MemeMachineGo!

Sumana had some nice things to say about Saturday’s improv show (thanks!) :

Zed gamely put up with an overzealous audience in the “No You Didn’t” game. (The performer tells a story but is interrupted by the audience saying “No, you didn’t,” and has to immediately change that bit of the story.) Such audience behavior makes me think that improv would be better without the audience, or at least substituting computer-randomized suggestions for audience suggestions.

Trade secret: “No You Didn’t” works only because of the audience’s zealotry. The need to change the story every few moments makes it look incredibly difficult, so much so that just gamely putting up with it, rolling with it unphased and in good cheer, wins so much audience sympathy, I can do no wrong. If there were fewer interruptions and I had an “easier” time of it, it would become much harder. The audience would automatically start holding me to the higher standard of a monologist — I’d have to actually make sense!

The equivalent holds for the rest of improv — the same scenes that would seem disappointing from a sketch comedy group can seem brilliant from improvisers because the audience’s sympathies and expectations are so different.

Improv is a place that makes especially evident that “90% of life is just showing up” (Woody Allen says he really said 80% — fact-checking: your clue to quality blogging.)

And, yes, Cafe Eclectica is closing . But the show must go on and it will, somewhere. We’ll be back with a brand new name. Platypus Jones is the troupe formerly known as SF Improv (nothing at the new website yet, alas.)

And here’s a picture from last month’s show (this marks the first time in a year of blogging I’ve linked to a picture) — I’m the rightmost guy seated on the couch, the only one with a beard.