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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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Three on a Match Slotnick, Katz & Lehr Reviewed by William McEvoy
In a business where
the average lifespan of an improv troupe is about nine months, it’s a
rare thing to see a group of people who have been working together for
seven years. Slotnick, Katz
& Lehr play together seamlessly, creating theater that’s fun and
poignant. This evening they crafted a romantic comedy centering on a
tale of unrequited love. The opening scene
showed the attention the trio pays to detail.
Lauren Katz, as Cecilia started on stage alone, getting dressed
and packing for a trip, while Joey Slotnick and John Lehr remained at
stage left and right providing the sound effects for every mimed prop,
from the dresser drawers to Ms. Katz’s drawers.
They took their time with this opening scene, not rushing in with
dialogue, and by the time the scene was over, we knew more about Ms.
Katz’s character than a soliloquy of equal length would have provided. Mr. Slotnick played
Bobby, a sweet, bright, but socially inept friend to Ms. Katz, who has
provided her with a manual on how to find a husband.
Mr. Slotnick is spare with Bobby, a character who it would be
easy to play as stupid, or goofy. Instead
he plays Bobby as plainly and painfully vulnerable and honest. The humor and laughs created all came out of that honesty. Mr. Lehr gets to
play a number of supporting characters, including Bobby’s roommate who
keeps a kosher kitchen, the ex-boyfriend of Ms. Katz on a canoe trip,
and the bartender on the cruise. Mr.
Lehr is very adept at creating mimed physical bits – as Ms. Katz
created the bartender on the fourth wall, Mr. Lehr used the conventions
of chamber theater and had the bartender character face out as well.
In establishing that his kitchen was up a flight of stairs, Mr.
Lehr religiously climbed up and down those stairs. Ms. Katz was the
protagonist of the story, and as such had to pick up cues from her
partners and still subtly move the story along.
The success of this play turned on the players making a
connection foreshadowed from the beginning – that Cecilia see that
Bobby is the right man for her after all.
Built to this climax as well as any scripted piece, the ending
left everyone in the house with a goofy smile, the mark of a well-done
romance.
Click here to read our interview with Joey Slotnick, Lauren Katz and John Lehr. |
What did they just write about my favorite improv group? editor@improvreview.com
