Mace Bacon makes a mess at the UCB Theatre

Imagine coming face to face with someone you barely knew in college, but who now professes to be your best friend. Then imagine this person becoming your shadow, interrupting some of your life's most important moments with embarrassing stories that verge on absurdity. Writer and director John Phillips has envisioned this person to the extreme and named him Mace Bacon.

In Mace Bacon: The Worst Guy Ever!, performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, Phillips showcases Bacon eulogizing at the funeral of his friend Mike Still. This eulogy quickly takes a turn for the uncomfortably absurd, as Bacon remembers Still as a rapist, a slave owner, an architect of genocide, and a chimney sweeper, among other untrue and ludicrous things. This quickly becomes the worst roast a comedian could give for his recently deceased best friend. To add insult to hilariously funny injury, Bacon quotes Hitler's dying words to give solace to Still's wife.

Suddenly, Still wakes up and chokes Bacon, accusing him of ruining his life. The audience is then taken back to their relationship since the latter resurfaced after 10 years. What follows is a series of scenes in soap opera-like fashion about how Bacon has ruined Still's life. We see a re-enactment of Still's wedding, where Bacon, who wasn't even invited, tells inappropriate stories of Still's former sexual experiences and describes Still's mother as a MILF — interpret that, as you will.

Phillips portrays Bacon with wonderful conviction. Bacon is completely oblivious to his faults and the eeriness of his obsession with Still. He vacillates wonderfully between being believably normal and off-the-wall insane. Still, played by Christopher O'Connor, and Katherine Bryant Flaherty work as wonderful foils to the character of Bacon. In video interviews, which play between scenes, each professes mistrust and disapproval of him. O'Connor's character even questions the identity of Mace Bacon, which is revealed to the audience at the end of the show.

The show's premise could have quickly become a laundry list of cheap jokes and cheap laughs about "the worst guy ever," but Phillips has carefully crafted the show to be cleverly fresh and funny. The pacing of the show keeps the audience's attention, as we are all dying to learn who Bacon really is. The greatest part of the show is of course Bacon, who is enough of an extreme caricature of someone we all know to make us thankful he isn't our "best friend" too.