Best in Show

It's been forever since we've heard from local sketch comedy troupe Train of Thought. Alright, so it hasn't even been a month since they kicked off their participation in JibJab's Great Sketch Experiment (you can still vote on that for another week here), and they're already performing again at the Northwest Actor's Studio. While their new show is overall middling, it's peppered with moments of sheer brilliance.

Perhaps part of the mixed-baggedness is due to the format. It's a "best of" show, with skits culled from their four previous ones. Though we had only seen their last show, Breaking Up, we recognized most of the skits as coming from that source. In fact, the show starts out with what we thought was the weakest skit the first time around---a man and a woman arguing over love songs via remote control---and it's still a dud. The penguin skit was there, the red state lovin'/blue state loving skit was there, and the greeting card rap battle was there too. Meanwhile, the best skit---a "beat" poem on going off Atkins---though a dated subject, was not one we'd previously seen, and it was downright hilarious.

One thing that wasn't as good this time around was the relative lack of drag. Now that there's an actual girl in the troupe, there's someone to play all the (huh huh) girl parts. We liked it better when there were more boys in wigs (in fact, this only occurred in one of the skits, right?). There was far more girl-as-boy than boy-as-girl, and, though Kaci Aitchison does a great dumb guy voice, that's inherently just not as funny as a guy in drag. More please!

However, we were glad to hear a completely foul yeast infection joke, and the use of the term "cunt droppings." Both elicited gasps from the crowd, and of course we enjoyed that most of all.

The Best of Train of Thought
November 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th
Doors at 10pm, show 10:30pm
Northwest Actor's Studio, The Cabaret Theater, 3rd Floor
1100 E Pike Street
$10/$8 with student ID