MONKEYSHINES

Jeff Sumerel and I are talking with The Brown Street Club in downtown Greenville about a “retro comedy show” for the spring.

The idea is deceptively simple: throw-back comedy routines and songs from the sixties club and cabaret scene. Two fellas and a piano player (the magnificent Joe Reid, we hope).

Skits (not sketches, really) and monologues from the Bob & Ray playbook. Bob Newhart. Woody Allen. Nichols & May.

Perhaps a Tom Lehrer song or two thrown in for good measure.

We will dress to the nines. Black bow ties strategically untied, collars loosened. Like Jerry Lewis in the 23rd hour of the MDA telethon.

But. Deceptively simple. How do we play the old routines? Homage to the old performers themselves? Or...modernized. As us.

“Who’s On First?” Say we do that classic comedy routine. Do we play it just like Lou Abbott and Bud Costello, or interpret it differently?