Improv Review ...Because Improv is Art, Dammit

The Chicago Improv Festival bills itself as "The Funniest Week of the Year," and although that might be true, it does a great disservice to the improvised shows that take a more dramatic bent, or even be downright tragic. WNEP’s Postmortem was performed on Friday night of the festival, and was not only the most moving and emotionally satisfying play of the CIF, but perhaps of any play I’ve seen this year.

The performance starts with the reading of a recent local obituary in a matter-of-fact way. In this case it was the obituary of a Ms. Nancy Pastor, who died at the age of fifty-eight. This objective reading exemplifies the simplicity of the way we view lives lost of which we were not a part, and effectively sets up the improvised examination of that life. A startling and well-staged trip to a possible afterlife follows as snippets of conversations from Ms. Pastor’s life were heard building to crescendo, before we are suddenly thrust back in time to her early memories.

Period is adhered to and well respected. An adolescent aping of Bette Davis and her ever-present cigarette foreshadows Ms. Pastor’s death from lung cancer, and the excellence she attained as a teacher is shown in the giving of the book "The Fountainhead" to a young and troubled Nancy by a caring teacher.

The cast is able and understanding. Allowing the scenes to develop at a real-life pace, the humor they find is the humor of the everyday, and the same can be said of the pathos. Thought is given where thought is due, and action is given the same. Were the improvisors not such capable actors, the piece might wallow in pensiveness, but each performer delivered great supporting and brilliant leading turns, sometimes in the same scene. Only a few minor listening gaffes marred an otherwise flawless group.

The show also presents a pop culture history lesson as the decades move along through sound bytes from each era. Hearing President Ford’s pardon Richard Nixon alongside the Theme from "Maude" alongside The Jackson Five really puts time in perspective.

Black costumes served only as backdrop to the conscientious story telling, and, as testament to director Don Hall, the play never denigrated into sentimentality. When the obituary was reprised to close the performance, this reviewer hoped that someday I would have an improv troupe as skillful and caring as WNEP to eulogize me.

Click here to read our interview with WNEP's Don Hall.

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