By John McCurdy
All you can laugh for a small donation? I'll take it...
What’s that phrase? Don’t judge a book by its cover?
Well, as it turns out, one should also refrain from evaluating an improv comedy act solely on its affiliations and price.
I was originally none too impressed by the painful pun of a title, “Laughrica,” that the show sported. But the eyeroller of a moniker and lack of admission fee actually belied the quality of the collaboration between local student troupe Improv Athens and Invisible Children at UGA.
First, get it straight: Improv Athens is comprised entirely of students, and they have no direct supervision from a professor or otherwise authoritative figure. And they were doing this exhibition for charity; the only money involved was that which went into a donation jar for underprivileged children in Uganda.
That being said, they did a tremendous job of stringing together a series of improvisational skits. Yes, they very much followed the pattern of television’s popular “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (right down to duplicating some of their games), but in the students’ attempts to be funny, they succeeded with a frequency similar to that of the pros.
A great variety of enjoyable scenarios were spread across the approximately one-hour program, but “Pillars” was a definite highlight.
In this setup, two audience members were called to the stage to be used by the actors as “muses,” in a manner of speaking; while in the midst of a sentence, the performers had to periodically touch one of the available onlookers to finish their sentence for them. The feedback then had to be incorporated into the ongoing absurd scene, in this case Hitler taking his nephew to the zoo.
According to this twisted skit, Hitler switched places with Elvis to avoid death and is allergic to silkworms. But perhaps the funniest line was something created entirely by one of the actors: The young man portraying Adolf raised his hand (on the premise of pointing something out to his “nephew”), then extended four fingers (now he was indicating that there were “four monkeys”), and then brought all his fingers together (because the monkeys were now “playing together”), resulting in an unintentional yet hilarious Nazi salute.
Also excellent was the “Lazy Susan” game, for which four different themes were selected (here, a tornado, the Amish, hippies, and the “F” word) and each assigned to a different actor. There were no rules for portraying the subjects, but at any time, the moderator (another Improv Athens member) could spin the “lazy Susan” to force the performers to switch to a different theme, with which they had to pick up where they left off last with that category.
The “F” word was predictably limited (any shift to it invariably resulted in a simple shouting of profanity), but the improvvers did a terrific job with the Amish and hippie-related scenes, in which they played to stereotypes with very humorous results (just think freshly churned butter and eating carpet, and you’re on your way).
Several other situations presented by the performers were memorable, as well. The group’s rendition of “Moving People” (a game in which two performers act out a scene without the ability to move while two audience members position them) really showed off the raw talent of the duo involved; though the two attendees summoned had no idea what they were doing, the two more than salvaged their “trip to the ghetto.”
The rapid-fire “Six Pack” (in which pairs could jump in on those currently playing by usurping their last sentence) and “World’s Worst” (the typical “Whose Line?” opener, in which improvvers simply provide their example of the worst candidate for a job or persona) weren’t perfect, but, as I said before, the group collectively hit much more than they missed and compared very favorably with the people who do this on the tube.
In all, “Laughrica” was a very pleasant surprise. Though one might expect a free event put on by amateurs to be a bit lacking, Improv Athens thoroughly impressed not only with laughs, but also with their humanity, a key to all comedy in this reviewer’s opinion.
I’m glad the kids in Africa will benefit from my two bucks; I just wish I’d had a few more in my wallet to tip the excellent entertainers.
LAUGHRICA from Invisible Children at UGA on Vimeo.
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