Two expats make up the first-ever English crosstalking duo (3)

Obstacles of prejudice

Immediately after their debut as English-speaking trailblazers, both slipped out into a quiet alley and analyzed how their set went down. Judging from the audiences' reaction, their biggest obstacle might be that xiangsheng humor is too much of a throwback to a bygone era of more innocent comic sensibilities bereft of vulgarity - something Western audiences have come to view as standard from their wise-cracking comedians.

Appell is clearly frustrated.

"That's the thing about expectations," he says. "[The audience] had come to see Western-style stand-up."

Angiers makes a distinction and offers that they successfully performed the sketch but says the way they did it wasn't entirely successful.

"I think that people picked up on what we were doing," Appell says. "I think they enjoyed it. But we need to take it to the next level and do what the real xiang­sheng artists do, which is that every single line will have a physicality, body motion and emotion."

Crossover potential

Levi Woodward, 31, a Portland, Oregon, native, accountant and novice comedian, watched Appell and Angiers from the side of the stage immediately after his amusing five-minute stand-up routine about life in China. He wasn't exactly sure what he was watching at first.

"I thought it was really cool. Xiangsheng is really new to me but they got all the Chinese people laughing which is really hard to do," says Woodward.

As a comedian who has been a part of the China Comedy Club scene based around Hot Cat Club for about a year, Woodward has noticed that if you say the wrong thing about China, Chinese audience members won't find it funny.

But Woodward hypothesizes that every time the nascent comedy scene in Beijing diversifies, it gets better, and xiangsheng in English does exactly that.

"They made both [Chinese and foreigners] laugh," he says. "Finding the middle ground is the hardest thing to do."

Yang Yang, a 27-year-old fixed-gear bike shop employee in Beijing, was impressed with her first-time viewing of an English version of her beloved xiangsheng. "I can't express how good they were," she says. "It's a very difficult thing to do."

As Appell and Angiers left the stage to a lukewarm reception (there was a sense that the performance had gone on a bit too long), host Niko Martinez, sarcastically paid tribute: "Ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for Jesse and the other guy!"

"I didn't get it. I didn't understand it," Martinez later says to Metropolitan over the phone. "I was confused, man."

Asked if he was aware that this was a debut of sorts for xiangsheng in English, Martinez replied mockingly, "Wow! That's awesome," then hung up the receiver to board a train.

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