Formula Improv

The London Improvathon 2024 The scene moves faster than lightThe Wedding Party Season 1, Episode 5 (3.00 am – 4.40 am, Saturday 9 March) Extradimensional Graffiti? My notes definitely took a turn for the vaguer here, as fatigue set in.  I started taking more photos of complex scene sequences since I could tell my notes were neither consistent nor complete, let alone legible.  Nevertheless this episode featured some extraordinary numbers – full-scale musical numbers, but also walk-on creations such as the doves’ chorus and the human graffiti.  It also featured some remarkable call-backs and character arcs.  Despite the hour, players kept awake and alert by developing their characters and confirming each others’ choices.  For instance, this episode brings our first appearance of Esther Coyle, who has been previously identified in a running gag from Episode 1, about the Coyles’ successful marriage being the only successful relationship in the story.   Since a few players bowed out of these episodes – notably the Ghosts, Anna and Jasper – the narrators can take more time to develop the other relationships and character choices.  They remain integral to the story, but with so many subplots to work with, and potential combinations to explore, they can remain useful precisely in their absence.  Various performers can rotate in or out of the roster when the performer needs a longer break (or they have to work another gig!) So, a few other pieces of information: Violet and Rosario are in love; Dr. Bird finds himself making a public service announcement on behalf of Miskatonic University, about using caution when encountering beings beyond utterance or depiction.  Sister Margaret has either officiated (which opened the gate to hell) or wants to officiate, since it won’t matter, since now there’s a portal to hell that the last wedding opened.  Vince Prawn has finally made a friend.  Finally, this episode ends with a re-cap, a sort of dumb show in reverse.   Scene 1.  Unforgettable Theatrical Moment. We return to Everafter Manor, catastrophe already in progress.  1This scene takes up the entire stage in a visually stunning sequence that may have been showing us the aftermath or immediate consequences of the Last Wedding, at the end of Episode 4, which opened a gate to elsewhere, allowing many Somethings to come through it.  There may have been a song; I know there was dramatic music.  The stage pictures surely invoked something, but so transfixed my gaze that I could not bother to look at what I was writing, which disintegrated into a scrawl.  But I did take some pictures.  There was a flamingo that wasn’t a flamingo.  There were voices, too, but I cannot remember what they said or sang.Scene 2.  Birds, Birds, Birds. The gardeners’ love is blossoming but the place is a dump.  Enter a chorus of doves to explain things with a recap (in bird, of course) and a dove-based dance break.  There were probably names involved, and something about the cha-cha, and a bird’s song “that can pierce your soul.”   Scene 3.  Vince Prawn and Minnie Sweet Drive Near Norwich Playing hooky from work: “Work, Schmurk!”  Something about wanting to see Norwich – they drive about in Bertha, the yellow Mustang (a toppled table and a few chairs), a miniature buddy road flick.  They’re solidifying their relationship, though each finds that this new environment is changing them in unexpected ways.  Chemistry develops, but they’re both looking away from each other more than they are toward … Scene 4.  Tottle & Fjords in the Snug Lounge The Snug Lounge, with a little less living art (down to two gargoyles/statues and a rug with an extended hand/claw).  So, more snug.  Uncle Aeris Tottle and Cool Bjorn Fjords talk about the self, and other things.  Confirmed: Fjords and his sudden husband, Glenn Scott, met at an Ibsen Conference (Episode 1, Scene 5). Scene 5.  From the Mind of Sister Margaret. My numbering was already inconsistent for this episode.  This sequence involved a flashback for Sister Margaret.  The most memorable construction provides one of the Wedding Party’s defining images, which you wouldn’t necessarily recognize without a caption (if not for the projection deftly provided by the light crew).  Using their bodies, costume pieces and hand props, the cast re-creates the infamous cock and balls which (we learned a few episodes ago) Sister Margaret painted all over Everafter.  I cannot say for certain if the image preceded the flashback or the flashback created the image, but it makes something that had only been comically abstract into a concrete detail that (like the projection) becomes a solid point of reference for future episodes. Scene 6.  Non-Euclidean Staff Meeting. The entire staff, supervised by Knight Powell, meets to re-cap and consider the dire state of the story so far.  An opportunity for a string of puns and innuendo bifurcates and proliferates when we discover that the graffiti have now become 4-dimensional and non-Euclidean.  “These cocks have stretched through time itself.”  “We have to take this on handily and smoothly.”  Bird and Powell warn everyone that, while it may feel like you’re facing some inner demons, it’s far more likely that they’re recently unleashed elder gods.  But the group realizes they must come together to face this threat: after all, “These evil forces want us to fight with each other!”  And they recognize the corrupting power of the .. balls … As for the couple whose wedding opened the gates, or perhaps the ghosts whom everyone was trying to fix up: “I bet that couple won’t be back for another 8 hours …” Scene 7.  Rosario & Violet Together, with Doves Unbounded Created by a GHOST TRANSITION.   A more wholesome continuation of the dove-dancing themes from earlier.  Might it be this scene when Rosario faces his fears of the birds and would seem to have them eating – perhaps a little too hungrily – right out of his hand … that is, the one that isn’t holding Violet’s. … ? Scene 8.  James B. & Bingo Flapjack in the Wealthy Suite. The Wealthy Suite, dominated by a vast bed downstage.  The bed: a platform high enough for characters to duck down behind, when caught on stage when the lights come up. James B. and Bingo, in their first of many duets.  James still smokes cigarettes that aren’t there; Bingo sees these and more.  And, for that, matter, ghosts. Is there a kiss in this scene?  And was it the third in the show as a whole (#1: between Glenn Scott and Bjorn Fjords; #2: between Samovar Arquette and “Reginald,” the elder god extradimensionally folding itself into her oddly bright stuffed poodle)? Whereas Arquette and Bootsencatsen-Bützen-Kätz had no chemistry, there is a strangely attenuated spark between James and Bingo.  Somebody says something about a Dark Tornado. Scene 9: Wolf en croute in the Kitchens We return to the Everafter Manor Kitchens.  Here, Chef Bonjour (who has never been to France) demonstrates techniques for new additions to the menu.  The players enact Wolf en croute, prompting the logical question: “What’s the significance of this pastry shell?” around an unskinned “wolf.”  “A final coffin for the body,” Chef replies. Well: it’s just NICE.