Sketch comedy, like revenge, is best served cold. The Bastion braved a chilly and blustery North Side evening to take in the first night of Chicago Sketchfest 2007. Per a recommendation, The Bastion kicked off The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival by hitting the South stage for a devastating first salvo of blackouts, scenarios, and some very aggressively enthusiastic red-shirted volunteers. Like the Lollapalooza of sketch comedy, deciding between three stages is difficult. How do you choose between comic gold, comic gold, and comic gold?! Per a recommendation, we saw groups Getting Serious, Sandy Takes a Break, Cusick and Hallal, and KevINda.

First up was a hilariously cruel offering from the girls of Getting Serious, who offered up a set of solid scripts, emotional intensity and a willingness to stare down an uncomfortable situation and twist the knife just a little bit more. Plus, we learned a Very Special Lesson about what to do if you suspect your 8-year-old little sister may be a terrorist.

Sandy Takes a Break closed out the first show, and this two-man team brought some compelling character work to the table. Writing, schmiting - sometimes a great sketch comes out of nothing more than the tiny deranged personalities that live inside our heads. Each member of this duo had a chance to shine, showing us a locker room talk in the Green Zone and proof that no matter how much you may not like your girlfriend's father, it could be worse. Like sea-foam green driving scarf worse.

After a brief intermission and another pep-talk by the staff (Big Ups for the introductory videos!) we hit the ground running again with Cusick and Hallal. This pair brought some very ambitious material to the stage, both in terms of the intricacy of the writing and lighting/sound effects. The humor runs the gamut from a Ken Burns documentary on winning a silver medal to the heartbreaking combination of spousal abuse and folk music. The show was replete with memorable characters. Re-PLETE, we tell you! A high point of the show is a conference call sketch which always veers on the brink of unintelligible chaos, but the team keeps the scene together with energy and sharp timing.

Finally we had kevINda, whom both of our longtime readers (snicker snicker… mmm… Snickers…) may remember from a feature a few weeks ago. They closed things out with a bang - political and racial humor that would otherwise seem boring and shrill is delivered with punch. Character work takes center stage here, with a natural ear for dialogue and some nice physical comedy as well. The hype you hear is true. Good solid stuff!

If Thursday's shows were any indication, there are great things in store for Sketchfest 2007. Ninety-nine acts have descended upon the Theater Building Chicago, locust-like in their ferocity, looking to consume any and all available written material in the area. The plague of funny continues on three stages through next weekend.

By Leigh Vandiver and Josh Knorr.