Bethel Bits: Opening laugh
A mixture of students with a desire to make people laugh, accomplish their goal during their first performance April 19.
By Emily Forster | Royal Report
A group of five misfit Bethel University guys and Sarah Lageson appears on stage. Lageson wears jeans and a long, black shirt. Their laughs blend together as they each joke before the performance.
The student audience constantly chuckles. Each performer spoke on a whim. The improv group is called Irrelephant Intelephants.
Ben Spieker, performer, created the name.
“I couldn’t get my mind off of elephants,” Spieker said. “The irrelevant intelligence we bestow upon you, you’ll never forget like an elephant.” The name stuck.
“Sorry, we’re weird. It’s what we do.” — Josh Ochoa, performer
Josh Ochoa, performer and communication major, has a girlfriend of six years. They’ve been dating since freshman year of high school. He fashions a gray bacon strips T-shirt on their first performance night.
“Sorry, we’re weird. It’s what we do,” Ochoa said.
The performers aren’t supposed to laugh at each other’s humor. But this is different. This is improv. Anything goes with improv.
Spieker’s suspenders hold together his plaid shirt and jeans. He’s 25 and in his sixth year of college, majoring in missional ministries.
A black tattoo of a semi-colon boldly glazes over his right forearm. His brother struggled with suicide twice. He experienced similar suicidal thoughts.
“Also, jellyfish — don’t touch those,” Ochoa yelled across the stage.
On his opposite arm appear the Roman numerals VIII, interpreted as Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Three beaded bracelets grip his wrist above the tattoo.
Marriage? “Um…yeah…probably,” Ochoa said. “Definitely a philosophy I have thought about.”
The audience applauded, laughed and snapped to the final scene.
“If you’ll just use your eyes, you’ll see that this is just cardboard,” Spieker said to Lageson.
Spieker was referring to the invisible kingdom of cardboard the two were enclosed in.
“Everyone loves to laugh. Everyone needs to laugh,” Ochoa said.
