Saturday night the Rabid Badger Theatre Company gave a performance of original comic one-act plays and sketches at the Madison Center for Creative and Cultural Arts. (The difference between a short comic play and a sketch? Subtext, according to one explanation I heard.) This performance, the group’s second in Madison, was simply called “An Evening with The Rabid Badger” and was a little like Saturday Night Live, only more live and more funny.

The evening featured fifteen pieces that each had a clever, well-executed premise (like a group of Middle Earth citizens getting together to play a role-playing game called Cubicles and CEOs), and in many cases the group was able to mine humor from a simple yet imaginative concept. (a conversation between a pair of cats, or the first eleven notes of The Phantom of the Opera). A couple of characters introduced in earlier sketches came back in interesting ways. The pacing for the 90-minute performance and the length of each sketch worked well. The group didn’t use the customary blackout to end a sketch, so each piece ended with the characters going offstage.

Overall, a good quality show that got plenty of laughs. People who liked the work of the Prom Committee and Free Love Forum or who just want to enjoy some sketch comedy are encouraged to check out Rabid Badger’s next show, whenever it may be.