Gunning for Laughs, With Lousy Aim

There are pictures of some very funny people on the wall of the People's Improv Theater (or PIT)-Michael Showalter, for instance, the screenwriter of beloved cult film Wet Hot American Summer, and former Saturday Night Live superstar Horatio Sanz. Unfortunately, none of them appear in Gungrease, a new sketch show that is being performed at the PIT on Friday nights until April 20. Gungrease is performed by the members of Fearsome, a sketch comedy group that is made up of two flabby men (Alex Goldberg and Chris O'Connor) and two extremely skinny women (Katherine Bryant and Shayna Ferm). Usually, Fearsome also includes a fifth member, Jaime Hayes; however, she's currently on maternity leave.

Perhaps Hayes's absence explains the uneven nature of Gungrease. The show is a mix of live sketches and pre-taped segments (a la SNL's Digital Shorts), all of which begin with normal enough premises and soon devolve into absurdity. There are no transitions between said sketches, which helps to explain why Gungrease's running time is barely an hour. It appears as though Fearsome may have written this show in the summer of 2006, considering a few of the dated references that are sprinkled throughout-in the opening sketch, one cast member expresses how tired he is of "all these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane." Another sketch parodies Yo Momma, the Wilmer Valderrama-hosted MTV game show for playground trash talkers that hasn't been on the air since last fall.

Too often, the cast members of Gungrease rely on easy, simplistic bathroom humor for their punch lines-more than one sketch attempts to evoke laughter simply by having a cast member say "syphilis" and waiting expectantly. Sometimes, though, such sketches are pitch-perfect in their outrageousness; the highlight of Gungrease is undoubtedly when Ferm brings out her guitar and sings an angst-filled ballad about personal lubricant in a whiny snarl that would make Alanis Morissette proud. It's possibly the only love song in the history of the English language that has rhymed the phrase "starting to chafe" with "makes me feel safe."

Most of the sketches in Gungrease, though, are not as enjoyable as Ferm's song; they are generally wacky, nonsensical, and filthy, but not necessarily funny. If the mere mention of the word "butthole" is enough to send you into prolonged fits of hysterics, Gungrease is the perfect show for you. If not, it might be in your best interest to look at what else the PIT has to offer.