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OLDER BUT STILL HOLDING UP: Scott Thompson, Dave Foley,
Mark McKinney, Bruce McCulloch and Kevin McDonald
by CHRIS BARRY
You know you must have been doing something right when, a good 12 years after your Emmy-nominated TV show went out of production, people are as enthusiastic about your act as they ever were—possibly even more so, if you take the miracle of syndication into account.
But if all the buzz about their upcoming gigs at the Just for Laughs comedy festival is any indication, such certainly appears to be the case for the newly re-united Kids in the Hall. Which kind of makes sense. Love ’em or hate ’em—and I’ve heard their humour disparagingly described as “comedy without the jokes” on more than one occasion—when the Kids, aka Dave Foley, Mark McKinney, Bruce McCulloch, Scott Thompson and the inimitable Kevin McDonald, first started attracting attention by way of their weekly performances at Toronto’s Rivoli club in the early 1980s, their humour was undeniably as fresh and strikingly original as it was, well, bizarre. And to their great credit, their early work still holds up all these years later, which is arguably more than you can say for the bulk of sketch comedy that’s made its way onto the screen over the ages.
The Mirror managed to track down four of the five Kids last week in Los Angeles, where they were busy putting the finishing touches together for the entirely new show they’ll be unleashing upon the world next Wednesday. Also not to be missed over the course of the festival will be Kevin McDonald’s solo show, “Hammy and the Kids,” where he addresses the infinitely hysterical subject of his being raised by an alkie dad in one profoundly dysfunctional family. Here’s what each one had to say.
Dave Foley:
Nightmarish fun
Mirror: So… why the re-formed Kids in the Hall?
Dave Foley: We started up again because we’d recently all gotten together in L.A. and decided to set ourselves a mandate where we’d get together for a week, show up without any scripts, only ideas, and then write together for three days and put a show up. So we did that twice and wound up with two full 90-minute shows of entirely new material. Originally, it was just, like, a test to see if we could still do it. That’s how we used to work before we had a TV show. We used to write an hour of material every week for our [early 1980s] Rivoli performances. We did that for, like, four years, writing an hour every week. And that was when we all had full time jobs. We’d write those shows in, like, two days.
M: Do you think you’re a better writer now than when you started?
DF: Oh, definitely. I mean, I think we were pretty good back then but mainly we just had great energy for writing. We could really pump stuff out. This time around, we were just trying to check if we could still work at that pace.
M: And has the group dynamic changed much over the years?
DF: Actually, it’s weird. It really felt a lot—well, actually, it felt like us in the early ’80s again, where everybody was contributing to each other’s ideas, you know? Every piece was a five-man collaboration.
M: If the Kids in the Hall weren’t an established brand, you know, capable of bringing out audiences and actually generating revenue, do you think you guys would be working together again?
DF: Yes, because the main thing is that it’s fun to do. In some ways, it’s always a nightmare as well, because we definitely know how to frustrate each other, but once we get the show up, there’s a feeling doing these Kids in the Hall shows that’s incomparable to anything else that we get to do individually. Even other stuff that I really love doing, it just isn’t the same. It’s the chemistry between the five of us.
M: Is this new show actually debuting in Montreal?
DF: We’ve done all the material at a little 200-seat theatre in L.A., and this weekend, we’ll be working it at a 500-seat theatre just sort of tightening it up for Montreal. For me, the exciting thing is that it’s all new. We’re not doing any of the old sketches. And it’s a really good show. A lot of it compares to some of the best stuff we’ve ever written.
M: Over the course of your career to date, is there any one piece of work you’ve done that you’re particularly proud of, where you said, “Fuck, this was me at my very best!”?
DF: I think, like, the Reg sketch, the guys mourning a friend and then you find out that they killed him. I think that’s a pretty great sketch from the HBO pilot. But we’ve done it on stage a lot. And I love Citizen Kane, a sketch Kevin and I do. And there’s a new scene I’m really proud of that Kevin and I do in this show that I think is really fun.
M: What’s it called?
DF: Um, Kevin and Dave sketch. I don’t want to tell you because it’ll give away the premise.
Kevin McDonald:
Dad, the bottle and me
M: So what’s the deal with this one-man show you’ll be doing here, Hammy and the Kids? It addresses growing up with your alcoholic father, right? Is it also a new act?
Kevin McDonald: It’s a few months new. I’ve done it three or four times as a warm-up for Montreal, but yes, it’s spanking new.
M: Has your father seen it? Is he still alive?
KM: No, he’s dead. I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise. But it’s not like he died so now I can do the show. I didn’t get the idea until a year or two after he died.
M: I imagine it would have been somewhat cathartic putting that show together.
KM: Yeah, very cathartic. Sort of like therapy. Because I deal with the fact that we never improved our relationship and kind of make that entertaining—although it would have been a better one-man show if we had. But I deal with this in the show and do feel a little better every night I do it. In Montreal, I mean, I’ll be doing it 10 times—I could feel really great after Montreal.
M: Is your mother still on the planet?
KM: No, she died seven years ago. I do some stuff about her too but not as much as my father. If I do another one-man show, it’ll be called “The Women I Have Ruined,” which would be about my mother and various girlfriends and wives. But I’d start with her.
M: Does Kids in the Hall feel a bit like being in a rock band sometimes?
KM: A comedy troupe is like a rock band lite. I think a rock band has a more intense life together, guess. I know I’ve seen Behind the Music 100 times, they always live together in the same one-room apartment for three or four years and then they’re in the same van. A comedy troupe is more polite. We all live with different roommates—even in the old days when we were young—and then we make our way to the club. It’s not so intense, even though we’re friends. And we’ve never had a groupie in our lives. Groupies don’t go to comedy shows, they go see rock groups.
Mark McKinney:
Drag and het
M: What have you been doing in your non-Kids career lately?
Mark McKinney: Um, in my non-Kids career? You mean most of the time? This year, I was a story editor and I also acted in Aaron Sorkin’s show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and I guess within the last year Slings and Arrows came out, which is a Canadian show. It’s about actors.
M: Is there generally much improv going on in this new Kids in the Hall show?
MM: Well, no scenes are like, “Hey, let’s go out and do something that we just thought up backstage.” But at certain points, sure, we might riff.
M: Do people still mistake all you guys for being gay because of the drag element to Kids in the Hall, or is that issue pretty well settled by now?
MM: I think it’s pretty well over. When we first came out, yes, I think, everyone… it was interesting, it was like a cultural clash. I think everyone in Canada, having seen Python, just kind of went, “Oh yeah, another sketch troupe that dresses up as women.” Whereas in the States, I think they thought for a while that we were gay. But there’s been so much of it lately. It had already started happening on In Living Color and other shows at the time, but everyone is putting on fat packs and dressing up doing fat lady comedy now.
M: Is there any likelihood you guys might attempt another feature film in the near future?
MM: Well, certainly the energy and the goodwill is there to do it, it’s just everyone gets busy. You know, Bruce has got a series this year, I’m working on something, Dave’s got a show. It’s not so much that we don’t want to do it, it’s more finding the time to sit down and pound it out. But we’ll probably be talking more about that when we’re in Montreal.
Scott Thompson:
Okay with gay
M: Hey Scott, by the way, your book Buddy Babylon has been making its way around my circle of friends lately and I’m constantly hearing people laughing out loud. Everybody totally loves it.
ST: Really? Excellent! Keep passing it around, my dream is that it’ll eventually get its due and one day be reissued in hardcover. That’s all I want.
M: When did it first come out?
ST: Oh, in ’97, 10 years ago.
M: Did it do okay?
ST: No, it didn’t do well at all. In Canada, it didn’t even get reviewed. The Canadian literary establishment is so snobby and didn’t treat it like a real novel, when it is a real novel. We were very proud of that book and I really thought it would do well. It was hardly even reviewed anywhere. I think people went, “Oh, it’s just this guy from TV, it’ll just be a rehash of the television show,” but it’s an actual real book. Ah, oh well. Maybe it’ll get its due one day. I’m so glad you liked it.
M: I haven’t read it yet.
ST: Oh.
M: You know how comedy’s always changing and what might have seemed funny in an SNL skit back in 1976 doesn’t necessarily seem all that hysterical in 2007? Looking back at the Kids in the Hall TV show, do you feel confident the material still holds up?
ST: Well, I’m a little biased, but yes, I do. Our comedy’s about human nature and human nature doesn’t really change. It’s not about what’s happening in the world at the moment, or about politics or celebrities or current events. So yeah, I think it’ll last. I think we were accidentally smart in not doing celebrity impersonations or referencing the real world. Which is why SNL isn’t going to last the same way. People are going to go, “Who the hell’s Nicole Richie? Who are these people?” You know? So I think we were smart in that way. I think if we’d chosen to go that route, we’d have had more of an immediate impact but probably not as much in the long term.
M: Can you envision still getting together for these occasional Kids in the Hall reunions when you’re all old and grey?
ST: You know, when we first toured after the show ended, we were, like, how can we keep calling ourselves kids? Once we all passed 40, there was a brief time when we were, like, “Ooh, this is a little pathetic.” And then after awhile it got funny again and now it’s sort of, like, who cares? It’s just a name. I don’t think people go, “Oh my God, they’re not kids anymore!” Now we look at it—or at least I do—as just the spirit of the thing. And all art has a young spirit so, yeah, I can see it. I know last night we had a sold-out audience, mostly young people and they didn’t seem to mind.
M: Oh, okay, but I meant the question more along the lines of whether you can see yourselves continuing to work together in another 20, 30 years time.
ST: Oh. Yes, I can. Or I hope so. Because then at least I’ll have had one relationship of mine that worked. You know, I’ve never really had a long-term relationship that’s lasted but I have had a group relationship that’s lasted over 20 years. So that’s pretty good.
M: Really, you’ve never been in a long-term relationship?
ST: Three years, is that good? That’s my longest. The next one will hopefully be forever.
M: Are you in one now?
ST: No, I’m not, just this platonic relationship with these guys.
M: Do you find you tend to get pigeonholed professionally as “the gay guy”?
ST: Yeah, all the time.
M: Is that annoying?
ST: Yes, very. Now, I’ve basically kind of accepted it. But there was a period when it was much more than annoying, it was embittering. Now I just go, “Aw, come on, give me a break,” but it has absolutely hurt my career in ways, it’s made it very hard for me to play other things. And I would love to. That move certainly didn’t happen the way I wanted it to—but that’s life.
M: Do you think you might have been able to do what so many famous actors have done and lived a lie?
ST: No, if I’d gone that route, I don’t know where my comedy would have been. But there definitely was a period when I went, “Oh, why didn’t I just stay in the closet?”
M: That’s terrible.
ST: For the most part, the only way I get to play all kinds of characters is with these guys. In Hollywood, it’s totally affected my career. I guess everybody needs labels. But no one says about Jerry Seinfeld or Bill Maher, “They just do straight comedy.” But I’m proud of what I did, I’m okay with it now. I’d just like to be looked at as a really good comedian and writer and actor rather than just, you know, the gay guy. But things go slowly. Still, I think it’s happening. I think this is the year.
M: 2007, the year society finally caught up to Scott Thompson.
ST: That’s how I feel.
The Kids in the Hall perform from Wednesday,
July 18 to Friday, July 20 at Place des Arts
Theatre Maisonneuve (175 Ste-Catherine W.),
$53.29–$67.29.
Kevin McDonald performs “Hammy and the Kids”
from July 10–22 (no shows July 18–20) at the
Theatre Ste-Catherine (264 Ste-Catherine E.), $18.50.
For tickets, call (514) 845-2322 or visit www.hahaha.com
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