Jeff and Buttons
Ever want to see a comedy duo where both members refuse to play the "straight man?" Well, that is Jeff and Buttons. These guys definitely utilize their whole bodies, literally flinging themselves around the stage, but the true energy of the show comes from their text. Almost as if trying to fit a 3 hour production into their allotted 60 minute slot, they take off at the top of the show and only speed up until its conclusion.
Jeff Seal (Jeff) and Chris Manley (Buttons) know and love their style of quick Vaudevillian riffs and gimmicks. However, rather than get caught up for too long in a single game, they quickly devolve their jokes to the silly, then absurd, then ludicrous, strange, bizarre, and sometimes just for fun confusing and utterly nonsensical. Most enjoyable is when they return back to square one to remind the audience that all of their tangents are still part of one elaborate bit. They used this to great effect in their opening, which involved testing out their microphones and the sound system (watching an empty stage has never been so funny), and in their telling of the basics of a knock knock joke that was far from "basic."
It was a lot of fun trying to keep up with this show. I do feel though that both performers could have spent slightly more time tending to their audience. While the majority of the show was delivered out to the audience, it seemed more presentational than personal. A few more moments of really checking in with the crowd might give the show some room to breathe and make the laughs more intimate. Either way, this turbo-charged show was a welcome change from some of the slower, more deliberate pieces I have seen this week. A great element of clown is the hilarity of chaos, and these two are a verbal and physical maelstrom.
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