Comedy at Rooster T.

On Saturday night, we went to Rooster T. Feathers in Sunnyvale for a comedy show. The featured comedian was Mark G. and the headliner was Kira Soltanovich. She is a regular on a cable show called Girls Behaving Badly. Both comedians made me laugh, but I must admit that neither knocked my socks off.

Each had a different comedic style. Mark G. had a prepared set of material. He knew what jokes he wanted to tell and how he was going to tell them. He related well with the crowd and would wing it with them, but it wasn't the bulk of his routine.

Ad lib comedy was the cornerstone of Kira Soltanovich's set. Her routine was almost entirely improvised (or at least felt that way) and seemed more organic, as though its development depended on the composition of the crowd. It was like watching a cook preparing a meal based on whatever ingredients he or she happened to find in the pantry. As she went along, she would label tables based on her first impression of them. There were the Swingers, Last Supper, Dawson's Creek and the Bachelorette Party. She would also give people nicknames as she learned a bit about them, like Scales, Sweet Nuts and Denver. Taking the time to develop this cast of characters gave the jokes she planned a certain richness and sense of spontaneity.

Sigh. I just reread the previous two paragraphs and instead of sounding like lighthearted summaries of funny comedy acts, they sound more like comedy autopsy reports. "Subject was performed by an adult male in his mid-thirties. Curvature and density of the funny bone indicates repetitive jokes dealing with sexual orientation, obesity and London. Subject exhibits an elongated vulgarity gland discolored by a predilection for political incorrectness. Cause of death likely due to a lack of laughter brought about by a clogged punch line artery."