good use of his billing -- Campbell and Gulman already tested the waters for adult material -- and stuck to clean comedy.
When grasping for material, Helms briefly reverted to politics a la "The Daily Show," quipping, "but George Bush isn't really an evil man, is he?", evoking a cascade of vociferous liberal boos.
Helms entertained with his impression of the "queeny" Al Gore and closed with several minutes on his unhealthy obsession with Yanni, including a humdrum reading of liner notes and a spastic, tripped-out interpretive dance.
All comics touched on the Paramount's splendid décor. But it was Helms who best summarized the juxtaposition of stand-up comedy and $17 million worth of renovations. "I feel like I should be doing opera," Helms said before delivering an intentionally overblown punch line in a wobbly baritone.
Though he was joking, Helms touched on one of the key challenges to the state of C'ville's stand-up: Where does X-rated comedy fit in a student, family and retiree population?
The Paramount avoided controversy by including relatively clean comics on its first bill, and the Carrot Top show in early April shouldn't ruffle any feathers. But when a Paramount employee took the stage Thursday night to announce the upcoming Carrot Top show, the crowd released a knowing groan. There are only so many clean comics in America, and we already saw Gallagher last year. One has to wonder if Charlottesville, and the Paramount, is ready for something more.
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