Washington Post - Highly Recommended
"... I am still recovering from my exposure to their antics, which oscillate at something on the order of 1,000 jokes per minute. Or maybe it only seems like that many. I couldn’t keep count because at one point in the progress of this 60-minute show, I was doubled over in a kind of hysterical agony. I felt as if my lungs had migrated into my throat and that my anatomy would soon be inside out."
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"... Two men. One stage. In their pajamas? The infamous Pajama Men have come to town and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company is tossing their newest show In The Middle of No One up onto the stage just in time for a holiday laugh. It’s no ordinary comedy show, combining elements of slapstick, mime, clown, and long-form improv into one huge jumble of a story that is packed with laughs and moments of utter confusion. With mood music provided by Kevin Hume, The Pajama Men —Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez, are sure to bring you some surprising laughs this season."
Washington Examiner - Somewhat Recommended
"...Like Van Dyke, Chavez and Allen build their humor on an array of gags. But unlike Van Dyke -- or even an edgy comic like Chris Rock -- Chavez and Allen's shtick comes across as sterile and, frankly, misogynistic, in a high-school-kid-laughing-at-a-woman-with-large-breasts sort of way."
DCist - Highly Recommended
"...Throughout the 60-minute show, Allen and Chavez thread multiple plots and hundreds of character impersonations together and make a sparse set of just chairs and a stage seem packed with magical scenescapes. Let this be a lesson to all the aspiring Peter Jacksons out there: simple suspension of disbelief is more powerful than the highest frame rate in the world."
Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended
"... The performance has nothing as traditional as a plot, although it has recurring themes: the lack of communication between fathers and sons; time travel; interaction with space aliens; and loopy bits of observation involving zebras, a squad of airheaded nurses with almost identical names, and language itself. At one point, they take on the role of spectators commenting on audience members in the front row. The performers come from a background in improvisational theater, but it's obvious that they've plotted out what happens when—at least in outline form—and they seem to communicate telepathically with each other."
Washingtonian - Highly Recommended
"... Musician Kevin Hume, who miraculously manages to not laugh once during the show, wears a faintly woeful expression while chiming in occasionally on keyboards and guitar, but he comes into his own with a performance of “Thee, Underdog” at the end of the show, an original song that has more than an air of Sufjan Stevens about it. There’s plenty to laugh at in In the Middle of No One, but these two pajama-sporting goofballs also offer a kind of nostalgic naiveté that makes their schtick the perfect holiday offering."
BrightestYoungThings - Highly Recommended
"... Whenyou were growing up,did you have a friend with whom everything washilarious?You’d crackeach other up, develop weird inside jokes,and were certainthat no one else, especially your parents,would get it. Mark Chavezand Shenoah Allen, the two actors behind The Pajama Men, have a relationship like that, except their irreverent humorworks in front of anaudience, too. After honing their show on the international fringe circuit, The Pajama Men come to Woolly Mammoth for the AmericanDebut of their show In the Middle of No One. It’s chaotic in the best way possible, leaving usscarce time to breathe inbetweenthe dizzyingly complex improvisation."
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"... From their very best improv bits, it seems, they carved their stage shows, such as the complex new one at the Wooly Mammoth Theatre, leaving room in their creation for a little more improvisation here and there. And they bring a trademark – and a performing name —in the versatile clothes they wear on stage: The Pajama Men. There’s nothing sleepy about the Pajama Men. This ain’t sleepwalking despite the attire; it’s more like a shared fever dream fueled by six-packs of Red Bull."
DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended
Where else can you find a riotous running gag concerning the South American Give-It-To-Me Bird that emits a distinctive squawk like online porn mixed with an Animal Planet special? Or a fantastical ice beast who acts and sounds like the singer Cee-Lo in his most attitude-dripping moments on The Voice? Or a sketch where a remark “I could rip my face off” is taken quite literally and another where a pair of marionettes stiffly misbehave—both of which reveal the depths of the duo’s talent with Silly Putty facial elasticity and seemingly boneless body contortions?
