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September 13, 2002
Humor from the fringes
University-based Jewish group planted seeds of improv.
DANIEL MATE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
At this year's Vancouver Fringe Festival, two local-born Jewish
performers are pushing the improv comedy form in an exciting and
largely unfamiliar direction. Theatre in a Box, featuring
Becky Johnson and Noah Lepawsky, is a charming, low-key and uniquely
engaging improv experience. Unlike most improv shows, which use
audience suggestions to create short, unrelated bursts of absurd
comedy, Johnson and Lepawsky create a continuous one-act play based
on only a few bits of information provided by the crowd.
Since each show is completely unique, I won't be giving anything
away by describing the performance I witnessed. It had been decided
beforehand by Lepawsky, without consulting Johnson, that the play
would be a mystery of some kind. The audience then gave each actor
a secret that they were to try to withhold from the other. From
these scant beginnings, the two performers created a hilariously
convoluted but strangely compelling story about a detective who
longed to be a gardening journalist, a former high school jock living
in Michigan over a nuclear dumping site, a flighty Gap girl and
a woman named Ananda Smith who is Michelle Pfeiffer's illegitimate
daughter.
I had a blast watching the actors working on their feet to explore
the details of these characters' personalities, move the story forward
and keep the surprises coming for each other and the audience. Adding
to the fun is the interplay between the actors and the sound and
light technicians, who are also improvising as they go. Mostly,
I appreciated the total absence of cheap, overused gags. The laughs
come from the struggles of both the characters and the actors as
they strive to work through and make sense of what's happening around
them, and the humor feels fresh and mature.
Speaking to Johnson before the show, she pointed out that while
the Theatre in a Box company is doing something rather unique in
this day and age, it's not the first company to do long-form improv.
In fact, the roots of all spontaneously created theatre go back
to the work of companies like The Compass, a University of Chicago-based
group formed in the 1950s. Made up primarily of liberal Jewish students,
The Compass created improvised stories based on loosely prepared
scenarios, often from newspaper stories.
"They were not actors to begin with," said Johnson, "they
were simply informed and opinionated young people with interests
in performing."
The work of The Compass grew to be very popular and was highly influential
for later comedy troupes like Second City, which led to shows like
SCTV and Saturday Night Live.
Asked why she and Lepawsky were drawn to the long-form style, Johnson
cites a dissatisfaction with the current state of comedy.
"Everything was flippant," she said. "The new persona
of the comic was one of distant judgment, and some of the craft
of comedy was gone. I was seeing a lot of improv shows that felt
more like a string of jokes than a story."
Since the two performers consider themselves to be actors and not
comedians, she explained, they wanted to be able to play with theatrical
fundamentals like character and relationship, and to engage audiences
on a sophisticated level.
"I wanted an audience to be rooting for a character the way
they would in a dramatic play, and for it to be sustainable over
a longer period of time," she said. Through doing this sort
of work, they have found that audiences appreciate the chance to
get to know the characters over the course of the whole show.
Theatre in a Box also carries on the great tradition of Jewish performers
making people laugh.
"Laughter is one of the things that keeps an oppressed people
hopeful," Johnson said. "Today North American Jews are
also in a unique social position. We are largely white and middle
class, and yet we are also outside the western ideal."
While the content of Theatre in a Box is not explicitly Jewish,
there is a tinge of twisted outsider humor present that is consistent
with that of Jewish comics from Lenny Bruce to SCTV's Eugene Levy
and Andrea Martin, all the way through to Jerry Seinfeld. With any
luck, these two talented performers and their long-form medium will
continue to grow in popularity and recognition.
Theatre in a Box runs at Studio 17, 1565 West 7th Ave., Sept.
14 at 12:30 p.m. and Sept. 15 at 1:45 p.m. For more information
on tickets, call 604-257-0366 or visit the Fringe site online at
www.vancouverfringe.com.
Daniel Mate is a freelance writer and performer living
in Vancouver.
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