The Floor is Lava at Fallout Theater

There’s some­thing reas­sur­ing about watch­ing a sketch show that knows what it is. The Floor is Lava, now in its sixth year (give or take a pan­dem­ic) at Fall­out The­ater, deliv­ered exact­ly that on new cast night — ten sol­id sketch­es per­formed by a mix of vet­er­ans and six fresh faces, all work­ing togeth­er to keep Austin’s sketch com­e­dy scene alive and well.

What start­ed in 2019 as an exper­i­men­tal sketch open-mic has evolved into some­thing more pol­ished. Pro­duc­ers Andy Bon­ney and Trista Ross have steered the show through a pan­dem­ic-era trans­for­ma­tion, mov­ing from per­form­ers read­ing off sides to a ful­ly mem­o­rized, blocked, and cos­tumed pro­duc­tion. The sketch­es are a mix of com­mu­ni­ty writ­ten (pro­duc­ers accept sub­mis­sions in case you pre­fer writ­ing, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly per­form­ing your oeu­vres) and full A to Z self-pro­duc­tions. On this par­tic­u­lar Sep­tem­ber, the cast of per­form­ers cycled through 10 sketch­es with clear com­mit­ment, brava­do, and memorization.

The stand­out for me was the com­pa­ny retire­ment sketch, a mul­ti­ple-part sketch series which intro­duced us to Jea­nine, played by Doy Roberts, who we lat­er learn drowned the work­place mas­cot. The end­ing felt like it left some unfin­ished busi­ness on the stage, but that turned out to be the set­up for a smart call­back lat­er when Jea­nine showed up at a com­pet­i­tive triv­ia night, com­plete with a guest appear­ance by ​“Matthew McConaugh­ey” who was­n’t pleased by her mas­cot mur­der. It’s that kind of struc­tur­al think­ing that ele­vates sketch com­e­dy from a series of dis­con­nect­ed bits to some­thing that feels crafted.

The gam­bling stu­dents sketch packed the stage with eight cast mem­bers run­ning a gam­bling ring, drop­ping lines like ​“habeas coitus” and ​“Miss Hypotenuse” (did they know a math­e­mati­cian was in the audi­ence when they wrote that?) that hit just right if you’re into word­play. The open­ing Board Game Night sketch leaned into a famil­iar premise — the over­ly com­pet­i­tive friend (per­formed by Bon­ney) — but Bon­ney’s com­mit­ment sold it. Solo per­for­mances from a jin­gle ped­dler and lat­er a bathrobe-clad mom with a sol­id con­cerned mom accent showed the range of the cast.

A Trick or Treaters sketch, fea­tur­ing ​“Ken Pax­ton” and a sur­pris­ing amount of singing, demon­strat­ed the show’s will­ing­ness to tack­le local pol­i­tics with absur­di­ty. For yet anoth­er change of pace, the evening fea­tured a few audio­vi­su­al effects. One occurred as part of the mul­ti-part Jea­nine series, but anoth­er was the stand-alone Cook­ing With Mike video — a cook­ing les­son framed as one sad guy mak­ing din­ner for him­self — land­ed with the kind of melan­choly humor that sticks with you. The night closed with a psy­chic medi­um at grad­u­a­tion whose super­POOw­er was pre­dict­ing when you’d need to take a dump, which is exact­ly the kind of stu­pid-smart premise sketch com­e­dy thrives on.

The audi­ence brought the ener­gy and eas­i­ly fed off the ener­gy of the show. The Floor is Lava has become a train­ing ground for Austin’s com­e­dy tal­ent, and it shows. This is a show that under­stands its pur­pose — it does­n’t need to be flashy, it just needs to deliv­er a sol­id month­ly sketch night where per­form­ers cut their teeth and audi­ences get reli­able laughs. It’s a Tues­day night local alter­na­tive to flashier, high­er pro­file Sat­ur­day night sketch offer­ings and gives you a great insight into what it takes to be a long-lived sketch show.