Comedy improv has just got to be one of the hardest acts to perform. I mean, just imagine spinning off a humorous routine with these words provided by your audience: electrolysis, butcher and Mount Everest. ShLong Form Improv, a four person troupe billing themselves as coming from South Korea, got to work and … well, I didn’t find them funny at all. Neither did I experience anything remotely approaching a laugh from any of the scenes which included, for example, robot tax collectors, students breaking into the principal’s office and a three-headed alien hiker on, you may have guessed, Mount Everest. However, two of the audience members present at my showing (there were seven of us) were in hysterics throughout and nicely highlighted the chasm between what some people find funny and what others don’t.
That said, there is clearly an ease among the troupe members and a remarkable deftness to their scene changes. They can work as a unit and they enjoy it. Lacking, though, was nuance in their rapidly shifting characters and any kind of edginess to their performance. Too nice and far too goofy for my taste. You may like this if you like, say, Jerry Lewis, but if your tastes run to such types as Louis CK, Don Rickles even or (gasp!) Jason Rouse, then I’d stay well clear.
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I think your review is unintelligent and out of touch.
ReplyDelete"You may like this if you like, say, Jerry Lewis, but if your tastes run to such types ... Don Rickles ... then I’d stay well clear."
First of all, Jerry Lewis is brilliant. Where do you get off criticizing him as if you are a superior being? Where do you get off criticizing audience members who enjoy the show?
It is 2011. Most of us in our 20's and 30's do not know who your references are.
A person can like all the artists you refer to and like ShLong Form Improv or like Jerry Lewis and not appreciate this group. Comparing artists is lame.
It is a shame that you put down devoted, talented artists who pay a lot of money to be in this festival and try to deter the public from seeing them. If you happen to get paid for written ridiculous insults, it is just plain wrong.
I encourage the public to see this and every other show in this festival and make up their own mind.
"Comparing arists is lame..." Wow! Really?!?
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