Funny Bonesteel: New weekly comedy night starts off well at Chico Cabaret
The opening Sunday-evening performance of The Crippling Thoughts of Victor Bonesteel, Chico Cabaret’s new comedy night, was relaxed and informal. Without a program or a stage set, the actors (and writers) presented the collection of skits, parodies, commentaries and songs using nothing more than a few costume changes and a handful of props (fishing pole, birth control pills, armbands with swastikas–the essentials).
The show opened with a musical intro by Doug Anderson, from whom we learn the show will be “canceled” if an actor doesn’t show up to fill an empty spot. When actor and co-writer Brian Finnigan appears to save the show, we learn that the premise of Finnigan, Brian Miner and Tony Varicelli’s comic production is that it will take place at a struggling community theater. The next few scenes riff off this central concept, explaining at first how reality TV is replacing theater before admitting that “shitty theater is replacing theater.”
Some of the more amusing and varied skits were those of the assorted actors or extras in this faux theater who were allowed their “extras scenes.” In one of these skits, actors Jill Miller, Allison Rich and Sean Green mock and make fun of the show’s writers, one for being short and another for having a receding hair line.