Rice Up Your Life

A staple of campus entertainment for over half a decade, Theatre Rice presented their mid-semester show, entitled "Culture Night‚" in Dwinelle Hall last weekend. As of 7:30, the hall outside was filled with eager students waiting to get a seat-quite a turn out for a piece of performance art competing against a screening of "Kinsey" in Wheeler Hall.

The ASUC-sponsored Theatre Rice was established in 1998. Calling themselves a modern Asian American theatre group, the troupe has the ultimate purpose of combating the misrepresentation of Asian Americans in popular culture, as well as promoting Asian Americans in the performing arts.

However, in spite of this theme, they do not exclude people of other backgrounds from their group, and on top of that, 50 percent of their ticket sales go to charity.

Anyway, back to the show. '80s new wave music filled the hall as people shuffled into their seats, many in large groups, filling up entire rows. A comedic slide show ran while the audience members seated themselves that projected the "drama" that drives the troupe's creative process. The slide show was carried out in a tongue-in-cheek fashion which served both as an introduction to the group members as well as their particular style of comedy.

The show began with a "fashion" show hosted by Theatre Rice producers Rick Kitagawa and Dominique Nisperos and modeled by the cast, which included a giant pumpkin and a mummy, since it was suggested last semester that the troupe should incorporate more pumpkins and mummies into their material.

After this came a performance by an improv group within Theatre Rice known as "A.T.O.M.I.C. schlong" (Austimo's Transcendence of Motion in Comedy: Short and Long Form).

The sequence was directed by Cathy Fullerton and Matt Akana and featured the talents of Julius Cheng, Jonathan Lewis, Ernesto Manacop, Jeremy Schwartzbord, Charles Lee, Hellen Jo, Stephen "Steve-o" Hu, Emi Ikkanda, and Lysander Jim. Their short-form improv included theatre games, with suggestions drawn from the audience a la "Whose Line Is It Anyway."

Next up was a short skit by Christopher Durang entitled "Funeral Parlor," directed by Lisa Lee and performed by Jeena Yi and Kenneth Ronquillo. This skit, while extremely humorous in its own right, also showcased the incredible acting and slapstick abilities of the performers. The improv group claimed the stage again, this time performing long-form improv consisting of three stories thematically connected only by the word "chicken."

The CAT comedy troupe, formerly known as the Comedy Abridged Troupe, was the last to perform, with Sean Jain directing Rick Kitagawa, Jesse Sutanto, Elain Chu, Eve Skylar, Steve La, and Sam Ou. They performed five skits, including one about a down-and-out Cal student, a hilarious farce combining "Sex and the City" with "Fight Club" entitled "Mischief, Mayhem, Sex" and a foray into the life of a closet homosexual Asian whose mother sends him to Camp "Homo, No No." Finally, the evening came to an end with a commentary on the ongoing struggle to end the cultural stereotyping of pirates.

Theatre Rice eloquently combines humor with social commentary, by means of improv, comedy, film, dance, and music. While touching on controversial issues, they manage to hit a nerve with their viewers without causing any damage, poking fun at social constructs such as race, gender, and sexuality while still allowing the audience to laugh at their sense of absurdity.

As a side note, everyone should jump online and visit their Web site at www.theatrerice.com-it features a lot of interesting content as well as some truly mindblowing graphic design.

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