Middle Eastern Comedy

The Middle East always makes for a hot topic of discussion. Whether it be Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent appearance in front of the United Nations, where he addressed issues relating to Iran’s newly unveiled uranium enrichment facility, or the ongoing U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sounds like funny stuff, right? You are probably thinking “Um…no.” Well let me tell you, it can be very funny stuff if addressed by a talented group of sketch comedy performers, as it was on night two and three of the Middle Eastern Comedy Festival, which ran from Sept. 22 through Sept. 25.

Wednesday and Thursday nights of the festival at Acme were dedicated to sketch comedy while Tuesday’s opening night dubbed the “Brown Carpet” and Friday’s closer featured stand-ups at the Laugh Factory. But Thursday’s sold out show wasn’t solely sketch comedy based, in fact it too featured a sample of stand-up.

Stand-up comedian Amir K entertained the diverse crowd with his pokes at not only his own ethnicity with jokes about his Persian father’s misunderstanding of American culture, but also with his friendly jabs at other cultures. Amir’s imitation of a Mexican police officer pulling over his American tourist friends and his retelling of his Vietnamese drycleaner’s bad joke not only had the crowd rolling but also displayed his accent imitation skills.

Preceding and following Amir’s performance was a well produced series of sketches that blended Middle Eastern cultural references with a uniquely American style of humor, complete with a nightly news skit that reoccurred in between bits throughout the performance. The Nightly Neighborhood News with anchors Jumana and Wissam, played by Reem Mahmood and Sam Younis, was a humorous break in between sketches and was basically a Middle Eastern take on traditional American local broadcast journalism, complete with a weatherman whose forecast for the Middle East was “hot!” and a Daily Show-esque correspondent dawning a flack jacket and helmet reporting on a crisis involving a shortage of olive oil.

Much like other comic troops such as Culture Clash, the players in the sketch portion of the festival used humor and satire to bring light to issues concerning their culture using humor to break the ice for what can usually be an awkward subject. Skits such as The Dinner Game and Home for the Holidays exemplified such satire touching on subjects such as prejudice and racial profiling. Both of the aforementioned bits were the perfect examples of a sketch perfectly bringing the point they were respectively trying to make home and were downright funny on top of that.

One of the funniest sketches of the evening had nothing to do with Middle Eastern stereotypes or jokes about suspected terrorists, but with weather. Hurricane Bar was a clever and anthropomorphic sketch of hurricanes, other weather systems and an earthquake imbibing at a local dive and vying for the attention of a sultry hurricane named Katrina. While this sketch differed in the fact that it had no Middle Eastern references, it was similar in its political and social commentary.

Actor Ryan Shrime and comedian Ronnie Khalil, who co-produced and are the founders of the festival, which was sponsored by KPCC 89.3 public radio, spoke to the audience before and after the performances and let it be known that their mission is to represent a culture that is underrepresented in the comedy world and that is often times misrepresented and type-casted in the media.  Shrime and Khalil did a superb job at supporting their mission statement by putting together a show that people of any culture could have enjoyed.  The small portable sets, music, lighting and use of the video screen for various scenes created a vibrant backdrop for which the actors could exhibit their sheer talent and made for a very palatable night of comedy.  Palatability is something needed if you are trying to reach the masses and Shrime and Khalil had that down pat.

It’s rare that a comedy show, especially live sketch comedy, can make me genuinely laugh out loud throughout most of the performance, but this show did.  Even when I wasn’t laughing, I at least had a big enough smile on my face to leave my facial muscles aching after the show.  The combination of the talented actors, funny comedians and obviously excellent writers/sketch directors made for a perfect comic storm.

I didn’t know what exactly to expect when I was waiting in line on the La Brea sidewalk at 9:45 p.m. before what was supposed to be a 9:15 show started, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised and find myself wishing I would have caught the stand-up portion of the festival.  Oh well, maybe next year.  After all this was billed the First Annual Middle Eastern Comedy Festival.