Fella & Dame: An Ode to Mid-Century Comedy & St. Louis’ Gaslight Square - Analicia Kocher & Panagiotis Papavlasopoulos

In an eleven-scene whirlwind of an hour, Analicia Kocher and Panagiotis Papavlasopoulos take the audience back to the mid-60s at the faltering Gaslight Square entertainment district in a St. Louis that many of us don't know – a city without an arch. This duo, portraying improv comedians Stella Fella and Danny Dame, offers a historical look into this nostalgic world. Their decision on whether to maintain their residency is played out in brief backstage scenes, all the while keeping their dinner theater audience in stitches. Through a series of 5 comedy sketches, including topics such as overbearing Jewish mothers, the introduction of surcharges, and marital strife, they provide a healthy history lesson, keeping the audience laughing with the classic slapstick humor of the era.

Kocher and Papavlasopoulos' subtle portrayals make the audience genuinely care for these artists as they discuss their possible futures. Kocher’s lighthearted and straightforward feminine energy and Papavlasopoulos’ absentminded yet genuine masculine figure welcome the audience into their small world in Gaslight Square.

I saw the first performance of this show at KC Fringe, which makes evaluating the timing and pacing a challenge, as jitters would be running high. While based on improvisational theatre, the show itself was more than straightforward sketch comedy. The tightness needed for the more chaotic bits of humor – such as untangling the longest telephone cord in the world – was lacking throughout as the actors never seemed truly rushed. The brevity of each scene and the constant switching between the stage and backstage sets (each taking upwards of 30 seconds) made it challenging for the energy to be maintained. The show revolved around two people who had done this for years, yet the timing still felt unstable, unlike the comedy the show is trying to emulate.

This new imagining of a classic homage to 1950s and 60s sketch comedy succeeds at keeping the audience laughing while avoiding topics whose humor could have aged better. While not totally solidified in its presentation, it is a brief repose from the seriousness of life, thrusting the audience into the vibrant world of Fella and Dame’s possibly penultimate performance.