Improv-ment

This is by way of an experiment. I’m due to post something, but with everything going on in the world (Libya, the Baltimore quake) it’s hard to find banal little topics about which to prattle. For example, the current work-in-progress involves men in Capri pants. Not something I can think about right now. So I’m going experiential instead. It’s just about 5:00 as I write this, and at 8:00, I’ll be sitting by myself in a tiny theater (not even the clichéd 99 seats, I’m told) watching Improv. Now, Improv is definitely not my thing. I’m a big fan of both editing and rehearsal. But Robert’s passion is Improv, as is that of an actor friend. The actor friend will be performing at the abovementioned theater. Robert, however, will be off with his own Improv group. So I’m flying solo on this one. When I get back, I’ll let you know how it went. I’m improvising this post, as it were. Ha ha.

9:09. I’m ba-a-ack. I arrived 5 minutes before show time and got the primo parking space right in front of the theater. After dropping my donation into the plastic bucket, I took one of the forty-two seats. There were three people in each of the first two groups that performed. Our buddy was in the first group. He was appropriately earnest, hapless, stern or charming as the moment demanded. They made me laugh. Here’s the problem: the second group was annoying. Enough so that I don’t remember the bits I was going to tell you about my friend’s group. Annoying enough (a running gag was about Mel Gibson. Need I say more?) that I left before the third group. I had time to come home, take the dog out, come back, and start writing this at 9:09.

The image I’ll retain from the evening isn’t my friend looking cool onstage, nor the guy doing an unfunny anti-Semitic faux rant, but the car lining up to get my parking space when I left. It had a bumper sticker from the Upright Citizens Brigade, the Improv institution where Robert’s been taking classes. Rah rah rah!