No Offense troupe celebrates 20 years of evolving comedy

Vassar's oldest sketch comedy group, No Offense, will celebrate its 20th anniversary on Feb. 19 and 20 at 10 p.m. in Sanders Auditorium. The show will include roughly 15 sketches that accomplish a difficult task for a comedy group that often relies on topical subjects: featuring some old material from past years and applying it to today's social context.

But the event will involve more than "best of" nostalgia: Christopher Columbus applies for a Thompson Fellowship, Candy Land literally feels the effects of an economic meltdown and "God's got a bad hangover," said group member Daniel Galvin '12.

"But it's not offensive; it's very kitsch," Galvin reassured.

No Offense started as Laughing Stock in December 1988 when it performed its first show in the Noyes Coffee House. President of No Offense Diana Lu '09 called the group's primary instantiation "the bread and butter-situation comedy group."

According to an alumnus of No Offense, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the group changed its name from Laughing Stock to No Offense when it was disbanded by the Vassar Student Association for performing a metatheatrical piece about not performing an inappropriate sketch that featured one member wearing a sign with a racist slogan. The comedy group later changed its name to Grand Lodge, but they returned to No Offense four years ago. Making the 20th anniversary a product of a somewhat revisionist history, the group's development over the years has reflected the changing personalities and comedic styles of its members.

Lu joined No Offense as a freshman because she considered it "the edgy group."

"That sense of humor called to me then," she explained. "We've also varied our stuff since, which is a good thing."

Back in 2005, when many of the current seniors first joined, members of the student body claimed that the group's former modus operandi to offend was a cheap trick. "Before, we tried to pick sensitive subjects, but I've always thought there's more to comedy than that," said Lu.

Michael Malloy '09, the group's Vice President, agreed that when he joined No Offense as a freshman three years ago, the group dealt with more politically incorrect material. He added, however, that they were not deliberately offensive even then, and that the group has since altered its course.

"I think our evolution now is all tied up in our underclass-people, who are very talented actors and writers and who are interested in a wide variety of subjects and styles of comedy," said Malloy. "I think we're moving to a place where we no longer feel the need to characterize ourselves as an offensive group, or a weird group, or an accessible group, or any of the sorts of labels you'd usually think of as attached to comedy."

Instead of living up to the sarcasm of its name to elicit reaction, No Offense now tends to focus on current events and historical parodies filled with silly characters and absurdist comedy.

Enter Columbus, flanked by Vasco da Gama and Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark fame), at the Thompson Fellowship office in Boston demanding funding, Red Bull and beaver pelts to navigate the New World.

"I think we mostly just want to write the sort of things we think are smart, funny and interesting," said Malloy. "Our personalities gel in such a way that we can do that sort of thing and not have it come off as disjointed."

Andrew Culbreth '12, a group member, said that he believes this clever quirkiness distinguishes No Offense from other sketch comedy groups on campus. Rather than relying on randomness or "dark, South Park humor," in his words, Culbreth took pride in what he referred to as No Offense's "situational, intellectual style of humor."

"I like current events humor," Culbreth added. "'Cause the world is ridiculous."

Sharing similar tastes in comedy, the group writes much of their material together. "We do things collectively," Malloy said. "Like Trappists or Marxists. I love sketch comedy because there are very few rules to how it's done, and what rules there are can routinely be broken if the joke works."

"And comedy is very communal," Malloy continued, "in that if something makes you laugh there must be something to it, and if a group laughs at something together then that group must have some common ground. So people discover things in comedy, hopefully by laughing with others and finding connections where they might never have known connections existed."

No Offense plans to extend the communal aspect of comedy by participating in Ménage à Ha later this year, an annual comic festival where all the campus sketch groups, including the 10 No Offense members, come together to collaborate in the name of laughter.