Comedy Fest review: Rose Matafeo in Finally Dead
When we settle ourselves in for Rose’s show there’s an organist playing, it’s the soundtrack of just about every funeral you’ve ever been to and is a nice touch to what is an entertaining, funny, yet somewhat frustrating hour of comedy.
I will get it out of the way that this show wasn’t wholly for me personally, but the crowd loved it. So it was a very good show. At just about each and every bit, Rose had the crowd crowing with laughter, often breaking out into applause. Her command of the stage, using every square inch of it, combined with fantastic set-design and a wonderful straight-guy foil in Paul Williams was superb. I just got frustrated because I felt that there was a brilliant show just under the surface of what we got.
The concept is death. It’s Rose’s funeral after all, and an existentialist riff on what death means to the individual and to the group would have been brilliant. And there were parts of the show where Rose touched on that but I felt she didn’t go far enough.
Despite the inherently dark subject matter, Rose keeps the mood of the room upbeat and laughing throughout. It would be easy to slide down a really dark path and never return when you focus on your own death but Rose never strays down that direction, even though sometimes I wished she did (again, this may just be a reflection of my own comedic tastes).
Rose has a grip on something that I’ve rarely seen from comics. A complete mastery of silence. Some of her gags rely entirely on silence and this is incredibly difficult to pull off. Rose does it phenomenally. Technically, Rose has comedy nailed. She has rants, riffs, pull-backs and reveals, timing, some great crowd-banter – everything you would want in a polished, excellent comic. A lot of the gags we get on stage are hilarious, but there’s also a bit of filler.
This is a show that stretches genres. It flips from straight stand-up to some bizarre impressions, there are skits, a magnificent singing performance and some awesome sight gags. Her bouncing off her foil was a particular highlight as the two had a sort of anti-chemistry that was perfect for what we were seeing.
While not the strongest I’ve ever seen Rose perform, this is still a great way to spend an hour.
May 10-14, 7pm San Fran
TICKET PRICES
Full Price $25.00
Concession $20.00
Group 6+ $22.00
Cheap Wednesday $20.00
*service fee may apply
