Chris Redd outshines headliner Trevor Wallace at UU’s latest Night of Comedy

Chris Redd outshines headliner Trevor Wallace at UU's Night of Comedy

SU students connected with Redd's easy-flowing sketches opposed to Wallace's attempt at local, student-centered humor.
Published: April 2, 2023
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Comedians with good crowd-working skills produce something akin to magic. The stop-and-start rhythm of prepared jokes gives way to a perpetual laughter machine, powered by direct interaction with the audience and a genuine affection for the humor in everyday life. 

University Union’s Night of Comedy with Chris Redd and Trevor Wallace was an exhibition in crowd work. Redd, known for his five-year stint as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, shone a fair bit brighter than Wallace, an internet star famous for his viral character sketches. 

The show had an unlisted opener who more than capably warmed up the stage for the nationally-famous headliners: Moppn, SU comedian, employed some vulgar, relatable humor that found its mark. In a masterstroke of putting his audience at ease, Moppn played off the on-stage ASL translators, acknowledging a presence that usually goes unmentioned. (The signers, for their part, seemed in on the fun.)

Redd, who followed, delivered a rambling performance that displayed an impressive level of skill and professionalism. His prepared material flowed naturally from one subject to the next, with few hard pivots or moments of uncomfortable silence.

Redd got political from the outset, opening with a series of jokes about crime in Portland, Oregon, following the defunding of the city’s police department. He didn’t seem pro-cop, by any means, but he brought frank observational humor to the situation.

Like Moppn, Redd acknowledged the ASL translators, taking glee in having them sign the N-word and noting their signage for particularly colorful turns of phrase. 

Continuing his political streak, Redd took a moment to entreat the student audience to vote for younger candidates. He made fun of critics of President Joe Biden, saying they weren’t properly taking his age into account or respecting their elders. “That’s your grandfather you’re talking to, he just woke up!” Redd said.  

Redd started working the audience early in his set, interspersing his own material with riffs on students’ majors, relationships and hometowns. He spoke with more than 10 people, devoting significant time to the bits that arose from the interactions. 

This was the magic: a kind of natural comedic intimacy that’s hard to generate with a crowd of hundreds of people. Redd was always funny and never unkind. He certainly pushed a few buttons (insisting that a poor photographer named Andrew share his preferred genre of pornography), but Redd never lost the feeling of good-naturedness.

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Chris Redd, known for his work on SNL, easily connected with the April Fools' crowd at SU's Goldstein Auditorium.

He remarked several times on the quality of the crowd and openly wondered about how best to “dismount,” or leave the stage, having continued well past his allotted time. Redd closed with a weaker bit, outlining rejected SNL sketches, but graciously deferred to Wallace afterward. 

It would be difficult to find a more receptive audience than the April Fools’ crowd at Goldstein Auditorium. Wallace walked out to a warmed-up section of his target demographic — Gen-Z, always-online college students — and delivered nothing but softball jokes with a weird vibe.

The core of Wallace’s online material is observational parodies of character archetypes people love to hate: the intrusive mom, the frat boy, the athlete who peaked in high school, etc. 

He opened with local comedy, painting Syracuse city wide strokes that seemed more descriptive than funny. There were a few bright spots, though. Wallace called Destiny USA — with its Dick’s Sporting Goods, go-karts and a Margaritaville — heaven for stepdads.

Wallace’s identified character for Syracuse University wasn’t flattering. The students were little else than fratty, rich and depressed, and he had the gumption to wonder aloud why laughter was light at these jokes. It takes a high level of skill to ask an audience to laugh at themselves. Wallace didn’t have it. 

His prepared material was basic, including a particularly tired remark about Chick-fil-A being closed on Sundays. An uncomfortable “us vs. them” attitude worked its way into his accounts of being back on the dating scene, anecdotes that made old-fashioned, reductive statements about men and women alike.

In a not-uncommon spin on traditional crowd comedy, Wallace didn’t do much of his own leg work, instead opening up for a Q&A. It wasn’t so much a get-to-know-you as it was a way to have his audience bring riffing material to him, rather than the other way around. 

University Union’s headliner Wallace fell curiously flat compared to Redd. It might be a testament to fame by traditional routes — working up through comedy clubs and sketch shows, rather than internet comedy — that Redd performed to a young crowd more effectively than their intended star Wallace.

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University Union’s headliner and internet star Trevor Wallace during his comedy set.