All Photos by Jakub Mosur
The last three years have been awful. Like, pure misery. SF Sketchfest, alongside Noise Pop, was kind of the “last” festival before things went to hell. In late 2020, when SF Sketchfest graced us with their calendar, I was excited, not just about the shows, but because it meant to me that there might have been a path out of this madness. But, instead of enjoying an early 2021 reprieve from the darkness, cases got worse. Vaccines were starting to make their way into our arms, but not anywhere nearly fast enough to change the trajectory of the pandemic. So the whole thing was moved to 2022. The same January 2022 gifted us with Omicron, decimating the Bay Area and locking down several counties. So, yeah, it got pushed again to 2023. And based on November 2022, I wasn’t expecting 2023 to be any better, and I was expecting to lose another year. BUT- something strange happened… People were actually careful this Christmas and NYE. We didn’t get a January surge like we had the last two years. Regular readers will know that I am EXTREMELY COVID pessimistic, and I was expecting, even if the festival happened, that I wouldn’t take part. But luckily, much of California is doing very well with COVID. (Lord help us that we finally get to the point where we don’t have any more increases in case rates!)
When January 21st rolled around, I was still a bit nervous and excited about heading into the city for this. I arrived to the newly renovated The Great Star Theater, and LITERALLY, fireworks went off. It was a glorious welcome. It was a sign. Mostly it was a sign that I didn’t know it was the Lunar New Year, but I let me have this. I walked into the theater and took my seat in the last row, closest to the door. (Hey, baby steps here!) The smell of popcorn was so intense that it permeated by N95. The familiar sound of the SF Sketchfest preshow playlist- a variety of bright, quirky pop songs that everyone knows- felt like a warm, welcoming hug. For those that need to know, it was “Parklife” by Blur, “Boom! Shake The Room!” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, and the most underrated riff on the late ’90s, “Mmmbop” by Hanson. Despite this being my first time in this room, it felt like a homecoming.
As the house lights went down and the emergency exit information came from the loudspeakers, I started to get chills. I was about to see ACTUAL THEATER for the first time since the apocalypse. I was about the enjoy the cast of the greatest three-season show in history: Viva Variety!
The State / Party Down cast member Ken Marino casually walked on stage. He brought out a character reminiscent of his character in the classic “The Pope Is Coming” sketch. He essentially functioned as a “host” of the festivities, an Italian morning DJ who was excited to interview the cast of “Italy’s longest-running variety show that only lasted one season in America.” Accompanied by his producer, a stone silent (and hysterically deadpan) nun portrayed by Jenny Lennon and his sidekick Eddie, portrayed by the nearly unrecognizable David Wain. They brought out, one by one, the primary cast members of Viva Variety, first Mr. Meredith Laupin, portrayed by Thomas Lennon, dressed in a tuxedo, chain-smoking and drinking an entire bottle of red wine, followed by the equally nicotine-hazed former Mrs. Laupin, portrayed by the brilliant Kerri Kenny-Silver, and last but not least, Michael Ian Black’s pompadoured king of awkward cool, Johnny Blue Jeans.
The next 90 minutes brought us a masterclass in live sketch comedy. The six people on stage are masters of character and improvisation. When the fireworks outside interfered with the show, the cast played off it. Marino would stop everything throughout the show and play a song, since this was a radio show. When this happened, everyone on stage quickly dropped character and did a new, different weird thing every time it happened- from “peeing” to making out with the nun to the weirdness that I didn’t even understand. It was beautiful and hysterical and weird beyond my wildest dreams.
I’d love to tell you the whole show, but that’s bad journalism. I will give some highlights, however! Including a moment where everything stopped, and a person in a monkey costume brought out a slew of inflatable bananas, and the cast ran around the theater, hitting each other with the bananas while “We Didn’t Start The Fire” played. And fellow The State alum Joe Lo Truglio came out to portray The former Mrs. Laupin’s new lover, Canada’s most popular Corey Feldman impersonator. Johnny Blue Jeans entered the audience to do Q+A, and a slip-up from Mr. Laupin turned into Blue Jeans asking the audience questions instead of vice versa, which was DEFINITELY how these should always be done in the future. Oh, and we did get an answer as to why there is no home video or legal stream of Viva Variety. Mr. Laupin said, “After years and years of trying to figure out who has the rights so we can finally help this see the light of day, it turns out WE DO. And we don’t have a streaming service ourselves, so that’s what’s happening.”
It was such a lovely night. As I walked out to the smoke-filled Jackson Street littered with holiday revelry, I realized how nice it was to laugh in a giant room with other people laughing, experiencing communal joy, and being out with the masses. It still didn’t feel totally normal- someday, it will be safe to be indoors with strangers, bare-faced. But it felt so nice. It felt like being a real human.
