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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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Slipping Through Their Fingers Waterbrains Review by William McEvoy The Waterbrains may be a troupe of solid players. They may know how to portray a story well. They may be funny. Unfortunately, deference to an artificial format, they let their structure get in the way of presenting a good show, canceling all their seemingly good efforts. Coupled with suggestion requests that restrict the storylines, the Waterbrains defeat themselves before they even start their first scene. Since it’s the
format I take such issue with, let’s explore it.
On the surface, it seems innocuous enough: Get a suggestion of a
small town, and a holiday, explore that.
Get a suggestion of a big town, and a profession, explore that.
In the third act, put them together.
The problem I see with this format is that rather than starting
from a restricted place and letting the play grow out of that
restriction, the piece starts from a relatively unrestricted place and
grows more restrictive. (Imagine
a cone shape, if you will. Start
from the small end, and you can go anywhere.
Start from the wide end, and the conclusion is foregone.) Since
in a good play, the characters' choices become more limited as a result
of their own decisions, to throw this artificial restriction on the
story only stifles. In this
piece, they are forced to develop these small town and big town stories,
and then someone has to have a reason to get on a bus and go to the
other place, creating, in the last third of the play, a whole new set of
connections while at the same time attempting to wrap up both stories. So how did this play
out with the Waterbrains? The
first story took place in Podunk on Cinco de Mayo.
We are first introduced to a drunken trailer trash couple.
She can’t get off the floor, and through her mumblings we
realize this was a one-night stand, a regular occurrence.
We then meet the only Mexicans in Podunk, who naturally own
Podunk’s only Mexican restaurant. Finally, we’re introduced to Billy Joe, whose father wants
him to be more manly and tough. Except
for the fact that the drunks apparently got loaded at the Mexican
restaurant, there is no connection made between the three.
Ultimately, in the third act, only Billy Joe is going to continue
his story, the other stories being completely dropped.
When we switch to the big city.
We’re at a NY hairdresser, which inexplicably is run by
Soprano-like mobsters who are having a war with the Egyptian mob (who
all have Indian accents). A
Romeo and Juliet story develops between an Egyptian girl and her Italian
beau, which never resolves. I have to stop now. Each
of these pieces is so riddled with faults and holes that there was no
way it could have come together effectively.
I had to sit through the ending, there’s no reason you have to.
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What did they just write about my favorite improv group? editor@improvreview.com