The Morning After With Pam & Paula

Power Pause Productions—MTC Up the Alley

It was almost a sell-out and by the time I got there, there weren’t many seats remaining. When you have a smaller venue like this one, and a (close to) packed house, you can feel the energy in the room. Plus, the music amped through the seating and the actors looked primed for action. This all led to huge expectation for an energy-filled, fast-moving, rip-roaring ride.

The show delivers on all those accounts, but the one facet it did not deliver on was a very important one: it wasn’t funny. Even with the large crowd—normally feeding into itself—the laughs were infrequent and not raucous. Yes, you have your few that laugh at everything, and often, those laughers are enough of a catalyst to get most of the people going. Today, it wasn’t. One particular audience member (and there’s always one) cackled at many of the situations but it wasn’t enough to get everyone else going. Sorry, but the substance just wasn’t there.

Ray Yuen