Tuesday of this week felt special for two reasons: the swaths of green clothing on campus because of St. Patrick’s Day and, more importantly, royal comedy show “DUKES” performed in Finney Chapel. Made up of SNL’s Jane Wickline (‘21) and Liva Pierce, the show centers around the duo’s plan to become kings through mischievous (poison-centric) plans to kill the current king and succeed him. Jane and Liva grapple with their impossible dream of grandeur, as well as the emptiness in their mid-20s hearts, filling it with women, gossip, and a crystal goose.
I’m not someone who makes it a point to keep up with SNL, but I’m certainly no stranger to Wickline’s sketches, both because I love to note successful Oberlin alums and I think she’s very good. Wickline has received some backlash online, though, from people who don’t particularly enjoy her sketches or her delivery. Seeing DUKES, it was pretty clear to me that the people hating on Wickline are simply not the best audience for her–Oberlin students are. Told through bursts of song, the sketches in DUKES are perfect for an audience of almost entirely queer 18–22-year-olds. Sketches balance the ups and downs of college and post-college life, toeing the line between comedic and vulnerable.
An early song in the show is about Jane and Liva’s great enjoyment of gossip, something near and dear to my heart as well. In your early twenties, every day can feel like a monotonous uphill hike with the only end in sight being a 9-to-5 job. Just when all hope seems lost and you have five papers due at 11:59PM, you’ll get a text from your friend: i’m not supposed to tell you this but…. For a moment, you remember why you love being in college with 3,000 people your age just outside your door. It’s what keeps life interesting.
Speaking of interesting, a later sketch shows Liva hooking up with Jane’s questionably monogamous girlfriend. Jane, an uninterested cuck, makes note of Liva’s framed posters and extensive book collection. This sketch especially speaks to Oberlin dating culture in a number of ways. For one, the sketch focuses on the strange-yet-nice dynamics of queer friendship, an unavoidable at this school. Your best friend and girlfriend all in the same friend group? More common than you might think. Entering a multi-faceted polyamorous relationship? Perhaps even more. This particular unfocused-cuck-and-best-friend-situation, however, is much more specific to Jane and Liva.
My personal favorite song in the show would have to be the fireman song, where Jane and Liva take up new careers as firefighters after their girlfriends (yes, the same girlfriend from the cuck song and Liva’s new MILF girlfriend) burn to death in a pizza oven while the four are on a double date. Quite nobly, the two friends and former dukes devote their lives to fighting fires to save beautiful women–10s first, of course.
A few other moments to note were shoutouts to Oberlin businesses and jazz parties from Wickline’s treasured time here. In all, DUKES is an explicit, tumultuous, strange and yet very real musical adventure through the minds of two queer young adults. What better audience than Oberlin?
