The silence in the room was shattered by a sobbing man, kneeling onstage next to a vivid orange chair, as a soft horizon crept past his silhouette. The crying awoke an eager audience in the theatrical debut of Nile Seguin's one-man show, "Fear of a Brown Planet."

Black and white is what the audience was seeing after Seguin's performance, which exposes distorted views of race, sex and political injustice at the 2006 Rogue Performance Festival.

When asked what message he was trying to portray, Seguin said he was just "getting things off his chest."

Seguin, a Canadian from Toronto, addressed topics like interracial relationships and racial profiling, while delivering his thoughts through comedy. An audience of nearly 50 people joined together in laughter, as Seguin spoke about such stereotypes as being "whitewashed" and the ever-present thoughts of the placement of race in society.

"You have to want to tell your story and you have to have a lack of empathy, in order to fill my role as a comedian," Seguin said. He also advises to never date a stand-up comic, because it's a bit like drinking the water in Mexico: refreshing at first, but then a shit-storm ensues. This suggestion gave the audience a taste of the profanity to come.

Such famous folks as Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush and Tiger Woods were not spared Seguin's chopping block of criticisms. His insights foretold of how people of different ethnicities will melt into one stereotypical racial pool, and no longer be recognized for individualism and personal character. To succeed in the future, it's all going to come down to who you know and who you're having sex with, Seguin said.

Audience member Debra LeBell said, "He was funny in an informative way, and I am particularly caving a Molson. It was a bit of a history lesson mixed with politics."

Seguin's performance involved a little help from the audience. Two women of different ethnicities were even invited join Seguin after the show and engage in simulated group sex. This joke was to prove his personal racial struggles didn't extend bias into the bedroom.
Some critics of the controversial show felt differently.

"His message wasn't well delivered and his punch lines were late," audience member Chad Stock said. "The transitions he used were not smooth and I didn't get to laugh as much, I was still waiting for the funny part. This was an artful and smart comedy, not for a mainstream crowd."

After the show, Seguin said that if his career suddenly came to an end, he would want his audience to talk about what he has accomplished. He would want people to think he was "smart, but still mostly funny. Mostly, yeah. I've always been the funny guy in the group."

No joke fell on deaf ears at Seguin's show, as the mood of the audience remained adoring with frenzied laughter throughout.

You can still catch the final showing of Fear of a Brown Planet at the Rogue on Saturday, March 11, at 8:30 p.m. at the Starline.