Review: Pajama Men - Pterodactyl Nights
Cabaret Festival
In their opening act the Pajama Men (aka Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez) promise to waste the audience’s time with a show they liken to a bag of trail mix, in that “some parts will be good”.
After a rousing introduction, the pyjama-clad duo took to the stage and launched into their first act, creating a simple storyline and setting the primary scene around which all other acts and characters were loosely (in some cases very loosely) connected.
Over the course of an hour they jumped from persona to persona, taking on a wide range of characters, including disturbingly cringeworthy men, malicious women, spoiled children and – perhaps the strangest of all – a questionable and clearly unstable animal “expert”.
Each personality had unique physical and vocal characteristics and came with a series of jokes which were hurled at the audience a mile a minute. Some were clever, and some were so terrible that they were almost funny. Likewise, some of the acts seemed genuinely well thought out, while others felt chaotic and went on too long.
Allen and Chavez raced about on stage like two hyperactive children, feeding off each other and clearly enjoying every moment of their performance. Their ability to effortlessly switch between characters was impressive, as was the way in which they created a series of scenes using only two chairs for props.
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Combining narrative sketch comedy with elements of improv, Pajama Men: Pterodactyl Nights is certainly a high-energy show, but it won’t appeal to everyone – especially those not fond of trail mix.
Pajama Men: Pterodactyl Nights is showing at the Space Theatre until June 17.
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