Throat Culture show closes semester with a bang

The Arellano Theatre in Levering Hall was filled with laughter last Saturday night as Throat Culture put on its final show of the school year. The show also featured the final performance by the group’s senior members, as they will be graduating in May.

Throat Culture is Hopkins’ only sketch comedy group on campus. Its members write and perform their own unique sketches approximately three times a semester.

Their shows encompass a broad range of sketches. Some are ones that they have been working on all semester, whereas others are written, rehearsed and performed all within 24 hours. As demonstrated by their ability to act on demand, all of the members are very versatile and capable of creating comedy, no matter what the circumstances are.

True to its name as a sketch comedy group, Throat Culture performed a series of short comedy scenes that ranged in diversity from satire to character comedy.

One of the sketches parodied videos and commercials that attempt to explain what a certain group does. They did so by playing soft, encouraging music in the background and having each of the members state why Throat Culture was so amazing for them.

However, there was one member who wasn’t as “in sync” with the rest of the group and refused to talk about how great Throat Culture was. Instead, she rambled on about her sister that had died by getting stung by a bee.

Another particularly funny sketch poked fun at television game shows by recreating an absurd version of a game show. The game show host bombarded the contestant with a variety of preposterous questions, jumping from one to the next without any kind of warning. The sketch also contained some hilarious laugh-out-loud moments, as the contestant finally was able to win the game show by reciting a secret phrase that he did not even know was the secret phrase.

Another great aspect of the performance was the music played during the intervals between sketches. Popular songs, such as “Gangnam Style” by Psy and “Let it Go” by Idina Menzel, were edited in a funny way.

Some songs were edited so they were being sung in an extremely high-pitched chipmunk voice, and others mixed several songs together so that the words of the song took on an entirely different meaning than originally intended. The unique music played during resting intervals ensured that there was never a dull moment through the entire performance.

There was good audience reaction to the show, and the theatre was filled with laughter throughout the entire performance. Some of the comedy was a little obscure at times and only geared towards a particular group of people in the audience, which slightly hindered the experience for those in the audience who did not understand the joke.

All in all, however, there was great enthusiasm by all of the performing members, and it was clear that they had not only worked hard for their show, but also that they genuinely enjoyed being there and were having a fun time performing the comedic sketches.

“I really enjoyed it. The sketches were not only funny but also very creative. I’m not an expert on comedy, but I thought the show was really great. I also really appreciated the soundtrack they played between the sketches; it was so well mixed,” said one of the audience members after the show.

Throat Culture also creates video sketches. Some of these video sketches are longer series that continue over an extended period of time. These video sketches can be found online, under the JHU Throat Culture YouTube page.

The YouTube page also contains recordings of previous shows, as well as various other funny video clips, and is most definitely worth taking the time to check out.