Having reviewed all but one previous SRQ Improv Festivals, I knew the work of more than half the 20 troupes participating in this year’s 11th. Most perform in their best routines so that mainly how they’re filled in, usually based at least partly on audience suggestion or a topic drawn out of a container, differs each year. This time I chose to review a new-to-SRQ international group, three popular domestic ones, and the culminating long performance of all the improvisors, chosen by lot and given new challenges. 2-MAN-NO-SHOW from Canada unfortunately began my viewing. The last two words of the group’s title describe what Ken Hall and Isaac Kessler presented. They began mainly by running around in the audience after asking for an improv suggestion and rejecting each one because they all dealt with animals. Onstage they used a total of four chairs mostly to represent cages. Their big deal consisted of Kessler standing on a chair with arms outstretched and hands clutching a broken-off microphone stand and a glass of water. He poured some of it out after proclaiming “I am Je-Je-Je-sus” and played that as a 25 minute joke while Hall engaged in inane conversation down center or once again roamed. After getting down, Kessler scooped up his small partner and mimicked supposed space travels. One woman in the audience kept trying to feed them some material but they didn’t get it and just returned to the Crucifixion, which even the liquor-sated audience members stopped laughing at. 40 mins. seemed like forever. PARALLELOGRAMOPHONOGRAPH had Kaci Beeler (also acclaimed star of AVAILABLE CUPHOLDERS), Roy Janik, Kareem Badir, and Valerie Ward asking for suggestions about a 1900s movie about a girl and her pet, which turned out to be a horse. The movie was set in the 1950s when the Hayes Code heavily censored obvious sexually explicit scenes. This Code dominated the improv that followed in which the horse was forgotten and two women were getting it on, there were other flirtations connected to a man in a library, and the married couple split apart—mainly by death. That left the widow and other woman a chance to get closer. The seemingly resurrected married man and guy at the library weren’t averse to each other either. There was a realistic drunk scene. After 45 minutes, the women went off together happily and the library man finished his work there. Interesting and most enjoyable when most subtle. DAD’S GARAGE of Atlanta, always a treat, presented An Improvised Vacation at the audience’s chosen Ponderosa Ranch of TV fame. Matt Hogan acted as the scene setter and a smooth director-actor. The holiday that he, Andy Coen, and Perry Frost presented was for 12-year-olds, one of whom has a rare disease syndrome that has made him very negative. The principals have a pet who’s left in the car when Matt, the driver, hurried out to rope a calf. It actually seems plausible that eventually a “High Noon” confrontation took place, a bull threw one of the riders, and another got a star. Perry Frost somehow ended up in a spaceship looking down at the guys on earth, while mood music played for the them and they gained another family member in the woman’s pet. A troupe that always scores with their audience! (50 min). QUARTET, the Festival Headliner, was its last sole troupe to perform. Hailing from Los Angeles with long experience on the pungent Chicago improv scene were Carla Cackowski, Jean Villepique, Bob Dassie, and Craig Cackowski. They proved the success of their emphasis on character-driven comedy. Although they took off with a “play” called “Shock” and began with a mystery about electricity, they landed with emphases on infidelities, food and drink, and concern with their children. A search for a piñata to celebrate one child’s birthday expanded into quarrels in a restaurant and a ride on a unicorn. Despite seeming confusing, the four improvisers made the “play” pretty clear and, on the whole, quite funny. One could see why they’re a festival feature attraction. (1 hr, l5 min). ALL PLAY, a final meeting of all the performers with director Will Luera as Master of Ceremony and Adam Ratner pulling names of troupes out of a silver vase, presided over a completely satisfying cooperative venture. Each called-out troupe leader asked for the number of volunteers he or she wanted to stage a short improv. One of the highlights was a British short form comedy by international THE MAYDAYS, the second Festival Headliner, complete with fitting song. Other winning troupes in ALL PLAY were AVAILABLE CUPHOLDERS who involved Will Luera to lead everyone in a Speak-with-One-Voice routine; HAPPY KARAOKE spreading silver dust; IMPROV BOSTON expressing love for a most unusual combination, pears and cigars. In a final ALL PLAY stint, FST Improv’s star Christine Alexander performed her wonderful sign language interpretation of everyone’s proclamations and songs. (l hr., 30 min).
