Fliers promoting last Thursday and Friday’s “Stand-Up Mark” promised an opportunity to “imagine a stand-up comic showing up at the local comedy club with outrageous new material: a never-heard ancient story from another planet about a visionary revolutionary.”
Instead, audience members were treated to, as Julia Cheng ’08 described it, an “extended sermon” from Broadway veteran Stephen Rowe on the life of Christ.
The performance took place at the Memorial Chapel, but the audience was predominantly Middletown residents with even a wimple to be seen. The number of students present could be counted on two hands.
Gitanjali Prasad ’08, one of the few Wesleyan students in attendance, said that although she saw others in the audience enjoying the performance, she sometimes felt lost because of her unfamiliarity with Christian Scripture.
“I think the show would have benefited greatly from some sort of introduction,” Prasad said. “I think they assumed that the audience they would attract would be very familiar with the subject matter. Because of that, I really had trouble following what was happening or understanding the humor.”
Cheng went even further in describing her disappointment at the performance.
“I came expecting stand-up, something clever, and I didn’t think it was funny at all,” Cheng said. “It was just a presentation of the Bible in a kind of matter of fact way. I thought the tone was too preachy. I was not engaged at all.”
Cheng said she and Prasad left during the intermission between two halves of the performance.When contacted for comment, Wesleyan Catholic Chaplain Louis Manzo expressed confusion. Despite the presence of the phrases “stand-up comic” and “local comedy club” in the fliers posted around campus in the weeks leading up to “Stand Up Mark,” Manzo denied that the show was ever supposed to be funny.
“[For the show to be] billed as a comedy, that was never our intention,” Manzo said. “We do not use the word ‘comedy’ on the flyers we put out. I had sent out a notice in which I was very careful to avoid that word, and used the expression ‘stand-up routine.’”
As for student attendance, Manzo also commented that there seemed to be more students in attendance on Thursday than on Friday. He also said that he had heard very little negative feedback on the show.
“The comments I did get were that people were moved by some parts, especially the second half,” Manzo said.
“Stand-Up Mark” came to Wesleyan as the first show to be sponsored by Wesleyan alum Alan Dorsey ’83.
“[Dorsey] approached the University and offered to start an endowment to present Christian offerings on campus,” Manzo said. “It seemed a good idea to use ‘Stand-Up Mark’ as the first performance. Mark’s is the first written life of Jesus, so this seemed a natural starting point for Christian offerings. We hope to do different sorts of performances and perhaps exhibits under the title ‘Celebrating Christianity.’”
Manzo said he is optimistic about the community’s reaction to “Celebrating Christianity.”
“We seem to get a larger percentage of Catholics at Mass here than at other colleges,” he said. “Of course, we have a very small Catholic population.”This year the Princeton Review rated Wesleyan sixteenth for Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis.
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