It’s Saturday night near midnight, and I’m sitting in the Theatre Building’s west theater checking out Portland’s The 3rd Floor (pictured above). It’s good—totally out-there costume-heavy sketch comedy—but it just got better. One by one, actors in giant furry animal costumes start dancing around a boy at a table. He’s shoveling Cocoa Puffs, solid chocolate and Hershey’s syrup into his mouth like it’s going out of style. "Totally chocolate dinner, totally chocolate dinner," the words to the background song say. Then the rabbit character turns around, holding a bloody axe. Cue lights downstage, revealing the boy’s parents, necks cut and covered in dried blood.

Holy shit, I thought, Despite the fact that two weekends of comedy has drained my desire to see anything for a long time, I’m really going to miss Sketchfest.

More on what I saw this weekend:

Friday 11
I kicked off weekend 2 with Stephen/Scott, a duo from Los Angeles that performs a show titled "Too Old for Sketch." The pair wonders aloud if they’re getting too held up by real-life things (like marriage) to continue with comedy. It’s the kind of show that needs to be incredibly silly or incredibly personal—sketch, like tennis, doesn’t work well if you reside in no-man’s-land. And, you guessed it, these guys were setting up shop there. If the best bit involves Stephen coming out in a wig and waggling a huge dildo, you know it’s not the show for you.

Next was Keilly and Roeters which, while I thought their act was very funny last year, was a disappointment in that they performed…the exact same show I saw last year.

Backpack Picnic was my 10pm show. They came to town via Austin amidst huge buzz from the sketch community, so I was pumped to see what these boys could bring. If you were hanging around the fest later Friday night, you already know that I thought this show was phenomenal. At the risk of sounding like a Rolling Stone movie review, I’ll add that I laughed the entire time. Hard. Their material was extremely strange, bordering on surreal—tours of the front lawn of an apartment complex, guy’s nearsighted so he doesn’t notice his "blurry and huge" lunch, a music video entitled Lamborghini Poster—but all the guys were incredibly sharp actors, never missing a cue and willing to commit even to the weirdest of dance moves if it’ll get a laugh. They loaded the show with nuanced humor, like having one guy at the end bow backwards. This was silly sketch comedy at its most potent. To be fair, I heard the Saturday night show wasn’t as well received—anyone who was there have a thought?

Saturday 12
I made it just in time to catch Elephant Larry at 9pm. Last year they rocked the house; this year they merely shook it a bit. For every awesome sketch, like a favorite where a guy wishes to a genie that "I could poop anywhere I wanted, and no one would care", there was a long, drawn-out song about how to wear clothes. I still love you, Elephant Larry, and it’s the love that’s the root of my disappointment.

Press, Release, Repeat at 10pm. Predictable, dull, talk-too-fast.

The aforementioned 3rd Floor took the stage at 11pm, and their opening sketch was perhaps the best example of what the rest of their show was like. The actors came out, each with a huge number 0-8 on their chests, and the inquisition began—who killed 9? Accusations flew; fake vomit—lots and lots of it—spewed. Then 6 pulled a gun, killing 7 as he laughed like a crazy person at what he’d done: 7 8 9.

The rest of the show was equally child-like in its characterizations, but maintained its dark edge throughout. There were visual gags aplenty, some I felt almost embarrassed to laugh at. For example, a guy in a shockingly accurate vagina costume and a man making out with a large done-up-to-look-disgusting guy in drag who was eating—and spitting—egg. It was a real ensemble piece of comedy, as the actors took turns sharing the spotlight and setting their teammates up for huge payoffs.

Sunday 13
Tonight I was only able to catch Skinology. This was a group that performed two-person scenes, but included blow-up dolls as the other characters. For example: guy and girl talk a potential jumper (a doll) out of committing suicide. It pains me to say it, but this novel concept for a show could only carry through for so long before it became obvious that the sketches needed a bit of work. I found myself wanting to see the dolls exploited (no not like that) for maximum comedic potential, rather than just having them sit around looking blow-up–y.

I’ll be putting up more posts later this week with my best-of. Stay tuned.