Improv Review ...Because Improv is Art, Dammit

Although the three members of On the Spot opened strong, their set of standard improv games turned out to be just that: standard. The young, attractive Canadians indicated a lot of promise with their high-energy entrance and sporty shirts (which they immediately, and happily, made fun of), but failed to deliver by falling into the same “give the audience what they want” pitfalls that any less experienced group trying out these games on college campuses around the world might.

Beginning with 60, 30, 15, 5 (also known as Half Scenes), the three worked quickly to establish a location, form strong and appropriate opinions, and create the scene in sixty seconds. By stopping to incorporate the gimmick of cutting the scene in half, they cut the fun in half. We got to see the same scene in thirty seconds, then fifteen, et cetera, but their senses of fun and play had the audience wanting to see more, not less.

The same occurred during Fill in the Blanks (sometimes called Mad Libs). What started as an amusing, character-driven scene about an inept telemarketer, denigrated into self-referencing lines, and over-justifying time and space jumps. The gimmick of the game notwithstanding, the troupe failed to trust the audiences enjoyment of interesting characters and strange storylines.

A game of Puppets contained the line “I’ll just stand here and awkwardly gesture,” as seems to occur in every game of Puppets, ever, everywhere in the world. Their Styles Scene was a mélange of styles disrupting the cohesion of any scene they could have had with a styles’ abundance that had the styles themselves as hit and miss at best. And a Naive Murder scene was more about the actor’s inability to guess and a few well-appointed pop culture references than about a murder, a scene or anything else the audience could have embraced.

The three members of On the Spot that traveled to Chicago for the festival had all the necessary chops. They were witty, and had good actor’s sensibilities, and they used the large stage at the Athenaeum wisely. But if they were aiming to “give the audience what they want,” they would have been more successful giving us the character-driven scene work they seemed so skilled at, and they seemed to enjoy performing themselves.

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