It’s not every day that you see a full grown man tremble in front of an audience. “I want to apologize if I seem nervous right now,” stammered stand-up comedian Anthony So (‘14), who did at that moment seem incredibly anxious.
Audience members looked on with intrigue as his hands nervously fluttered from his throat to his backwards-facing-cap. So quickly explained: “It’s not because I’m performing, it’s because nervousness is my general state of being. I get nervous about everything, sometimes I get nervous about being outside, like if the pollen count in the air is too high… I’m fucking done for the day.” And as with all good art, the barrier between the onlookers and the performer melted away, as the audience dissolved into riotous laughter, smiling along with So’s high-energy movements as he joked through his own fluttery demeanor.
Last Tuesday, laughs and awed silences were abundant in the dimly-lit common room of Kairos as the student artists of Stanford bravely took to a softly-lit stage to showcase their recent work. Tuesdays in the Poolroom, a bi-weekly event coordinated by the Student Organizing Committee for the Arts (SOCA), is a new home for students to perform their work in a low-key, supportive environment. Writers, comedians and improvisers alike share pieces that predominantly claim to be written “the night before” (as the highly talented Jennifer Schaffer said about her prose piece), or made up on the fly. But the spontaneity of this event does not detract from the quality of the experience. Instead, it brings a unique feel to these Tuesdays: every audience member seated on the poolroom’s over-loved printed couches is invited to help maintain the atmosphere of creation, and to share in the excitement that circulates throughout the room.
The night began with a staged reading from a screenplay written by Harley Sugarman (’14) set in McCarthy-era America. Sugarman’s clever sense of humor and swiftly driven plot kept us drawn into the complicated world without the need of sets or costumes. After his reading, student writer Jennifer Schaffer (’14) delivered a powerful prose piece she had written about the temptation of selfish love. Her piece was jarring, her imagery unique and penetrating. After her piece, I was awed into a silence that could only be broken by an equally as powerful, but opposite emotion. The next group provided this exact release; SIMPS, Stanford’s improv group, dispensed collaborative laughs as they triumphantly created and tackled diverse scenes with creative ease.
More laughs ensued in the two-part stand-up comedy finale. The first comic, Anthony So, used his own quirky body movements and quick-paced speech to heighten the emotional voltage of the room, shocking the audience with his self-deprecating humor as he flit from joke to joke with no pauses for laughs in between. Stu Melton (‘15) was much calmer in both delivery and action, and his humor rose slowly, still provoking the same deep laughs. I was impressed to see such different yet equally skilled performances back-to-back – clearly Tuesdays is a unique environment that allows such distinctly unique tastes to intermingle and be equally appreciated.
After laughing at So’s quirky, full-bodied humor, or reveling at Schaffer’s beautifully written prose, it will be hard not to find myself wandering back, wine glass in hand, to those same couches to discover what our talented peers have come up with for their next performance in the poolroom.
SOCA hosts Tuesdays in the Pool Room every other Tuesday at Kairos. Check out their other events on their Facebook.
(‘16) enjoys long walks on the beach while … oh… wait… wrong profile. Savi is a casual writer and is an all around swell person. On a scale of one to inception, she’d be a leonardo di Caprio due to her agility and ability to always know where north is.