Comedy duo brings wild ride to Victoria
Pajama Men, who always perform in sleepwear, got a break when Second City rep saw show at Edinburgh fest
What: Pajama Men Where: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday Where: The Metro Studio Tickets: $18/$20 via intrepidtheatre.com or Ticket Rocket (250-590-6291)
When Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez started out, the costumes worn by comedy improvisers tended to be suits or T-shirts and jeans.
To stand out, they decided to perform in their jam-jams. Always. And not surprisingly, they started calling themselves the Pajama Men.
“I’ve always just liked the look of them,” Allen said over the phone. “They have a certain classical vibe.”
For the past 17 years, the Pajama Men’s brand of surreal comedy has served them well. The American duo, performing at the Metro Studio this weekend, have scored rave reviews from the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and The Guardian. They’ve graduated from performing at mostly fringe festivals (including Victoria’s) to playing international comedy festivals.
What’s their comedy like? Treading the thinnest of plot-lines, the Pajama Men waft from character to character: mermaids, psychopaths, monsters, idiotic vampires, chess-playing bats, grinning horses.
“It’s a very anarchic, very wild ride. Very physical. We’re sweaty and panting at the end of it,” Allen said.
“I haven’t seen anybody else doing exactly what we’re doing, even after all this time doing it.”
The show they’re offering in Victoria is Pajama Men: Pterodactyl Nights, which is essentially a “best-of” from different shows they’ve created.
Allen and Chavez met as highschool students in 1993 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One day, Allen (who now lives in London,) was walking by the school’s performing arts centre and noticed a gathering. Upon learning it was auditions for a comedy improv team, he asked to join.
Each person needed a partner. That’s when Allen spied Chavez.
“I’d seen Mark before. I was drawn to him somehow. But we hadn’t met,” he said.
“Mark and I became fast friends in a very childish way. We spent most of our time — and we still do this — talking in [fake] voices and thinking up scenarios. We’re still very much like that. We’re always in character with each other.”
After high school, the pair joined another improv group, but got into trouble because they ignored traditional rules of improv, preferring to do their own thing.
Aside from a shared comic sensibility, Allen and Chavez have much in common. They were both the youngest child in unconventional families. Allen said he lived with his mother, his gay father and the father’s boyfriend in a “communal situation.”
The children were mostly banned from watching TV. As a youngster, Allen got his comedy fix from listening to a cassette of Eddie Murphy’s 1983 Delirious special over and over.
There wasn’t much of a comedy scene in Albuquerque. The Pajama Men eventually branched out to the Canadian fringe festival circuit. In 2004, they tried the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival, where they ended up being nominated for a “best newcomer” award.
Their audiences were small, however, and the pair lost $16,000.
Fortunately, one of their shows (“I think there were four people in the audience,” said Allen) was seen by a representative from Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe. He brought them back to Chicago, with Second City supporting the Pajama Men’s shows and presenting them in partnership with the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
“It was a real boost for us,” Allen said.
On tour, the Pajama Men each bring several pairs of pajamas, a necessity, as each performance is a real workout. Department stores tend to carry them, although they’re harder to find in summer months, Allen said.
“I don’t know who this subset of people are who wear them is,” he added, “but it must be massive.”