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Improvisation and participation
Hilarious show is good sport
October 22, 2008
By Terri Dunbar-Curran
It's almost impossible to write a review for any TheatreSports performance. The main reason is that each show is different, so what the actors create next week will be completely different to what they dreamt up this week.
Perhaps the excitement of the unexpected is why it is still so hugely popular.
Despite the fact that the show has been running for years, the Kalk Bay Theatre was packed when I visited, and more than half of the audience were there for the first time.
Be warned: once you've seen one show it's a slippery slope to booking your seat for every performance thereafter.
Two teams of actors are usually pitted against each other in various games. Based on suggestions from the audience, they improvise a variety of outlandish scenarios and create general mayhem, much to the amusement of everyone involved. It's everything you always secretly wished a visit to the theatre would be.
The show saw Ryan Jales, Tamarin McGinley, Nicholas Spagnoletti and Yve Pelser throw themselves at the mercy of the audience, with Tandi Buchan as MC and Godfrey Johnson at the piano.
Starting with a warm-up round, the actors were sent out of the theatre while the audience came up with a place and three words associated with it.
The team was then told they were at the Eiffel Tower and they had to act out a scene, hopefully guessing the three words in the process.
With ooh's and aah's to guide them (and a few clues) they managed to guess "mime", "bungee jump" and eventually "canoodle" - and by that stage the actors and audience were warmed up and ready for a night of wonderful silliness.
Jales and McGinley improvised a duet, Your Mother Owes me Bus Fare, there was an interview accompanied by enthusiastic and hilarious sign- language interpreter Spagnoletti and a scene which incorporated random lines suggested by the audience. It's a pity the man who suggested "Was that inside the daschund?" didn't shout louder.
The accents game was funny as the actors found themselves switching rapidly between German, Russian, Durban, Cape Flats and the Queen's English.
The Marshmallow Bicycle game, in which Spagnoletti interviewed Pelser about an impossible invention dreamt up by the audience while she was out of the room, was great fun.
Spagnoletti played the part of interviewer perfectly as they spoke about Pelser's revolutionary banana lawnmower. Their facial expressions and leading comments made it all the more amusing.
As with any audience-driven show TheatreSports does have the potential to venture into the gutter but Buchan saw to it that everything remained family-friendly.
If you're terrified of clowns and steer clear of comedians for fear of being humiliated - don't worry, all that is expected of you at TheatreSports is that you have fun and shout suggestions if you have any. And you won't find yourself being used as an unwilling prop.
It seems a bit of a pity that Toast - the Musical, starring Agafemnon and some of the village people, was a one-off affair, but that's all the more reason to book for another show to see what characters the team dreams up next.
The evening ended all too soon but the actors certainly got a good workout, especially in the physical round of standing up, sitting, kneeling and lying down, in which no two actors can be doing one of those at the same time. It's amazing none of them hurt themselves.
Improvision, the group behind TheatreSports, is made up of about 15 core actors and, in addition to performing twice weekly, they arrange teambuilding events and workshops.
Megan Furniss, who heads up Improvision, has been "playing TheatreSports" for 14 years and, when she's not acting on an audience's every whim, she writes and directs other shows.
TheatreSports is at the Intimate Theatre in Orange Street on Mondays and at Kalk Bay Theatre on Tuesdays at 8.30pm. Tickets are R40 or R50. For more information, see www.improvision.co.za
Hilarious show is good sport
 |
By Terri Dunbar-Curran
It's almost impossible to write a review for any TheatreSports performance. The main reason is that each show is different, so what the actors create next week will be completely different to what they dreamt up this week.
Perhaps the excitement of the unexpected is why it is still so hugely popular.
Despite the fact that the show has been running for years, the Kalk Bay Theatre was packed when I visited, and more than half of the audience were there for the first time.
Be warned: once you've seen one show it's a slippery slope to booking your seat for every performance thereafter.
Two teams of actors are usually pitted against each other in various games. Based on suggestions from the audience, they improvise a variety of outlandish scenarios and create general mayhem, much to the amusement of everyone involved. It's everything you always secretly wished a visit to the theatre would be.
The show saw Ryan Jales, Tamarin McGinley, Nicholas Spagnoletti and Yve Pelser throw themselves at the mercy of the audience, with Tandi Buchan as MC and Godfrey Johnson at the piano.
Starting with a warm-up round, the actors were sent out of the theatre while the audience came up with a place and three words associated with it.
The team was then told they were at the Eiffel Tower and they had to act out a scene, hopefully guessing the three words in the process.
With ooh's and aah's to guide them (and a few clues) they managed to guess "mime", "bungee jump" and eventually "canoodle" - and by that stage the actors and audience were warmed up and ready for a night of wonderful silliness.
Jales and McGinley improvised a duet, Your Mother Owes me Bus Fare, there was an interview accompanied by enthusiastic and hilarious sign- language interpreter Spagnoletti and a scene which incorporated random lines suggested by the audience. It's a pity the man who suggested "Was that inside the daschund?" didn't shout louder.
The accents game was funny as the actors found themselves switching rapidly between German, Russian, Durban, Cape Flats and the Queen's English.
The Marshmallow Bicycle game, in which Spagnoletti interviewed Pelser about an impossible invention dreamt up by the audience while she was out of the room, was great fun.
Spagnoletti played the part of interviewer perfectly as they spoke about Pelser's revolutionary banana lawnmower. Their facial expressions and leading comments made it all the more amusing.
As with any audience-driven show TheatreSports does have the potential to venture into the gutter but Buchan saw to it that everything remained family-friendly.
If you're terrified of clowns and steer clear of comedians for fear of being humiliated - don't worry, all that is expected of you at TheatreSports is that you have fun and shout suggestions if you have any. And you won't find yourself being used as an unwilling prop.
It seems a bit of a pity that Toast - the Musical, starring Agafemnon and some of the village people, was a one-off affair, but that's all the more reason to book for another show to see what characters the team dreams up next.
The evening ended all too soon but the actors certainly got a good workout, especially in the physical round of standing up, sitting, kneeling and lying down, in which no two actors can be doing one of those at the same time. It's amazing none of them hurt themselves.
Improvision, the group behind TheatreSports, is made up of about 15 core actors and, in addition to performing twice weekly, they arrange teambuilding events and workshops.
Megan Furniss, who heads up Improvision, has been "playing TheatreSports" for 14 years and, when she's not acting on an audience's every whim, she writes and directs other shows.
TheatreSports is at the Intimate Theatre in Orange Street on Mondays and at Kalk Bay Theatre on Tuesdays at 8.30pm. Tickets are R40 or R50. For more information, see www.improvision.co.za
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