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For three years, Phil van Hest joked and mugged his way through the Winnipeg Fringe as a member of Sound & Fury, the popular California trio that performs riotous spoofs of classical theatre.
His former colleagues Shelby Bond and Richard Maritzer are still at it, with a replacement third member. Van Hest isn't discussing details of the split, but says he outgrew Sound & Fury's "easy theatre" and "very common denominator" humour.
"There comes a time in every man's life when he doesn't want to tell penis jokes for a living anymore," says the intense 29-year-old.
This fringe, van Hest is back as sharp-witted comic Phil the Void, a persona he introduced here in 2006 while appearing concurrently with Sound & Fury. "I don't really tell jokes," he says while downing a beer. "I tell very long stories that are funny along the way."
Van Hest, who lives in downtown Los Angeles, started working full-time three months ago as a scenic carpenter for a university theatre department. "It's the first job I've ever had," he boasts.
He's a brainy philosophical seeker who, like many standup comics, seethes with angry impatience. He believes most of his fellow Americans have a void -- a "profound emptiness" -- inside that they vainly attempt to fill with possessions and distractions. He sees the American emphasis on independence as the root of much unhappiness and social dysfunction. He distributes a bibliography at his one-hour show, citing works by the likes of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and Noam Chomsky.
Van Hest, who earned a theatre degree from California State University, Long Beach, comes by his restless intellect honestly. His parents both hold PhDs, his Dutch-born dad in agronomy and his American mom in cultural geography. They met while serving in the Peace Corps in Africa. Van Hest's globe-trotting childhood included stints in Indonesia, Holland and Australia. His actual first name is Philipus.
His favourite movie, he says, is Cool Hand Luke. "It makes me cry every time: 'What we've got here is failure to communicate' -- how true."
Van Hest walks around the fringe wearing a tuxedo minus the jacket -- complete with patent-leather shoes and undone red bowtie -- plus a fedora. It's not a costume he wears for performing, it just helps break the ice with strangers, so he can talk philosophy or politics and mention his show. "If you're dressed like a regular person, they will become anxious," he says.
This year, he's been getting comments that with his hat and bushy beard, he looks like a Hasidic Jew. His girlfriend back home flattered him into growing the facial hair before he went on the fringe tour. "I realized when I got here that she had successfully managed to get me to grow a chastity belt on my face."
Not only is he not Hasidic, "I don't subscribe to any contemporary, organized monotheistic patriarchies."
Although he says "fame is a disease," he wouldn't say no to a Phil the Void special on HBO. "They'll still let you say what you want. But it's hard to be popular in America, and subversive and anti-establishment. No one's going to put you on TV if all you talk about is how people should buy less things and concentrate on their inner happiness. The entire machine would come crashing down!
"Then how the hell would anyone get a chicken sandwich at four in the morning? They couldn't! Everyone would be at home, being happy."
Phil the Void: Comedy Over Quality is at Venue 3, the Playhouse Studio.
alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca
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