Is This Seat Taken?
Is This Seat Taken?
Brown Venue, 2010 Orlando International Fringe Festival</strong>
There’s regular old” Improv,” and then there’s the feared “Long Form Improv.” In regular improv, you can always bail out of the non-specific location if the “favorite color” kickers fail, but in Long Form, you’re in for the whole drive across Texas. Local funnymen Jay Hopkins and David Charles go for the gusto with a fairly elaborate set up – there are two chairs, a box of tchotckas, and a stack of magazines. We perform some entertaining audience participation stunts to select the props that will hopefully inspire the artists, then spend an inordinate amount of time arrange the two chairs. We find ourselves in the waiting room of a psychiatrist with Hopkins mildly obsessive compulsive, Charles talking to his invisible friend, and both artists trying to build a story and characters. In this long form, blocking is allowed, and this leads to some near arguments and some flat out refusals. While there are some solid laughs in here and the two men assemble quirky yet believable personas, the story never clicks and at least twice we are reduced to some angry glaring between the men. Maybe it’s just a bad day on stage, but this show just didn’t jell today.
This event is part of the 2010 Orlando International Fringe Festival. For schedule and ticket information, please visit http://OrlandoFringe.org
