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No. You don't have to just silently take it. Write back. Send us your thoughts today at:
Improv Review reserves the right to edit all letters for space and content. In order to get your letter published, please include your full name, the way you would like your name to appear, your city, your improv affiliation (if any), your e-mail address and a daytime telephone number. (so we may confirm your identity)
Lo Roim Mimeter Tel Aviv, Israel
Mainstage, Athenaeum Theatre
Thursday, April 4, 2002
Reviewed by Jeff Catanese
It was easy to tell where the CIF audience sided in the current Middle East conflict by the thunderous applause every time it was mentioned that group hailed from Tel Aviv, Israel. Even while the crowd was politically aligned with Lo Roim Mimeter (translatable to The Metric System), they were less in favor of this short-form group in the laughs department. Deservedly so.
Of course it's hard to make a good showing at a festival that is displaying the cream of the crop when you're the only game in town in a country without any improv history, teachers or even other troupes. The downfall of this group, however, was not in their lack of background, but in their basic lack of understanding of why the simple games they
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were playing were funny. For example, when playing a game of Expert Translation, the "expert" (Popko Ilan), speaking only in gibberish, failed to perform anything physically, leaving the translator (Alon Margalit) on his own, and turned what should be a shared game into a broken monologue. In other games, like the Directed Freeze, the scenes were cut off too quickly, not that anything of substance was developing. Yet, when they introduced some props to some scenes, the needed physicality propelled them to an until-then-unseen cleverness.
The troupe never lived up to the promise of their brilliant satirical opening, or their set, depicting tape measures and one giant light-up eyeball. Even Mr. Margalit, assuming the bulk of the hosting duties, and coming off as extremely affable and intelligent, promised a much more pointed show. That promise was never delivered on.
The troupe performed in English despite the fact that they were not very proficient with it. Most of the laughs they got throughout their half-hour set were due to numerous mistranslations and malapropisms. As the three men (with pianist Guguy Hadari) shared the hosting duties, it was apparent that they were each very droll individuals with a great sense of fun. Upon receiving the time period suggestion of "Time of Jesus," Mr. Ilan slyly responded with, "Yes. Let's see what really happened," to the crowd's delight. It is a shame that Lo Roim Mimeter couldn't translate that wit to their improvisations.