‘Skits and Giggles’: More skits than giggles

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Editor’s Note: 42Fifty Managing Editor Jamani Reed was a cast member in “Skits and Giggles.” She was not involved in the writing or editing of this review.

On Friday, Feb. 15, Oswego High School presented its second performance of the winter play “Skits and Giggles.” Meant to have an “SNL-like” style, the show sure had us giggling at points, but some glaring flaws kept it from being absolute comedic genius. The show was split into seven scenes with a video skit separating each scene. Entirely student-written and directed, all of the actors were freshmen and sophomores of OHS.

“Skits and Giggles” was very entertaining and funny in its first half, but the second half dragged on for too long. During the second half, our attention was often lost and we were losing track of what was going on. For example, our attention was lost in scene two, which was about a barber losing her shop, and trying to use bigfoot to get it back. Overall, the plot in this scene was not very interesting and caused us to doze off.

The acting in this play was not horribly bad, but it was pretty rough in some spots. Some of the actors seemed like they did not want to go “all-in” on their roles possibly because of stage-fright or even laziness.  

The video transitions were our favorite part of the play, as the acting was top-notch during these sequences and better than the acting in the actual play. The videos often had a small comedic twist at the end that had us both on the edge of our seat and laughing uncontrollably. However, there were also many moments in the play and videos where it seemed they almost had inside jokes for the people who are involved or close with the theatre. This was cool and all, but people who aren’t in drama club definitely got confused as to what these insiders all meant.

Senior Ryan Sendef, who provided the transitions in between scenes  really stood out to us. Sendef put on an excellent performance in the videos and made the play an overall pleasant experience. Sendef combined with the video editing made everybody laugh, which is the number one key in any comedic play.  

In the staged out skits, freshman Ethan Ong was a huge standout. He showed his emotions very well and provided excellent comedic timing with his line delivery every time he was on stage.

The best skit in the play was the one about the clown garbage man. This scene was about a garbage man who wanted to be a clown but didn’t succeed  but did in a amazing job at picking up trash around the town. The scene ends with Jerry being a clown and garbage man at the same time. We thought it was the funniest skit as it was really unique and the actors played their roles really well.

The worst skit was the final skit of the entire show. This skit’s plot was of an older lady showing songs from her Christmas album where each song had a small twist to provide a punchline. Unfortunately, the songs and jokes came off really annoying and cheesy, something younger kids would find funny.

If the actors were willing to have more fun and be more creative with their roles, we probably would have been more into it. To add, the skits themselves were very hit or miss. Although the short video skits were all well written and incredibly consistent in quality, the play itself lacked humor and energy. Despite the flaws, our interest is piqued in what’s next for the Standing O Theater Company here at OHS.