Monday, October 5, 1998
Improvisational troupe can still pull off winner
COMEDY: Despite certain skits dragging on, actors worked to pack
in humor
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Groundling Roy Jenkins on disposable chopsticks: "It’s like
baseball cards. No one thought they were worth anything until
everyone else threw them away."
He and co-comedian John Crane proceed to value the Panda Express
remnants at between $250,000 and $6 million.
Oh, those Groundlings. The above comes after Director Karen
Maruyama calls on audience members with quirky accessories to come
onstage and participate in an improvisational spoof of PBS’
antiques road show. The above also comes after several lackluster
sketches involving sparring husbands, wives and buddies.
The Groundlings – whose Melrose walls are plastered with
8-by-10-inch glossies of "Saturday Night Live" stars Will Ferrell,
Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri and "Mad TV" star Phil LaMarr – for
years have played proud parents to a daunting string of comedic
progeny.
So yes, they have a lot to live up to. If they play it safe
early in the opening evening of their newest show, "Groundlings
Hotel & Casino," we understand. The sketch-and-improv blend has
nothing to do with hotels or casinos, unless you count a cake
frosted to look like dice and offered to the audience after a show,
which at least ended on several very funny notes.
"Hotel" wisely opens with improv, endearing itself to both
recent converts via "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and those of us who
recall playing "Freeze" in high school drama class and are
painfully aware of how not-funny on-the-spot acting can be.
On-the-spot singing, when performed by Jenkins and Mary Jo Smith
and centering around the seedy side of canning fruit, is amusingly
reminiscent of that Dresden Room duo from "Swingers".
And it hints at enough talent to make us patiently chuckle
through the next four sitcom-y sketches: a best friend who’s too
perfect to endure, a wife who challenges her husband to an
arm-wrestling match … You get the idea.
Scene 5 starts off much the same: Jenkins sends Holly Mandel a
glass of wine and makes goo-goo eyes across the restaurant. She
sends him a martini. But when he sends her a statue of a naked man
and she responds with a big, sloppy, French kiss – also delivered
by the waiter – we breathe a guffaw of relief and know that the
evening has finally taken a turn for the bizarre.
Mandel, whose slightly crazed eyes and wide, ironic mouth recall
former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Jan Hooks, further reveals
her way with the weird in her self-penned monologue, "Blind Date."
Her 40-something character cites wood as her favorite material,
writes in "Alfred E. Newman" every time she votes ("Not only is it
funny, but it sends a message") and warns that she talks during
sex.
The actress then teams up with Chase Winton to play bourgeois
housewives trying on gold lame in the basement of Loehmann’s. The
two throw away inhibition, as they throw off their clothes and
parade around in nylons and industrial-strength bras.
By far the funniest of the evening, the skit does what sketch
comedy does at its most innovative: it presents over-the-top
versions of characters common to everyday life but as of yet unseen
on stage or screen.
If everyone had a little Spartan cheerleader in them in high
school, they will also readily recognize that cheerleader’s mom and
her gossip-dishing, Yanni-loving friend.
But when the audience shouts out its own absurd additions, the
show turns from passive amusement to a sort of awe-inspiring
riot.
Maruyama is wise, then, to close the show with a string of
improv segments. When she asks for the title of a new WB or UPN
sitcom, someone fabricates "The Circle Game." Audience members then
get to create stock characters: the precocious 8-year-old (a
squirmy Winton), the angry Vietnam Vet (a craggy Crane) and their
gun-collecting pal (Mike LoPrete).
After a silly theme song and a few moments of wacky dialogue,
Maruyama mused, "I’m gonna pitch that." Think about it – at some
point in history, someone had to pitch "Charlie’s Angels."
The cast concludes with an improvised musical, a la the
Impromptones (though not quite as involved as that foursome’s rock
operas). Jenkins, Crane and Smith perform "Put Back the Stars,"
noting that someone has stolen the stars from Hollywood Boulevard’s
walk of fame and bursting into song about it. Jenkins belts
observantly, "This place used to be tops. Now it’s all tawdry gift
shops."
The cast that sings together brings in audiences together.
Jenkins’ twitchy facial expressions, Crane’s versatile depravity,
LoPrete’s alternate straight-man and energetic physicality, Smith
and Winton’s showy diva capabilities and Mandel’s loony creativity
blend and bounce off each other.
The Groundlings may be currently less than groundbreaking, but
"Hotel & Casino" won’t be playing vinyl-covered Vegas lounges
anytime soon.
The show’s verve and wit make it quite at home in one of
comedy’s favorite breeding grounds.
COMEDY: "Groundlings Hotel & Casino" is currently running at
the Groundling Theatre at 7307 Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood.
Tickets are $17.50. For more information, call (213) 934-9700.
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© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board