Zamboni Revolution has all the insanity of a state asylum, without the straightjackets or Big Nurse.

The comedy troupe entertained a packed Panasci Lounge Saturday night with numerous improvised scenes and jokes. It was slightly out of practice for its first show of the semester, but still enjoyable.

‘I enjoyed (the show), and I’ll definitely come back,’ said Nathan Muller, an undecided freshman in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

The troupe knows how to punctuate the humor in its scenes better than many improv groups. Instead of trying to make an entire scene a morass of one-liners, the troupe spaced out its jokes, making them that much funnier upon delivery.

‘They did a good job,’ said Jen McHenry, a senior public relations and policy studies major.

Every once in a while the performance became completely nonsensical – and not the funny kind of nonsensical. Sometimes I wondered how the scene could have possibly progressed as it did without the help of either paranoid schizophrenia or LSD.

‘Some of the skits I didn’t understand,’ Muller said. ‘I didn’t know (where) it was going.’

The scenes became especially absurd when every performer joined in on a scene. In future performances, Zamboni should try to keep its scenes smaller because too many cooks … blah, blah, blah.

‘As much as I was confused, they sold me,’ Muller said.

However, the sheer randomness of Zamboni can also be considered one of its greatest strengths. In a lot of ways, Zamboni is much more interesting than any scripted performance you’ll ever go to, because damn near anything could happen and it’s almost impossible to predict what that will be. The troupe’s imagination is a double-edged sword.

‘Those guys are very talented,’ said Reggie Pawle, a senior math and political science major.

Zamboni Revolution wasn’t afraid of including controversial humor. There were a number of jokes about religion and God that could have alienated some audience members. However, such is the nature of humor.

‘There were a couple of insensitive comments,’ Pawle said. ‘It didn’t bother me … but it’s probably something they should be more careful about.’

None of Zamboni’s performers particularly stood out during the show. The team focused more on the performance from a group perspective instead of individual members going for the limelight.

‘It’s really amazing how they coordinate and work together,’ Pawle said.

Published on October 2, 2005 at 12:00 pm