[2015080] Karl Redgen: Rapid Fire
Karl Redgen @ Austral Hotel – Red Room
11:00pm, Wed 25 Feb 2015
The précis made me curious; the opening was… strange: over the audio of a scene from Full Metal Jacket, Karl Redgen mimes… something. I’m not sure exactly what he’s trying to do – what he’s trying to evoke – and so I’m a little thankful when he begins his monologue.
But only a little thankful. Redgen has built a comedy show around stories of travel through South-East Asia – Vietnam, Thailand, Laos – and one would hope that there’s some crazy antics to be found in that lot. It’s just that these stories don’t ever really amount to much, and certainly not a punchline. They’re just the sort of tales that you expect from young men travelling through SE Asia (drinking stories, vomit, poo, elephant rides): they may have seemed interesting at the time, but they just did not work when relayed to a disconnected third-party. The occasional theatrical asides added nothing but confusion.
But – worst of all – Redgen had no crowd control. He had two paying punters on the night, and he asked anyone downstairs at the Austral to come up for free. But the resultant group of pissheads (who actually looked too young to be drinking) just talked amongst themselves and made weak-arse comments all through the show… and Redgen let them, nervously appreciating their presence.
And you know what? Fuck that.
I don’t mind performers drumming up an audience by any means necessary – that’s fine, and the donation-at-the-end-of-the-show thing seems to be all the rage this year (and is something I believe there should be more of – it perpetuates the idea that the person on the stage is attempting something worth money, something that seems to be forgotten in the current world of Comp Culture). But inviting people in, and then not keeping them in check like any comedian should to any punter? Poor form.
I was fuming after this show – at the performer, at the pissheads, at myself. And, y’know, that’s not good.
(80) Karl Redgen- Rapid Fire: Dull SE Asia travel stories inexplicably interspersed with theatre bits. No crowd control. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 25, 2015