Tina Articles |
LINK TF.NET |
  
|
SITE STATS |
WEBMISS: Ashley I am not associated with Tina Fey, NBC, Broadway Productions or anything else mentioned throughout the site. . |
Chicago Improv Festival Kicks Off
Improv comedy may by nature be a hit-and-miss art,
but when it's practiced by seasoned pros, nothing
looks easier. Many of the insider-ish groupies that
crowd improv shows like the Chicago Improv Festival
2000's kickoff night at the Athenaeum Theatre
may have caught some minor misfires. But really,
you can lose track of them when tears of laughter
are streaming down your face.
The triumphant show on Tuesday, April 25, featured
The Impromptones (a Los Angeles quartet of musical
improv-ers), JTS Brown (a large, hometown-favorite
ensemble specializing in longer, interconnected
presentations), and Dratch & Fey (a scripted series of vignettes by Second
City alums and current "Saturday Night Live" rescuers Rachel Dratch and
Tina Fey). In short, it was a brilliant survey of improv's many household
applications and why it's so integral to today's best comedy.
After emcee Greg Mills promised a week-long "orgasm of improv," in which
comedy would be "spurted all over the city" (tying himself up in these kinds of
knots was a specialty), the Impromptones (pictured above) made their case
for firing every Broadway lyricist and starting over with them in charge.
Playing to the joys of sappy love-song formulas while gleefully trashing them,
the four tacky-shirted tunesmiths used the audience's cues to construct a
theme song to the fictitious movie, "The Final Contraction," and an operetta
about some guy's drug test. Their combination of musical mastery and
comedic craftsmanship would be difficult to match anywhere.
JTS Brown's stock-in-trade is a distinctively surreal approach to long-form
improvisation, in which seemingly unconnected, shifting vignettes are
presented for ambitious laughs. Although on this night, the audience's
suggestion of "bikers" did not lead to many of the usual, gratifying
inter-relations throughout the sketch, this nimble ensemble was so oddly and
individually humorous it didn't really matter.
Dratch & Fey wrapped up the evening as headliners should-by bringing the
house down. Presenting themselves as competing solo shows of Rachel's
obscure women's-suffragist biography vs. Tina's "C*nt Poems," the irreverent
tone of their sparkling stage chemistry was immediately apparent. No one
does spastic foreigners and misfit children better than Dratch-one look at
her "sexy" Serbian pop star proves she's a Gilda Radner for our time.
Blending with Dratch's bright-eyed goofiness, Fey's sly writing is both
feminine and random-it's clear by the end of the sketch that it shines
through a foundation of improvisation. And the payoff of years making it up as
you go? Opening lines like a holistic adult educator's thesis that "the animal
kingdom teaches us much." Hilarious.
-Jack Shay
