I was very excited about seeing this show because I was interested in seeing what an improvised musical would actually look like, so when I was asked to review it, I said “hell yeah!”. But honestly, I couldn’t have foreseen the chaos that was about to ensue.
Blank: An Improvised Musical pretty much goes as follows: There are three performers, one accompanist and a special guest, all who make up the narrative of the musical on the spot. The performers asked for some suggestions from the audience to help set the scene, which means that each night will basically turn out differently than the last. It’s a true improv show. This makes it incredibly hard to review, because anything I describe will be nothing you’ll see, but here are some highlights anyway:
Genevieve loves her dolls because she can’t make friends. She has her favourite doll who can surprisingly talk. Genevieve finally makes a friend called “Pal”. They go on a 4 day weekend date. Genevieve’s favourite doll decides to act vengeance and teams up with a possessed and broken doll called Emily. Emily changes her mind and only wants love to break the spell cast on her. Genevieve declares love for Pal, her favourite doll and Emily and the spell is broken. Genevieve’s favourite doll turns into a human and flies off to the moon. End of story.
The insanity of what we had just witnessed left me baffled and confused, but what I was sure I saw was consistency in a high level of skill and performance by everyone on stage. Each ensemble member trusted each other implicitly which really conveyed some awesome chemistry onstage. Jacinta Gregory’s dramatic depiction of a 30/37 year old doll factory worker left my sides sore with laughter and Orya Golgowski’s waiter impression convinced me never to send back food I order.
Individually, each performer had a moment to shine and a song to sing, if sometimes a little clumsily, but remember the songs are also made up on the spot. Some of my favourites was the opening number “My Dolls” sung by Gregory and “Sexy” sung by Golgowski. But the definite winner was the raunchy antagonist melody “Emily” sung by Sarah Gaul. The evil character created some nice colour in the ark of the story and Gaul did great singing in a sinister manner. This was all orchestrated spontaneously and beautifully by the musical stylings of Nick Harriott. Harriott even was responsible for drawing us in at the very beginning, just by sitting on the stage behind his tiny keyboard. A star in his own might.
This show has a lot of potential to be great and the actors all have the ability to make it so. I personally would have liked to see some more audience participation than just at the very beginning and end, but I enjoyed the musical mayhem that ensued. Very well done Little Triangle!
I give this show 4 out of 5 Gerald the Ducks. Shame you won't know what that means.
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