By Jennifer McCarthy
Quick! You’ve got a cup of coffee, a blank computer screen and a 12-o’clock deadline. Write a column about the arts scene in Ottawa.
Improv is everywhere. It’s an off-the-cuff, on-the-spot, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of entertainment that started out as a drama exercise to improve acting skills. Since then, it has evolved out of the classroom and into comedy clubs across the country. And with the success of the comedy game show, Whose Line is it Anyway?on ABC, trend-watchers are predicting improvisation will soon replace the stand-up comic as the staple of comic entertainment.
And this makes perfect sense. Millennial angst has already brought us extreme skiing, extreme skating, extreme bowling . . . extreme everything. It was only a matter of time before extreme comedy made the list, and improv has all the characteristics of a decent extreme sport. It’s fast-paced, spontaneous and involves a healthy dose of blood lust on the part of the audience.
The premise is simple. You get a group of people together on a stage, the audience picks the topic, theme or characters, and the troupe acts it out. From singing a love song to a piece of fruit to acting out a gripping ER drama without using the letter P, there are no limits, no preparation and no time to think. You just take the idea and start performing.
“Improv is like being caught in the act by your boss or teacher. There’s no way to prepare, you just have to lie your way out of it,” says Ken Godmere, who produces improv shows at Café des Artistes in the market.
Godmere, who has also worked with Second City in Toronto and Kids in the Hall, brought his improv shows to Ottawa a year ago as part of a fund-raising event.
He says requests for shows have snowballed since then, and apart from the regular comedy nights at Café des Artistes, he’s also running workshops for anyone interested in giving it a try.
Godmere says there are already audience regulars who never miss a show and he thinks as Ottawa becomes more familiar with the immediacy and raw energy of improv, there will be more and more people at the shows. Considering the success of local comic Tom Green, who was last seen drinking milk straight from the cow, he’s probably got a point.
People are drawn to improv because it contains the electricity and danger that’s missing from their everyday lives, says Godmere. “Your heart pounds, your hands sweat.You don’t know what’s going to happen next. You only have time to react.”
As the performers seem chase the same adrenaline highs reserved for cliff jumpers and air boarders, the audience watches with the same fascination reserved for those real life car chase specials on TV.
The appeal of improv isn’t just that it’s spontaneous or unpredictable or even really funny.
What really makes it good is that alongside the chance for comic genius, there’s always the potential for utter public humiliation.
Now that’s risk-taking.