Free To Decide
UCB
offers a choice on Monday nights: Three accomplished improvisers showing
a lot of edge, or an amusing but constrained group spoofing
documentaries.
The
members of Liberty Inn, a new trio at the Upright Citizens Brigade
Theater comprised of Chris Gethard, Anthony King and Zach Woods (each a
member of another larger improv team at UCB), are skilled at finding
counterpoints to each other.
In their
performance October 10 paired off with documentary-form improv group
B-Roll’s Fact or Fiction show, they immediately established themselves
as three old friends who didn’t see each other very often and were
having dinner – one of whom is now happily married with a kid while the
other two still languish in lonely single-hood.
Gethard
casually tossed out the idea that his character is suicidal, while King
reveals that his was suicidal a few years back until he met his wife, so
they aren’t afraid to go dark; and Gethard expanded the world by also
shifting into the role of the waitress serving everyone, who seemed
ultra-naïve.
Liberty
Inn, which will play again with B-Roll next week, is interesting to see
mainly because it puts together these adept improvisers who aren’t in
the same group and produces colors that they might not get to show with
their regular teams.
B-Roll
delivers a good variation on typical long-form improvisation. Groups
like UCB’s Real Real World and MC2’s Character Dog Run deliver whole
shows where each group member plays a character, but they plan those
characters in advance, just the action itself gets improvised. B-Roll
carries exact characters created on the spot through the whole
improvisation within a tight format of putting the action in the context
of an imaginary documentary film.
B-Roll
does rely on a certain structure to frame its improvisation, immediately
casting one member as a narrator, and giving each duo that does
something an immediate second beat – with the first beat lit more
intimately and the second beat with the whole cast lit behind the duo.
As
B-Roll’s performance unfolded, each duo’s story was then revisited in no
particular order and eventually the duos interacted, all within the
context of a documentary about the lives of workers in an Office Max
store and others whose lives intersected there.
Cody
Melton of the group hit on a good satirical point about Office Max
owning its sidewalk and parking lot as well, affecting the efforts of
Porter Mason’s hippie protestor character. Also, the lighting technician
was indispensable to B-Roll by alternating the aforementioned spotlights
and bright full lighting with fadeouts for the scenes, adding to the
filmic feel.
Still,
while amusing, B-Roll only flirted with the type of edge that Liberty
Inn seems to have down pat in its improv. It would be interesting to see
how they might fare with pre-defined characters.
B-Roll: Fact or Fiction runs again 8 p.m. Mondays, October 17 with
Liberty Inn and October 24 with Five Dudes.
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