On stage and off the cuff at the Aurora Theatre
The Naked Stage. Not a bad name for improv, the theatrical practice of making it up as you go along. The naked part is that you are making it up in front of an audience that has paid money to be entertained. So there are expectations involved, and a number of unknown people waiting silently in dark shadows for you to perform, brilliantly.
Sound hair-raising? For you or me, perhaps yes. But apparently it’s just another day on the boards for the actors of the Improv Playhouse of San Francisco. Four of these worthy actors are currently wielding their sorcery in 10 performances at the Aurora Theater in Berkeley.
The Improv Playhouse practices a particularly demanding version of this fast-on-your-mental-feet acting: long-form improv. In long form the actors concoct an entire play in three acts, lasting over 90 minutes, with every minute ad-libbed. The play has a beginning, a middle and an end, and conflicts and tensions rise and fall in between. Its three unities of theater are perfectly Aristotelian.
The actors take their cues for the direction of the play from the audience. They ask for a setting, and on the night I attended three scenes were put forth: a classroom, a church sanctuary, a pub. Then the audience votes for which scene they prefer. In our case it was the church sanctuary.
The actors begin to sketch out the imaginary setting: windows here, pews there, a platform in the middle of the stage with a skylight above, a staircase to the wine cellar over there. Adding to the humor is the fact that they construct a set unlike any church sanctuary you have ever imagined. As one of the characters asks later on in the action, “What denomination are we?” The minister (or is he a priest?) replies, “Did you look at the sign outside?”
The sign outside is as vague as the constructed-out-of-air sets. One of the characters asks for clarification, and the priest (or is he a minister?) suggests adding the word “dance with a exclamation mark” to the sign. The deacon shuffles off, only to return with letters for “dance” and … a question mark.
You get the idea. It’s wacky and rickety, just like life. And much of the attention-riveting tension built into scripted theater via carefully worked out language and plot is replaced by the question that remains always in the audience’s mind: How are they going to pull this off? That “how” is the heart of long-form improv.
But the soul of improv is the ironic and comic wildness of the actors. Tim Orr, who founded the group in 2009, led the action as the minister/priest. Orr teaches improv at ACT and has performed nationally and internationally with groundbreaking improve groups, including BATS Improv, Rafe Chase’s Improv Theatre, True Fiction Magazine and 3 For All. Lisa Rowland played the ancient deacon, who had been in the church for so long her “feet were growing into the floorboards.” Rowland won ”Best Actor” 2012 Best of the Bay from SF Bay Guardian. Regina Salsi, who is a pioneer in the development of long-form improv and who has practiced her theater skills internationally as well as in the Bay Area, played the prodigal daughter returned to the church of her childhood. And Kathryn Zdan was the Latvian girl who has returned to the church under a vow of silence. Zdan has appeared with Shotgun Players, CenterREP, Magic Theatre, and CalShakes, among others. All supremely skilled actors.
So if you’re looking for something different that showcases wit and imagination, take yourself over to the Aurora Theater. And if you miss the run, which ends October 16, San Francisco is not far across the Bay. Nor is the Improv Playhouse of San Francisco.
– Jaime Robles
For information and tickets, visit auroratheatre.org. The Improv Placehouse can also be found at www.improvplayhousesf.com.
Photo: Kathryn Zdan and Tim Orr of the Improv Playhouse of San Francisco.