School Year 1992-1993
Skits-o-phrenia
(page 1 of 3)
I wrote up a very complete journal entry on the Skits-o-phrenia meeting
that fall, which provides a great glimpse of the sort of skits we performed
at meetings.
October 21, 1992Before heading up to the meeting, I wrote up a poem by Berlin St. Croix:
A lark —
graceful songbird
soars from
lace-strewn sky
to land on
dew-tipped grass.
Lawnmower!
Chunka chunka
chunka chunka
Chunk.On my way up to the meeting, I wrote two other Berlin St. Croix poems, one of which was a genius inspiration that I obtained on seeing a photo of Sinead O'Connor on the cover of Rolling Stone. I happened to see the magazine while I was making copies up at the HUB, so I borrowed it and made a photocopy of it.
I was one of the first people to show up, so I started recruiting people to be in "The Spy Skit." [Note: I wrote this very Pythonesque "spy skit" in high school.] I got Bernhard [Warg] to play the hick, Joe [Foering] to play Mr. Mead, and Suzanne [Moskalski] to play the stage manager. I would play Miss Bemsley. Then I recruited a couple people to be the "scufflers" at the end of "The Awards Sketch." And I was set.
Once everyone had arrived and recruited actors for their skits, the Skits-o-phrenia meeting began. First was a skit by Mark Sachs called "The Vice Presidential Debate." In it, he played Al Gore, Joe played Dan Quayle, and Bernhard played Admiral Stockdale. Jen Hoffman served as a moderator, and I was the announcer. Stockdale only interjected occasionally with lines like "Who am I? Why am I here?" Gore constantly began statements with "Bill Clinton and I feel that..." and Dan Quayle repeated his famous gaffes, arguing with Gore about a number of factual errors.They disintegrated into a parody of "The Argument Sketch," with Gore and Quayle saying "Did not," "Did too," "Did not," "Did too" back and forth until Jen cut in, "Look! This isn't a debate! A debate is when each candidate gets a chance to espouse his or her beliefs on an issue. It's not just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says." Gore and Quayle couldn't agree on anything, so Gore said, "Bill Clinton and I are leaving!"Quayle pitched in, "Okay. So leave."
"Bill Clinton and I think you should leave instead."
Ad infinitum. A very funny sketch.
