Whose Live Anyway?
Saturday, 7 Nov 2015. 11pm.
Saturday night we went to see "Whose Live Anyway?" in Santa Rosa. It's a traveling comedy show based on the TV series "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". This show featured TV series regulars Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, and Jeff Daniels, joined by "Mad Men" actor Joel Murray.
This was our second time seeing the show. We saw it about a year ago when it came through Santa Rosa. This time around we managed to get better seats. It's not so much that these seats were closer, though they were 2 rows closer, but more that we sat closer to the center this time. We could see the actors' facial expressions better. And faces are important. Especially when watching Ryan Stiles, whom many people consider the strongest member of the improv team. He's extremely funny on TV, but if you pay careful attention you'll notice that when he's extremely funny he's always in a close-up shot. When we watched him from the corner a year ago, we were like, "What's he doing? Why are people laughing?" So this show was more enjoyable than the previous one we saw, if only because we felt more a part of the humor.
One of the standard tropes of improv is involving audience members in certain skits. These were both the high and low points of the show.
On the low side, several of the audience members who volunteered enthusiastically (or agreed when their friends/family enthusiastically exhorted them) to get up on stage were complete flops. After all their enthusiasm at their seats they completely froze on stage, dragging the skits to a near halt. Why do people like this even volunteer?
The high point came during the "Sound Effects" skit, when Stiles decided basically to lampoon how frozen-in-the-headlights his sound effets maker was. He repeatedly made theatrical gestures that she was utterly dropping the ball on, and made jokes building on how silent everything was. That's the one point in the show where I lost it and could not stop laughing.
There was one exception to the deer-in-the-headlights pattern amongst volunteers. A young woman was dressed either as a big pink flower-- or a pink Statue Of Liberty, I'm not sure which-- and could barely stop jumping up and down with excitement when she was on stage. In a "move the players according to their dialogue" skit, she pushed Proops and Daniels into numerous sexually suggestive positions. Let me be clear, I'm not opposed to sexually suggestive humor. And the TV shows involves an occasional dose of it. But this gal was too much of a loose canon. Stiles was half hiding near the curtain at the back of the stage, apparently torn about when to shut this crazy down. When he did come out to end the skit, the gal dry-humped him and grabbed his groin as a friendly, "Thanks, buh-bye!" gesture. Proops took center stage and tried to draw attention away from Stiles' genuine shock. He quipped, "What a tough show. Everyone we've called on stage tonight has been a complete lunatic."
ProTip: When a grown woman comes dressed as a flower and it's not a a costume party, avoid her, she's nuts!
All in all, a good show despite a few low points. We'll watch for tickets more closely next time to try to get even better seats. And perhaps I can volunteer for the sound effects skit. I will crush it!