"The story I'm about to tell is filled with so many levels of shame, it's almost unbelievable," said professional comedian Michael Ian Black Wednesday night in MacMillan 117 before launching into a description of a drug deal that took place at a Buffalo Wild Wings. "I'm not even sure why I'd want to divulge this."
Black was a part of RISK!, a live show and podcast that allows people to share personal anecdotes. The show, which was staging its first college gig, was created by actor and writer Kevin Allison. After sensing a lack of honesty in his stand-up act, Allison decided to make a forum for people to connect by telling their own true stories. RISK! is usually performed in Los Angeles and New York City, according to the show's website, and has featured many comedians such as Sarah Silverman.
"RISK! is about throwing yourself into the water — going out on a limb," Allison said.
Hosted by the comedy club Out of Bounds, the show featured first-person tales deftly delivered by professors and students, as well as Allison and Black.
The only requirement for the stories was that they relate, however loosely, to this show's theme of education. What emerged was an eclectic mix of stories that were both playful and poignant, such as one about the wisdom Adam Weinrib '12 gleaned from a bean-dip-loving Texan cabbie and one about mishaps with a stubborn frog in biology class recounted by Connie Crawford, adjunct lecturer in theater arts and performance studies.
All of the stories were charming and provocative individually, but the real fun of the show was seeing where they all intersected. Crawford and Will Ruehle '13— who co-organized the event along with Jamie Brew '12, a Herald contributing writer — told stories about how they were both forced to perform euthanasia on small animals. Nina Mozes '08, Weinrib and Black all told stories featuring prepared meats. Allison, Crawford and Black all referenced hallucinogenic mushrooms.
RISK! packages storytelling, the oldest art form in the world, for the Internet age — it is snappy, funny and tongue-in-cheek without sacrificing the sincerity that has always been the key to capturing imaginations. It is the hybrid you might get if you bred a Lolcat with a lion.
Members of the audience might have come for some laughs, or maybe a sighting of Black, but they left with much more — by the end of the evening, they had witnessed a Frankensteinian construction about the meaning of life.
