Review: JFL The Ethnic Show
Ethnic Show
As I had already spoken to two of the comedians (Cristela Alonzo and Robby Hoffman , it did seem like there would not be any surprises in the Ethnic Show. I was so wrong! One can barely imagine the enlightened and hysterically funny patter of Cristela Alonzo. There were two millennial gentlemen sitting at my table who were admittedly drinking more than I was, but they could hardly breathe because they were laughing so hard. Alonzo’s riff on having enough money for full insurance should make us cry, instead when she takes off her glasses and yells “Lenscrafters, fully paid for!”, it is heartbreaking and hilarious.
Anthony DeVito is the opposite of a typical Italian comedian and he had everyone laughing with him as he demolished stereotype after stereotype. He was flawless in his timing and his delightful writing kept his witty repartee going throughout.
Robby Hoffman has a lot of levers — a Lubavitcher Chasidic childhood, A gay life. She does a terrific take on her Jewish mother, where all her siblings line up to say farewell to a brother because he lost a bus pass at the beginning of the month and they expect their mom to kill him.
Rafinha ‘Rafi’ Bastos, a Brazilian, started by saying that he is from a country famous for a body shave… then got everyone in stitches over the current obsession with the use of straws. He killed with a take on a turtle being attacked by a straw.
Donnell Rawlings was last and his act was not so much about comedy as it was about attitude.
Ultimately, the Ethnic Show was a delight and Cristela closed it with a killer joke about encyclopedias.
The Ethnic Show is running until July 28 at Club Soda as part of Just for Laughs. For tickets, click HERE.
