by Mariah Castillo

Bringing us together by tearing us apart.

Havana Central held one of the most exciting and talked about events last Tuesday when the cast of The 119th Varsity Show held their West End preview to a full house. A jazz trio serenaded the audience before the show started, even doing their own take with One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful.” A little after 8PM, we were introduced to the cast of The 119th Varsity Show.

Right off the bat, jokes about arts funding, PrezBo (as a first-year, it took me a while to realize they were talking about President Bollinger), and Barnard were quipped in a rapid fire manner, with some profanity interspersed here and there. There was also the occasional make-out scene and innuendo that made the audience (needless to say, the majority of whom were Columbia college students) howl with laughter.

I was a little uncomfortable (OK, really uncomfortable) with some of the Barnard jokes. One of their first acts involved two girls sleeping in a tent on Low Steps because they couldn’t get housing from Barnard, and they still paid the money to stay there over break. Another one involved a stressed Columbia student telling his classmate to stop baking, not because she goes to Barnard, but because she’s fat. *Ahem*

Other than a few funny skits, I didn’t laugh as hard as I thought I would.

If you can tolerate every aspect of CU being thrown under the bus for a night, The Varsity Show is the thing to watch. The West End preview was a good break from writing lab reports and papers, but I’ll be okay if I don’t see The Varsity Show.

Mariah Castillo is a first-year at Barnard and a staff writer for The Nine Ways of Knowing.

Image courtesy of Facebook.