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Friday night with Master Pancake Theater: Not a drag
Last month the hearts of many Austinites sank when they heard that John Erler, Jerm Pollet and Owen Egerton were ending their six-and-a-half-year run of The Sinus Show.
In an interview with Austinist last week, Erler explained the amicable split. “It was just time for us to go our separate ways. But the truth is, and I haven’t told many people this, it had to do with Owen’s foot odor. Not really. I mean, we had our ups and we had our downs, but it just seemed like it was time to go in our separate directions,” he said.
Erler didn’t go far, as evidenced by the performance of his and Joe Parsons’ new show, Master Pancake Theater, Friday night at the Alamo Downtown.
As with Sinus, the evening of comedy consisted of skewering a rather unfortunate mainstream film, James Cameron’s epic “Titanic.” After a brief video and music introduction that used the abbreviation LMAO with aplomb, the gentlemen, to everyone’s relief, admitted that they had cut Cameron’s three-and-a-half hour melodramatic disaster to 90 minutes, a move Erler said Cameron should have considered in making the original. Erler and Parsons kept the audience rolling throughout with a slew of one-liners, film and literary allusions (I think I am the only one who laughed out loud to the obscure “To Kill A Mockingbird” reference), and some recurring bits, one of which included a comparison of the Titanic’s captain to George W. Bush.
As a bit of a departure from their previous troupe, the guys incorporated a bit more in the way of supplemental media (a C&C Music Factory-as-soundtrack bit played to raucous laughter), and, in true Alamo and Sinus Show fashion, drinking games were incorporated into the screening. Said drinking commands coincided with a rather disturbing bit of hand-fetishizing on the part of Mr. Cameron. Master Pancake has also decided to integrate more original theatrics into their new project. A bit of stage work that featured Erler in drag and somewhat regretfully included the over-exposed Leslie, fell a little flat, but Erler pulled the bit from the ashes by committing whole-heartedly. After thanking Austin’s favorite cross-dresser, Erler called Leslie an Austin legend, but it was apparent to me and my friends that the Austin legend on hand Friday night was Erler himself.
Master Pancake Theater continues to take aim at Cameron weekends through March 2nd and then moves on to “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” following SXSW. Purchase tickets here.
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