On April 3, Wake Forest’s most infamous comedy troupe, The Lilting Banshees, delivered their last performance of the year: “Pants Down.” I attended the 8 p.m. performance, which was one of two sold-out performances. This is the third Banshees show I’ve attended and the second Banshees performance that I’ve covered. The Banshees never fail to disappoint me with hilarious content from our Mother So Dear.
The show began in typical Banshees fashion with a video segment featuring “Alyssa’s Legacy,” the story of a stereotypical sorority girl character that met her fatal demise crossing Polo Road. The segment began at her funeral with friends mourning her loss. It then transitioned into an overview of her demise, which began with “Drinks Around the World.” Instead of drinking around the world in Epcot in Disney World, Alyssa had to settle for the various fraternities of Wake Forest University. She started with Sigma Pi, moving through Chi Psi and Lambda Chi Alpha and eventually highlighting Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s stereotype of having only European members. The skit plays on the motif that all fraternities at Wake Forest throw similar parties with little to distinguish them from each other. The skit ends with Alyssa getting hit by a bus crossing polo road with her friends and all the members of the Banshees reflecting on her life with her cause of death listed as “faded than a hoe.” I loved this concept, and I loved being an audience member during this segment. As a member of a sorority, I thought it was genius to imagine the downfall of a typical sorority girl.
In common Banshees fashion, the show uses popular stereotypes of the Wake Forest student body for comedy. This year, the group paid particular attention to Kappa Delta sorority with three skits centered around them. The group’s trademark intermission, the dance break, is a quality of the Banshees I always look forward to. Each member of the troupe looks to be having the time of their lives dancing with their friends and fellow group members. They dance like crazy to some obnoxious music that is basically just screaming or intense EDM beats. After the first dance break of the evening, a skit began with President Susan R. Wente conducting a graduation “roast ceremony” where she roasted graduates as they walked across the stage. After Applebaum, the third graduate, stated that he did in fact have a girlfriend in Kappa Delta, Wente continued her roast by saying no … “that’s a boyfriend!” followed by a male Banshee coming on stage in short shorts and pigtails to carry Applebaum over his shoulders out of the graduation ceremony.
A skit about Stoplight — a popular date function in Kappa Delta where you wear red if you’re taken, green if you’re single and yellow if it’s complicated — excited me. However, this skit did not translate well. This skit felt reminiscent of the Among Us skit from last semester where a Wake Forest graduate student murders various characters from the Wake Forest demographic. Three characters, each in red, yellow and green discuss their motivations of the color they chose to wear. Suddenly, a Banshee in a yellow taxi costume zooms onstage murdering someone. As the dancing continues at the date function, the rest of the party guests get run over by the yellow car. Though this skit fell flat, it still contained some hilarious punchlines that focused on Kappa Delta stereotypes, including “perfect to hide my bisexuality!” which the Kappa Delta in green said of her date to the event.
The last skit of the performance was equally memorable. When Chi Omega sorority gets a dog (a Banshee dressed up in a dog costume), the Delta Kappa Epsilon members, known as DKE, want a fraternity animal of their own. They get a gorilla, which they endearingly name “Dorilla.” They want a gorilla, so that they can sexually abuse someone without any consequences, in essence grilling the DKEs over their pervasive allegations of sexual assault. Their plan, however, goes south when the gorilla murders the Chi Omega dog and runs away. The DKEs find “Dorilla” at Wake Forest’s “Consent Con,” which aims to spread awareness about sexual assault. In a dramatic exit, Dorilla proclaims that he is transferring to Mormon Brigham Young University in Utah, and the DKEs plead on the ground for him to stay.
These final two skits felt original and well thought out unlike some of the other skits of the night. The “Wake Forest Mom’s Club” hilariously interacted with the stereotype of Wake Forest privileged moms who have nothing else to worry about but if their children identify as gay. Similarly, I thought the “Dorilla” skit was clever in its interpretation of DKEs stereotype as brutish and animal abusing. The most hilarious part was that Dorilla fought back. The Dorilla went to “Consent Con”, and learned information that taught Dorilla to stand up against sexual assault.
The last Banshee’s performance of this year showcased the ingeniousness of the Banshees group while also drawing attention to the particular facets of the institution where we go to school. Critique in the form of comedy is crucial to our existence. It both acknowledges the problems in the environment on campus while also celebrating the creative forces that thrive here. Though comedy can be trivial in nature, the Banshees continue to prove themselves an important part of the Wake Forest community by challenging ideologies and stereotypes that each student interacts with.
Another group that the Banshees paid particular attention to was the Sigma Chi brothers, who most Wake Forest students call the “Machis.” The first skit with this fraternity focused on members giving a Ted Ed presentation that they called Ted , which stands for “EXtra straight.” The presentation centered around what the Machis consider as gay versus straight. Among those deemed “gay” include “any salad that’s not caesar.”
Of all the skits throughout the performance, the last two stood out because they got the most engagement from the audience. The “Wake Forest Mom’s Club” met for their smut book club but also to discuss their children’s lives at Wake Forest. The three Wake Forest moms enlist the waiter at the restaurant they are at, Gordon, to help them spy on their children. The mom’s homophobia was played for laughs, the hegemonic and heterosexual stereotype of the general population at Wake Forest. When Gordon visits Wake Forest, he finds that some of the students do identify as gay. He announces that “there’s a queerness afloat!” which is followed by looks of horror from the Wake Forest moms. When the moms eventually accept that their children are doomed at their school and pass out from wine intoxication, Gordon proclaims that he is taking over as president of the Wake Forest mom’s club.
