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| CIF
2001 Supplement
Reviews Land of the Karaoking Improvisors Upright Citizen's Brigade's ASSSCAT Whose Chorus Line Is It Anyway?
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One Singular Sensation Whose Chorus Line Is
It Anyway? Reviewed by William McEvoy I’ll often watch a
ComedySportz show and think, “They’ve got some good improvisors
here, what would they do with a more sophisticated format?” Chicago ComedySportz answers that question with “Whose
Chorus Line is it Anyway?” They
can create a really effective one act musical, and while there are some
lapses to the wacky world of ComedySportz, overall they do a good job. The format is a
familiar one: the group is given titles of potential musicals (this
evening’s was “Cousin Bonding”), they give a synopsis and a song
from each, the audience votes, and the musical selected is then
performed. The story, set
in the 80's, involved two Siamese twins, Todd and Todd (here’s where
the “wacky” came in, Broadway’s Side Show notwithstanding) who are
put up for adoption at birth. Commendably though,
rather than make the situation more absurd, the players made the story
an exploration about these twins at adolescence, facing the trials of
normal teenagers, high school, and dating, while at the same time
forcing them to confront their adopted past.
Of course that doesn’t mean they avoid their conjoined
situation – at one point, the boys’ love interest wins two tickets
to Loverboy, and clearly can’t bring them both. Musically, this
group is solid in their structure and variety.
The women, Steph DeWaegeneer, Katie Caussin and Alida Vitas had
particularly good voices. The
men (Tom Farnan and Jason Pardo) were less skilled – both seemed to
have technical difficulty hitting some notes and even achieving adequate
volume in the rather cozy Playground.
The musical direction by Jeff Shivar was superb, he initiated
songs when they were needed and provided very clever underscoring. Whose Chorus Line Is
It Anyway is a successful piece of work.
While ComedySportz is a great thing for what it is, and
introduces improv to lots of people, even veteran Csz'ers will tell you
they're not exactly working all their creative muscles.
It’s good to see this ComedySportz franchise branch out and
provide their players with outlets beyond the cash cow that pays their
rent. A good improvisor is
a terrible thing to waste.
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