The tiny, 32-seat theater that houses Copenhagen’s only improvisational theater company belies the splendor of their comedy. With quick wit and inventive storytelling, the cast of Friday’s show at the Improv Comedy Copenhagen (ICC) wowed its audience with a riveting feast of humor that skilfully avoided the usual pitfalls of improv comedy as it explored some of life’s most poignant moments. From heartbreak to hearthrob and much between and beyond, the show was a rich, wild journey through universal experiences of belonging and longing. Rarely did the actors resort to lewd humor.
The showed featured both long-form and short-from improv. In the first half, the players performed a series of vignettes threaded together by a suggestion from an audience member who was loudest and fastest to shout their idea amid a throng of others. “Chicken nuggets” won the attention of the first improviser, who opened the show with a heartfelt monologue that traced the origins of her distaste for the children’s poultry product. What began as a humorous excavation of the mediocre taste of chicken turned into a thoughtful reflection on her parents divorce, and how the two were now inextricably linked. She delivered her monologue without pausing to say “um.” The audience sat awed at her integration of an innocuous suggestion, empathized at the trauma of the divorce.
These unexpected plot lurches performed the bulk of the comedic work. In one scene between two men, the first actor opened the dialogue in a deep, macho voice, “Hello, Mr., we meet again,” holding in his hand a sword with which to spar. His partner replied nonchalantly, taken aback at the sword. “Uh, yeah, we do.” The first character took this as an opportunity to change the direction of the scene: “I’m sorry I didn’t remember your name, dude, I’ve been on a lot of grindr dates.” A pause. “Dave,” his partner replied. “Right, Dave.” It got a huge laugh. As the scene progressed, the warrior-turned-bachelor continued to reference previous “forgotten” encounters between the two; gradually they built sexual tension until a charged kiss became full-throttle making out, nearly tackling each other in lust. In a later scene, a Vegas magician appeared mysteriously in the bedroom of an ordinary man, apparently following up on a promise made during a performance that he would dramatically alter the course of his day tomorrow. After much confusion from this ordinary man, the magician divulged an ulterior motive: he needed a loan. Suddenly, our empathy for the confused man turned to pity for the financially desperate artist.
Unlike the bawdy humor of much contemporary improv –– humor enabled by a male-dominated industry –– the laughs in Friday’s show stemmed from the deeply human desires of full-fledged characters grappling with life transitions and difficult cultural moments. This was striking given the cast was comprised of six men and only one woman. The second vignette in the long form stood out for its ability to capture the fraught swirl of emotions for millenials who’ve inherited the problem of climate change from our parents’ generation. This same vignette highlighted the absurdity of gun rights activism by depicting a father giving his young son a gun to fend off enemies in a post-apocalyptic world. Only when male actors portrayed women characters did they resort to gendered stereotypes. In the one such vignette, a male actor playing a hubris teenage girl exploited stereotypes of femininity to build his character: he flaunted his boobs, twirled his hair, and stuck out his buttocks as he explained to his younger sister what to expect from puberty. It was a low point, redeemed only by the delightful absurdity of the rest of the scene. The women characters created by the woman actor contained more depth. At various times she was the struggling daughter, the goddess of a mythical religion, and the empty narrator telling a story she wished was her own. I hope ICC will take a note from her vivid illuminations of complex women characters.
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