Monkeys With Handgrenades get a great review
Monkeys With Handgrenades get a great review
From Pitch Weekly
"It's no surprise, then, that this town's funniest group comedy show is scripted. The Monkeys With Hand Grenades cast members write their own sketches, demonstrating in the process why group-think shouldn't trump individual egos. These actors think they'd be funny in these bits; turns out they're right.
The setup is familiar from other cities. The Monkeys have an hour to get through 30 original plays, and audience participation is limited to the shouting out of numbers that correspond to play titles. Beating the clock requires lots of sprinting scene changes, which results in an infectious excitement, but the important thing is the laughs. The sketches are sometimes oddball and sometimes hilarious, and they dip appealingly into dark areas. Race is a frequent topic, always handled with a bruising honesty, and the Monkeys seem fond of occasionally drawing guns and slaughtering one another. With luck, they'll repeat the song about not being stuck on the Paseo at night.
This scripted show feels more spontaneous than improv; it also crackles with a danger that improv lacks. Instead of giving us what everyone agrees is kind of funny, such as Tourette's or Michael Jackson, the Monkeys offer what a batch of smart comics passionately believe is funny. That makes all the difference.
The group performs only once a month; if you have any interest in sketch work, I urge you to get there this Friday. As for me, I'd like to take some Monkeys to lunch. "
I love the fact that Paseo At Night, which was cut 2 times because someone didn't "get it", is the only play that got mentioned in the review.
