Between procuring Lupe and making those snazzy Pringle-esque shirts, it seemed like the HOP couldn’t outdo itself, but their latest venture — a four-part series of stand-up comedians — seems to be a resounding success.
Last Wednesday the second comedian in the series, Myq Kaplan, came to Shriver Hall to share the wit and timing that made him so popular on Comedy Central’s Last Coming Standing. Indeed, in 2009 Kaplan was voted New York’s funniest stand-up comedian.
First, though, Hopkins put forth its own resident comedian. Junior Pat Haire opened up the show with a short bit on the art of procrastination.
Haire was funny enough, demonstrating poise and an aptitude for comedic timing.
The crowd was generally very receptive.
Haire quickly applied his procrastination shtick to the art of wooing women.
“If you wait to ask a girl to have sex with you, she’s gonna think that’s gentlemanly,” Haire said. “Patience might help your success rate.”
When our own stand-up representative started comparing stamina in bed to procrastinating doing one’s homework, though, the audience knew it was time for the headliner.
Enter Myq Kaplan, a sheepish, lanky 30-something equipped with beard and thick-rimmed glasses.
Kaplan’s entrance was a far cry from what one might typically expect at a comedy show; there was no fist-pumping swagger, no Dane Cook-esque overcompensation or unbridled confidence.
Instead, Kaplan just sauntered on stage, taking the microphone and offering a reserved greeting to everyone.
Within a few minutes though, Kaplan was jetting smoothly along his bit, drawing energy from the crowd and falling comfortably into his niche.
“You guys are my demographic,” Kaplan said. “Mainly because you guys know what a demographic is.”
These initial moments gave insight into how Kaplan operates.
Quiet and reserved by nature, the comedian gained momentum from puns and wordplay, and from the witty ways by which he showed the audience that even if they were smarter than him, he was much quicker.
When Kaplan mentioned eating at “your fresh food . . . place,” the crowd cheered and laughed. At this, Kaplan voiced his amusement.
“I’m trying to calibrate where you guys laugh and the beginning of the story is just not the right place,” he said with a smirk. “It’s like an investment. The return on this joke is gonna be huge.”
Soon Kaplan was poking fun at Blue Jays’ false sense of security.
“I walked into the Fresh Food vestibule — the backpack room — and [asked] do people just leave their stuff here all day?” Kaplan said. “On a related note, I have seven new backpacks and if anyone would like to buy a laptop, I’ll get you a reasonable deal.”
At one point, Kaplan delved into his past experiences performing at colleges around the country.
“When I was at a Catholic school . . . [they said] ‘stay away from everything tabooed,’” Kaplan smirked. “Well I don’t think anything is tabooed, so I just tried to stay near everything.”
At times, Kaplan’s jokes were in danger of being too taboo. “Incest is bad, but not as bad as other things, like rape — worse, I think, yeah?” Kaplan asked to shaky, uneasy laughter. “But it’s not the worst. Rape-incest, for example, is worse than either rape or incest.”
Kaplan closed out the night with a lewd joke about fisting, to which students were surprisingly receptive.
The students streaming out of Shriver at the show’s close seemed far more lighthearted than they had been upon entry.
They laughed and joked with their friends, and though many made the inevitable trudge back to Milton S. Eisenhower, it was obvious that their spirits were lifted on a busy Wednesday night.
In this respect, Kaplan was a resounding success.
Indeed, his timing, content and overall attitude jived well with the atmosphere of Hopkins.
Kaplan, a smart guy with a degree in mathematics and a tongue thoroughly entrenched in cheek, is the perfect comic for Homewood — someone who understands the surreal aspect of undergraduate life at one of the country’s leading and most grueling research universities.
Perhaps students liked Myq so much because he, unlike so many stand-up comedians, actually understands some of our pain.
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