Improvention 2012 Review - Performances Part II
Antiques Roadshow - Wednesday - Patrick Duffy
B
I’ll admit to being distracted analysing and going over my own performance in the challenge that evening, and perhaps I wasn’t in the right space to enjoy this as much as I might have. There were times when the show got my attention, though then that scene would finish, and I would lose focus again. The premise was interesting, asking audience members who had brought antiques from home, to talk about the antiques, and then ask the performers to use the antique as an inspiration for a scene. The hosts were intriguing to watch, and my favourite part was watching them interview various audience members.
Gorilla Theatre - Tom Salinsky
A
My mind keeps coming back to this performance in particular… I can see the potential of this form now and would like an opportunity to explore it further.
It seems to the riskiest format I’ve seen over the week. The directors take a huge number of risks in trying to present their vision, and they get pretty immediate feedback after each scene if the audience thought they were successful (audience shouts banana) or a failure (audience shouts out forfeit). I find the idea extremely confronting. There were more forfeits than bananas. What fascinates me most though, were just how entertaining the failures were. Especially how good it looked for the directors of a failed scene to be enthusiastic about just how much they had failed. It’s a strong performance choice to be so enthusiastic in the face of failure.
Special mention has to go to the f*** with Tom scene. Tom was told they would play a game, where he would leave the room, while it was decided on what famous person he was going to be. When he came back into the room, he would involve himself in the scene, and he would have to guess who he was. However, the point was actually to f*** with Tom, and no character was decided on. So as Tom valiantly tried to make guesses, the other players rebuffed him, laughed at him, gave him cryptic and meaningless hints, told him ‘no’, or just simply ignored him. His frustration and bewilderment, and his sincere and heartfelt effort to make the scene work was hilarious to watch, especially his courage in reaction to being told by the director to involve himself more in the scene. And his bewilderment only increased when the scene, which from his point of view was dreadful, received a resounding banana, much to the further delight of the audience. You could see him plotting his revenge afterwards… I wouldn’t want to be that director if and when the revenge finally comes.
Quiet Companions - Marko Mustac
D
This was a long form, of one man and one woman in an Edwardian setting.
It’s hard for me to find anything positive about this show. The costumes were good. Voice projection was good. Um… Yep, those are all the good points I can think of. I’ve talked to a dozen people about it, and none of them liked it. Two people walked out on it, and I’m sure more people wanted to do the same.
(I will mention that I liked Marko’s performance, choices and teamwork in the Celebrity Gala. So maybe this performance was just poor form on the night? )
I’m told that there were definitely pre-established characters bought to the scene by the players. I find this hard believe - certainly these characters hadn’t been fleshed out in the way Nigel and Bec suggested in their respective workshops. These characters were boring and unlikable. The stakes were non-existent. The Edwardian setting was destroyed by how quickly the two characters had sex with each other - although something interesting needed to happen by the time of the sex, this quickly turned out not to help anything after all. We still didn’t learn anything about the characters. The one thing we did learn about the woman, a dark manslaughter, was so incongruous to the otherwise glib situation, that it didn’t actually help the scene either. And the rest of the scene was these two playing parlor games, that had no stakes, were boring, and didn’t change or affect the characters. At times the excuses they made to stay with each other instead of just going their separate ways felt flat and contrived.
What may have worked better in this situation was to explore the taboos around sex and flirtation in that Edwardian setting, and explore gender roles, issues and expectations. This isn’t what we got.
About a third of the way in, I was really hoping and wishing this experience would be over soon. It wasn’t… and the wait for release was painfully long. In retrospect, it probably was a worthwhile experience to have had. As a far more experienced improviser told me, you can sometimes learn much more from bad impro than what you can from watching good impro…
Make sure the stakes are high. Make sure the characters are deep, and they disclose interesting and specific parts of themselves. If you have two people in a situation, make sure they have good reasons to justify staying in the situation, rather than lingering for no good reason. If you play a game within a scene, make sure it is really about the characters, and not the game itself. And be truthful to and honour the setting.
Close to You - Rama Nicholas
A+
I think this performance lost a lot of its audience because of the terrible show that came before it. I think several people were confused, and thought that if they went back to that theatre, they would be subjecting themselves to another hour of the same thing. That’s a dreadful shame, because this was one of the highlights of the festival for me.
This performance was a series of short scenes on intimacy, with usually just two performers on stage. The themes included love, intimacy, fear, flirtation, forbidden love, and honesty. The stakes were either successful relationships or broken and wounded hearts. It was like we were getting small glimpses through windows into the lives of these various characters and their relationships. We got to see what went on behind closed doors.
The players were all fabulous. They were honest in their scenes, they risked mightily, and they were enthralling and beautiful to watch. Many of the scenes affected me personally, as I felt, or remembered, or hoped as the characters did. The last scene, which was silent, and a goodbye, was just two players sitting on the couch and holding tightly to each other and crying. This was a powerful scene, and it reached my heart. I’ve known that pain, and it felt very true for me too. I feel a lot of gratitude to all of the actors for sharing some of these intimate parts of themselves with me.
It surprises me that there isn’t more of this style of impro being done… as much as I like the comedy and games, I feel this form calling to me the most. I want more of it. And I want to be a part of creating it.