We can learn a lot about ourselves from the way we deal with adversity, like say for example having the first two shows of the week long festival you have been waiting in for months to see not be very good. As it turns out, I just go to sleep.
Before getting into the specifics let me just say this evening was a pretty big disappointment and kind of a set back to my overall goals, I was going to see three shows tonight, and in all I only saw about one and a quarter, and the little I did see was just not very good, but enough about that, lets talk some theater.
Tonight was what you might call my “night of improv/comedy” since two of the shows I was going to see had a strong improvisational component (although I did not know that about the first until I got there) and all three were comedies.
7:00 PM
I began the evening with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. I’d been waiting two months for this day and it was finally here. Nothing, but nothing was going to ruin my night. I set out for the Bywater fully expecting to enjoy some really great theater.
The first show I went to see at seven was the “The Fifth Charismatic Battle of the Interactive Social Contract” at the Hi Ho Lounge, a show I picked purely for its name and the incomprehensible description which accompanied it. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was really hoping for something truly weird or pretentious.
Just a cursory glance at the poster for this show seems to scream awesome, but unfortunately in this case, looks can be deceiving.
The idea behind the show was this: each audience member is given a slip of paper with a pin number, and then using that pin number you enter ideas for laws which the performers, or “charismatics” as they call themselves, then debate, and you vote on both the laws you like and the performer you most enjoyed.
In theory this sounds like it could be an absolutely amazing idea. The set-up gives the performance a nice, robust structure in the form of rounds, and the approach to getting audience suggestions is novel and really quite clever. Best of all, I have seen more or less this exact thing work really well even without actors. Back in college at the 1813 Society we used to have stump debates at every meeting which were essentially the same thing, a motion is put before the floor (usually, but not always something silly or ridiculous) and then each individual would get a certain amount of time to make their arguments and then offer a rebuttal. They weren’t always great, but with two really witty people they could be the highlight of the evening.
That is why this show was so crushingly disappointing, because it was just flat out boring, and it didn’t have to be. At least two of the performers had really no business being up there, and you could tell the other two could really have benefited from more structure. Actors were talking over one another and no one seemed to really know what they were doing. From a technical standpoint the set up was very impressive with computers for writing laws and casting votes, but that was not enough to make the show work. In all I left after only one round, although my law did win, along with two others, so that is something.
To some up what this show really needed were some performers who felt comfortable with what they were doing and a moderator who could keep the debate on track.
Needless to say I set off from the Bywater a little disappointed, but also understanding of the fact that not every show was going to be a winner, and besides my next show promised to be a slightly more professional affair.
9:00 PM
The self titled "A.s.s.tronots" was put on at the La Nuit Comedy Theater on Freret Street in Uptown, so it was about a six mile hoof to get there by bike, but I figured it would all be worth it since the premise seemed so interesting. Basically A.s.stronots is an improv show, but an improve show which tells a kind of space opera. What seemed so neat about this show was the idea that audience members would presumably be asked for suggestions which would shape the course and events of the show. As it turns out we were asked for suggestions, once, at the very beginning of the show, and it had absolutely no effect on the plot or characters whatsoever.
The show was improved, it must have been for the dialogue to have seemed so clunky, but we, the audience, were only spectators. Basically the show just followed a kind of loose script with individual scenes being improved as they went along, only many of these scenes went on far, far too long and the members of the cast kept talking over one another and yelling so loudly it became a real distraction. The costumes were very nice, bight white uniforms for the A.s.s.tronots with light-up belts which were very clever. I also give the show real credit for having a pretty funny back-story and set up (anything with “Space Hitler” as one of the main characters has to be good) but it all came to astro-naught (ha, space puns).
Perhaps I am missing something, but I really don’t see the appeal of watching and improvised show if the audience is not going to be a participant. What makes improv fun is seeing actors construct a scenario they could not have known in advance, and then watching them work their way through it. This is not to say these actors don’t rehearse some things in advance, but they still have to react to and incorporate the new material they are supplied with every night. In this case there was nothing truly spontaneous because they already knew, more or less, what they were going to be doing, save the one non-plot related bit I mentioned earlier. Not only didn’t the show live up to its potential, it didn’t even live up to normal improv.
I almost feel like the group really wanted to do a play about goofy astronauts with Latino accents but were just too lazy to write a proper script.
That, dear readers, is when I called it quits for the evening. I was tired and sweaty from biking, and it was starting to get pretty cold¸ but most importantly I was dispirited. After two crushing disappointments the thought of biking another three miles back downtown for an 11 o’clock show, and then biking back home at one am only to get up again at six was altogether too much to bear.
I don’t want anyone to think this means I have in given up on my goal, because I am as determined as ever to see 15 plays this week. I am confinement tomorrow’s shows will be much better, and even if they all aren’t, that’s just sometimes the way it goes. Today’s shows were experiments on my part; sure, they didn’t work out, but you always have to give things the opportunity to surprise you.
I’ll see you all again tomorrow for Day 2.
Until then gentle readers,
Ignatius
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