David Pardy (?L)
I’m not one to exaggerate, yet I feel confident saying this. Like Clement Greenberg’s Art and Culture, this review will change the way we, as a society, interact with art. My subject is Law Follies, the law-themed sketch comedy show you never knew a coupla’ rag tag students could throw together in the bitter winds of February and law school.
As the second greatest law school event, Law Follies cultivates the second highest expectations. This year’s show on February 12 at the Randolph Theatre had all the ingredients to meet them: a slew of scripts, talented and sexual performers, a couple’o’dolls for emcees, a diversity dreamboat (DSB) we all love to love, and a dimwitted but loyal lighting manager, Eryn Fanjoy. While Follies was excellent enough to entertain the highfalutin, denigratory royalty of U of T Law, on the whole it fell a bit flat. This is ironic given that the singers this year were not flat. But I digress.
The show kicked off with the typical video to put you in the mood. I’m not talking about the mood for being in the centre of an Eiffel Tower, which is apparently super embarrassing, but instead for a night of off-colour humour. And that’s what Follies should be – we ought to make Trey Parker’s and Matt Stone’s “Book of Mormon” look like a warm embrace of religious diversity.
Oh yeah, and we ought to celebrate our talented peers and stuff.
Initially, Follies’ pleasant mix of sketches, songs, and videos had the crowd laughing, leering hungrily at the hard bodies on stage, and falling hush to the sweet serenade of clever lyrics. We all loved “Part of Your World”, “Teach Me How to Duggan”, D(SB)ecision, Pulp Fiction, “Get a P”, “J Papa”, Holistic Admissions, Game of Deans, Dealing With Debt, and “Jackman Hall”. The riveting L’Heureux Dube rap, though a bit old horse, was a hit too. All great. And then Jian Gomeshi came in and trashed the place.
Even as an avid advocate of crass comedy, I think the Jian sketch tactlessly pierced the perimeter of permissible performance material. I don’t know how Joe Guiyab stayed in character (which was bordering on masterful, I must say) after the audience’s drunken chortles dried up only a minute into his cringe worthy soliloquy. I cannot imagine how any sexual assault victims in the audience felt. The sketch happened just two days after Walk-A-Day. It never should have escaped the chopping block.
Even if you think the sketch was all in good humour, I would argue that it lacked commitment. The last line, something like, “As long as we keep perpetuating rape culture, affluent and powerful men like me will go free,” was strikingly discordant with everything previous. Its inclusion did not state the thesis of the sketch, it instead revealed that the writer felt remorse. Rightly so.
On a brighter note, I love Law Follies! It’s nice for us students to come together and laugh about our mutual antagonism towards certain things. Like the new building. And debt. And the new building. And debt. And admin law. And the new building.
Yeah, there were too many building and debt jokes. Those horses were dead and rotten by intermission. In future shows, can we indebt those who say “debt”? Payment will be chugging a beer on stage. If Queen’s Players taught me anything, stage drinking can only end well.
One thing that did end kind of well was including professors in the show. To my surprise, this has not entirely quashed jokes at their expenses. And the professors were funny! And decent singers! Duggan is a better dancer than I am.
I will say, however, that some student-professor interactions were indecorous. While I don’t intend to put professors on a pedestal, I believe that student-professor fraternization can diminish their statuses. This year, students wrote several crude lines for professors, some too crude. I know that a professor refused to perform an especially edgy line. That’s fine. The sketches that professors wrote and starred in were naturally better anyways. We should encourage professors to write their own material. As they very frequently reminded us, professors are quite smart, so they are surely capable of it. And with minimal student-professor interaction, these sketches would be more… decorous.
Cutting UK Porn Laws could have kept Follies from being as long as an extended Lord of the Rings movie. Holy moly was that weird. If anything, David Cameron should have criminalized this sketch. It used sexuality as a blunt tool that was more discomforting than comedic. And let’s be real, legal porn would not even be that hot.
All in all, I actually loved the show, sippy cup alcohol and all. It’s the law school’s second best event! 10/10 would Follies again. Kudos to the entire crew. The music was especially impressive this year. Not only were the lyrics hella dope, but we didn’t have to drown out the vocalists with loud music!
Bravo, bravo!
