Aug 28th, 2007
Steve Byrne Kills at the Improv
Yesterday afternoon I was browsing through the weekend section of the Post when I read that a Korean-American comedian named Steve Byrne would be performing at the DC Improv. I had never heard of Byrne, nor had I been to the improv so it was certainly a bit of a shot in the dark. I checked out some of Byrne’s work on YouTube and it looked like what you would expect from an asian-american comedian - jokes about Bruce Lee, imitating his Mother’s fobby voice, etc., yet it still looked good enough to bare. After all, Byrne is a hoppa like myself and we have to support one another.
At any rate, I headed over to the show with a small group and we sat at the front table. We watched the host come out and perform a pretty solid routine before giving way to Ahmed Ahmed, who performed admirably himself.
Finally, Byrne came on and from the first minute I was pissing my pants from laughing so hard. His routine covered a wide spectrum of material, and it did as the YouTube clip indicate, cover his asian-american heritage - but that was far from the focal point of his act. He covered various aspects of relationships, culture, race, gender - always with a very distinctive fast-paced, physical presence that he managed to maintain through an act that must have run in excess of an hour and a half. From start to finish, he maintained that same energy and had the audience absolutely engaged and laughing themselves into a stupor.
Byrne made great use of the audience, bantering on several occasions with various people and even bringing one on stage for a ’sexy-stare around’ contest.
Well, here is a short (best I could find) clip of Byrne from YouTube - I’d recommend checking out his show if you get a chance.
