Fear the Mule: SIT performs at Muhlenberg

I had never been to a comedy show in my life, let alone one led by students on the campus of a private, fairly religious college. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to see Muhlenberg’s stand-up comedy group, SIT, perform at their “Talk SIT, Get Hit” show in the Event Space on Mar. 24.

When I imagine comedy acts, I think of Saturday Night Live, Whose Line Is It Anyway, Robin Williams, or Joan Rivers, where improvisational and scripted jokes alike serve as the evening’s specialty. Needless to say, my expectations for the night included innocent college humor and a few zingers on the cusp of R-rated material. Essentially, I anticipated the entertainment to mimic the classic Facebooker that took it too far. You know, the one that posts statuses about the mundane parts of their day. Or perhaps the one that tells all via a social media platform meant to stay in touch with friends rather than urging a friend to delete them for recounting far too odiously what one ought to consider private. This is when I regretfully inform you that I underrated my fellow classmates.

My assumptions about the parallels between comedian and Facebooker were shamed. Comics do not have the same luxury of control as those with a social media account. One controls what one posts and reads in addition to who can access their profile. This way, an environment is created in which they have complete control. A comic does not know the individuals per se, nor can one control those who comes to their show. However, a successful comedian can read a room and engage them based on commonalities between themselves and the audience. That is not an easy feat, but the entertainment definitely delivered, attesting to the talent and draw of Muhlenberg’s reputation in theater.

I had to remind myself that I go to a college chock-full of theater majors. A late night show (10 p.m.) had me guessing what the turnout might be like. Arriving a quarter hour early in the Event Space of Seegers Union with a friend, we were pleasantly surprised to hear spirited music blasting, students laughing, singing, and mingling, alcohol and food being served buffet style, and the seats still filling up. By the time we made it to our seats with a glass of wine and some mozzarella sticks, I turned around to notice that the house was packed.

The lights went down and the show was ready to begin. As expected, jokes were told recounting college life such as the hilarities of email exchanges from mother to daughter of the scientifically ‘right’ way to use the bathroom, Tinder-gone-wrong horror stories, and the trials of being an independent college student. Some jokes were not so attuned to college life in particular, such as one’s intolerance of speaking with children and the notion one might not be able to handle death due to a childhood incident involving a pet turtle. One comic began joking how Muhlenberg’s slogan is “Fear the Mule.” The punchline was that a mule is not an animal anyone ought to fear. Mules are relatively tame farm animals that historically pulled product up and down canals. Immediately that triggered hysterical laughter amongst the crowd, myself included, probably because of the sheer realization of the sentiment. It became clear that these things were funny to us because we all had something in common: Muhlenberg College.

It was then that my understanding of comedy came to fruition. The reality is, comedians joke about the things people experience in everyday life, things that could happen to anyone. We all experience the same emotions, while the components of those emotions are different. It is within the aptitude of a comic to highlight those perhaps dull scenarios of everyday life in a way that will make people laugh.

Tolstoy believed art is the way people communicate their feelings. Comedy, a medium of theater arts, ought to be perceived with higher expectations because comics have the ability to act as the means of an audience’s release. Truth is key. They say the things we wish we could say. While the comic makes jokes to communicate, the audience acknowledges by laughing. An audience’s laughter is the communication of that release.

I have learned the things that make us laugh so quickly are often blatantly truthful. And as a liberal arts college, is that not what Muhlenberg is about? The truth? Although the mule might not be scary in itself, what it represents for those of us that can call ourselves Mules ought to be feared and revered because we are constantly breaking boundaries, pushing limits, and defining ourselves as individuals, as a community every year, every semester, every moment.

Photo courtesy of Laura Pezzulich