Wanda Sykes At The Zeiterion Theatre: Show Review
This past Saturday night, Wanda Sykes performed to a sold out crowd at the Zeiterion Theatre in New Bedford.
I arrived to the theatre around 745pm for the 8pm show. I brought my Mom with me to the show, it was her birthday and she's a Wanda fan, so I thought we'd have some fun! We got settled in our seats and about 10 minutes later, Wanda's opening act Keith Robinson took the stage. He did a good job getting everyone hyped up for Wanda, and he did have a few funny jokes. However, he spoke a lot about domestic violence and one of his jokes was how his record was 2 and 7 when it came to fights with his son's mother. I think it was just a joke, but it still brought the image of him hitting a woman to mind, and I did not like that. He also continuously laughed at his own jokes. I sort of chalked that up to nerves, but it made it kind of unfunny when he told a joke and then laughed at it himself. All in all, he was just ok, and I was excited for Wanda to take the stage!
A few minutes later, Keith introduced Wanda and everyone cheered! She started her act with a joke about traveling by airplane. She spoke about being questioned in the line for a first class flight, and that yes, she was supposed to be there and that she doesn't go around standing in wrong lines. She moved on to some current events, like the NFL controversy with Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson recently. I get that she included them because it's current, but to be honest, I wished she hadn't. I have heard so much about those issues lately, that I just wanted to go to a comedy show and forget about the crappy things going on in the world. While some of those jokes were funny and I really enjoy her personality, I was waiting for her to move on from that topic.
When she did, she moved onto President Obama. She joked about the selfie he took at Nelson Mandela's funeral, and her bit was funny, but she spent a great deal of time talking and telling jokes about President Obama. I was all set on hearing about politics at that point.
Finally, she began talking about herself and her family and this was my favorite part of her show. She spoke of her wife Alex, and did a funny French impression of her, as her wife is French. She told some funny stories about her kids, she has 5-year-old twins and it was funny to hear about the things they do and say. She did do a lot of jokes relating to the fact that she is a black woman living in a household with white people, her wife and kids. Most of them were funny...like when she said her kids come into her bedroom at night to ask to sleep in the bed with their parents and she looks up and gets scared when she sees two little white kids at the end of her bed. Or when she jokes about how the movie 'The Help' wasn't funny to her because she cooks and cleans for her family and realize that she IS the help. After she joked about herself and her life, the show came to an end. All in all, I enjoyed Wanda's show, but not as much as I thought I was going to! I thought her TV specials and movies were funnier than her stand up show was. If she did more personal stories and less politics, I would have enjoyed it more I'm sure. I would definitely go see her again, as I am a fan and she was funny. She just wasn't hysterical like I was expecting. If I had to give the show a grade, I'd go with B+.