Hit or Miss
If you haven't seen A Twisted Christmas Carol yet, get yourself over to the Arts Club theatre on Granville Island. Urban Improv's Diana Frances and Drew McCreadie star with Peter New, Jeff Gladstone and John Murphy.
Recently Jerry Wasserman of the Vancouver Province and www.vancouverplays.com gave the show a B+ review. But added "Of course every night will be different, and what works in one performance may fall utterly flat in another." Then in a mini review he stated, "Because much of the show is improvised, it's always hit and miss so you might include a disclaimer with the tickets".
I wrote the following letter to Jerry and he's going to have it on his web site with a link to our web page.
Dear Jerry,
You’ve hit on one of my pet peeves in your mini review of Twisted on Thursday. One that’s right up there with articles about comedy that start by saying, “Comedy is serious business”.
I honestly can’t count the amount of times I’ve done a partially improvised or full improvised show and the review was something glowing with “but it’s improvised so it’s always hit and miss” tacked on at the end. It’s like the quality of an improv show is considered random, depending on which way the wind blows.
No one ever says, “Oscar Peterson may be doing some improv jazz in his show so it’ll be hit or miss”. Jay Leno ends every stand up show with about 15 minutes of spritzing with the audience, but no one says “Watch out for those last 15 minutes, they could go either way”.
In both of those cases you’ve got artists who know their craft well enough that they can venture safely into improv. Hell, even Reveen got more respect in his reviews.
A comedy play of any kind could kill one night and tank the next. But that’s never brought up. Any play or performance can go either way. You review the show you saw. When you get into predicting the future you’re on shaky ground.
Best,
Ian Boothby
Recently Jerry Wasserman of the Vancouver Province and www.vancouverplays.com gave the show a B+ review. But added "Of course every night will be different, and what works in one performance may fall utterly flat in another." Then in a mini review he stated, "Because much of the show is improvised, it's always hit and miss so you might include a disclaimer with the tickets".
I wrote the following letter to Jerry and he's going to have it on his web site with a link to our web page.
Dear Jerry,
You’ve hit on one of my pet peeves in your mini review of Twisted on Thursday. One that’s right up there with articles about comedy that start by saying, “Comedy is serious business”.
I honestly can’t count the amount of times I’ve done a partially improvised or full improvised show and the review was something glowing with “but it’s improvised so it’s always hit and miss” tacked on at the end. It’s like the quality of an improv show is considered random, depending on which way the wind blows.
No one ever says, “Oscar Peterson may be doing some improv jazz in his show so it’ll be hit or miss”. Jay Leno ends every stand up show with about 15 minutes of spritzing with the audience, but no one says “Watch out for those last 15 minutes, they could go either way”.
In both of those cases you’ve got artists who know their craft well enough that they can venture safely into improv. Hell, even Reveen got more respect in his reviews.
A comedy play of any kind could kill one night and tank the next. But that’s never brought up. Any play or performance can go either way. You review the show you saw. When you get into predicting the future you’re on shaky ground.
Best,
Ian Boothby
posted by urban improv at 7:13 PM
1 Comments:
Beautifully said!
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