It’s Saturday night. You’re sick of the bar scene, you’ve seen everything that’s out at the theatres and you’ve only got ten bucks in your pocket. What to do? Well, one idea is to check out some improv at The Complex in Hollywood.
If you’ve ever watched the show, “Whose Line is it Anyway?” you’ll have a fair idea of what to expect. While none of the performers are quite as funny as Ryan Stiles (but who is?) you can still count on several surprises and a good deal of chuckles. And if you’re not amused, just help yourself to the free wine!
Make sure you come prepared to participate. For each skit there is some degree of audience input, weather it’s a list of adjectives and professions, a setting or full out lines. Some of the fun is seeing your own suggestions in an unexpected context.
The cast was an energetic and colorful bunch full of youthful enthusiasm. The seven cast members included (from left) Matt Cronrod, Adam Robitel, Katy Kraus, Travis J. Dixon, Miranda Russo, John DiAntonio and Daniel Weiss.
The show began with a skit called “Top Five”, an on-the-spot version of Letterman’s “Top Ten”, with clapping for emphasis. Some of these lists seemed funnier to the cast members than to the audience, but they sure were having fun up there.
Next was a dating game scenario in which the audience members supplied characteristics for the potential dates. One guy was assigned to be Rod Stuart, one was to be obsessed with logarithms, and the third was deemed a convicted jaywalker. The contestants answered questions in a manner appropriate to their assignments and the bachelorette, played by Katy Krauss, had to guess what their issues were. Since Kraus was born in the late eighties, this made Rod Stuart quite the challenge.
The “Genre” skit was one of the most amusing. The audience supplied a list of genres such as science fiction, musical, soap opera and so on. The cast began a skit based on an audience suggestion and at random intervals had to switch the genre. Weiss handled the switch to soap opera in a classic fashion, telling his two co-stars, “I’m your cousin, your brother and pregnant with both of your children.”
In a bit taken straight from “Whose Line is it Anyway”, two audience members were asked on stage to physically move the two actors while they improvised dialogue. It took a while for the volunteers to get comfortable with this but once they did the laughs began.
A skit built around a Tupperware party, sadly, suffered from unimaginative audience suggestions, but the “Random Pieces of Paper” skit elicited much more inventiveness and worked out quite well. It was like “Mad Libs” in action.
The highlight of the performance had to be the skit in which Weiss and Russo improvised an argument with the audience filling in their sentence gaps. Thanks to one audience member randomly supplying the word “steamroller”, Russo concocted an amusing bit about Weiss’s sexual maneuvers. Katy Kraus was particularly charming in all the skits and Matt Cronrod’s demeanor had echoes of a flamboyant Bob Saget.
Complex Comedy will be performing a different comedy sketch show every Saturday night at 10:30 pm through May 12, 2007. The $10 tickets are available for purchase in the lobby before the show or at www.plays411.com/complexcomedy. The Complex Hollywood is located at 6476 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90038.
