Improv Review ...Because Improv is Art, Dammit

People of Earth comes out of Improv Olympic, the home of the Harold, and they perform that format with confidence. They should; they have it down pretty well. However, even with the structure being so highly stuck to, I left the show without feeling anything. Not that I had necessarily been amused, nor that I had something to take home with me. It was just a series of scenes.

The group is made up of seven men, and despite the testosterone content onstage they never once dipped into those oft to wade in pools, keeping their scenes based in honest relationships and alternate world explorations. The humor that was present came from the incidental games that broke up the sets of scenes. The opportunities to imagine a world populated with killer invisible bunnies and a world where wheat speaks of its capability to
nourish. These games were fun for the players, and that fun was well translated to the packed house.

The three sets of three scenes, a standard part of the Harold format, didn't fare as well. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with them. In fact many of the performers of people of earth were fine actors, and some of the work was well regarded, but the substance of the scenes was low, and in some there were qualities reminiscent of, and riskily close to, written sketches from television and even web films.

Although most of the players were fine directors, others tried too hard stepping on others' lines, went for the laugh, or simply couldn't stop yapping when the yapping needed to be done. Just when I thought they might regroup and get it back together I saw the chair fly. Most improv shows, for their sparse staging involve two to four moveable chairs. In my
experience there is no better way for an improvisor to say, "I'm out here with absolutely no ideas, and I can't think of a damned thing to do about it," than to throw a chair.

Scenes about inept police interrogators, bears taking revenge on hunters, and killer bunnies should be funny, and most of the cast of People of Earth seemed prepared to make them so. The rest of the cast needs to reread Truth In Comedy, and try again next year.

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