Last year, my sister and I went to Chicago to visit some friends for the weekend. These friends are wonderful and gracious hosts who I think are secretly thrilled that all we really want to do is sleep late and sit around drinking and chatting together.
But in between lazy mornings, we usually try to get out to at least one event, and it’s typically an improv show of some sort. This time we chose a random little theatre close to where we’d eaten dinner, and decided to just attend whatever started at 8:00 PM.
As someone who is absolutely terrified of being asked to participate, I was a bit worried at first — the black box theatre seated around 30, and for awhile we were the only people in line. By the time the show started, a crowd of about 20 had filled in, so it wasn’t as nerve-wracking but still quite intimate.
The performance was a mixture of group improv and smaller bits. A stand-up comic did a five-minute set, and then they brought on a ventriloquist. The woman approached the stage with a large sheet thrown over her hand, under which I assumed there was a puppet of some kind.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of live theatre over the years, including a fair share of experimental stuff, so I was ready for whatever weird thing was under there.
My sister, on the other hand, was not. So when the woman whipped the sheet off to reveal a two-foot long talking vagina expertly crafted out of pink foam, it surprised her. Again, she didn’t have a problem with it, she just wasn’t prepared for it.
So she yelled, into a fully silent room, “OH GOD!”
Needless to say, everybody in the crowd heard it. Everybody on stage heard it. And of course she and I couldn’t stop shaking with laughter afterward.
The vagina went on to say some very smart and thought-provoking things, and we went on to enjoy our evening of comedy, though nothing was ever funnier than that shocked outburst.