The right place for an argument
Logic gives way to funny as James Gangl revives Neil Muscott’s Comedy Debate
There are probably very few people who share an enthusiasm for improv and the rigours of parliamentary debate. James Gangl is apparently one of them and — disclosure! — I might as well hold up my hand too. Chalk it up to too many years on, and being way too into, my high school debating team that I still feel a certain shudder of procedural thrill whenever someone cites Robert's Rules of Order.
Not that there was much of that at the opening of James Gangl's Comedic Argument, though someone did, amazingly, call a point of order amid the hubbub as the divorce lawyer team was polishing off the "circle researchers."
Gangl (Dreadwood), who moderates the whole affair, has lifted the idea with all due credit from Neil Muscott’s Comedy Debate, which ran some years ago at the old Tim Sims Playhouse. Each round sees two teams of two improvisers each face off on some issue shouted out by the audience. You know, real, ripped-from-the-headlines stuff like public stoning or the search for alien life.
That last one worked out especially well, with the reliable Alana Johnston and Sean Tabares as a pair of befuddled Poindexters up against the aforementioned, slicker-than-spit barristers. Tom McKay's character was not far removed from the drawling patriarch he played in Hot Oil Barons in Love, while Jerry Schaefer all but oozed across the Bad Dog stage, enjoyably unctuous as one of those hog-jowled speechmakers who show up in so many Deep South courtroom dramas.
Though evenly matched as performers, the lawyers made short work of the circle researchers (Shades of Tim Sims again, by way of Rory Tate!) — patching together an argument that ETs would be good for tourism. (It's curious how the leaps of logic heard from improv debaters aren't that different from those of high-school teams. Or from those heard on CPAC, for that matter.)
McKay and Schaefer were a hoot, well matched with the show's faux formality, though Ken Hall and Isaac Kessler did well as — brace yourself for an obscure reference — the midget/giant duo from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Hall, perched atop Kessler's shoulders for the entire round, didn't have much to say except that movie's "Two men enter, one man leaves" line, and Kessler was limited by his role to just caveman-ish hoots and grunts, yet they still managed to out-funny their opponents.
It would be interesting to see the show tweaked so that the personae of the teams also came from audience suggestions. Gangl has put together an ace lineup of performers, which bodes well for the remaining shows. But if Friday's debut of the Comedic Argument had a weak spot, it was that some of the teams seemed to arrive too familiar with their characters — with things a little too mapped out.
And yet, going in that direction on Friday night would have robbed us all of Lisa Merchant and Alex Hatz as the Ethnic Eccentrics — recurring and seemingly all-purpose characters who should be brought out much more often.
by Sean Davidson