Directed by Evan Jones, No One Lived Happily Ever After is the Australian premiere of a new long form impro show. It makes the guarantee that by the end of the show, all of the characters will die.
After being welcomed and the ground rules being established, the stage was graced by two gentlemen who were corresponding with each other by mail. As one man mimed writing his letter the other read along, reacting to the words and formulating a reply in his mind. At various points in the letters, the composer would pause and give the audience a subtle prompt for a suggestion to include in the letter. This exchange went back and forth several times until the team had collected enough suggestions to construct a story.
The story proper commenced by introducing each character one at a time. Just like they were composing a video diary each one sat on a stool before a video camera, introduced themselves and gave a little bit of background. The footage was also projected onto a screen which gave it the diary feel, but due to the small size of the theatre everyone could clearly see the performer on the stage anyway. I could see the need for the screen if these introductions took place off stage. The character then took to the main performance area, interacting with others who were already there.
The performers worked well together, bouncing ideas around and picked up pieces on the rare occasion that another stumbled. They employed an interesting way of cutting between scenes. When waiting performers recognised that a scene had sufficiently been exhausted, they would quietly sidle up beside the action. When there was a suitable break in the dialogue they would launch into a new scene and the others would leave the stage.
The use of audio was also well implemented, creating an improvised foley. Occasionally the required sound effect wasn’t close to hand and popped up a little late, but the on stage performers could make a little joke out of such mishaps.
There seemed to be just a tiny bit of competitiveness amongst the performers. It wasn’t so much as to weigh down the show, instead it helped the performers to come up with crazier and highly amusing scenarios that pushed the story along. It was particularly noticeable in Ged Cogley who found an excuse to drop his pants and insert plenty of innuendo. The others were able to work with his ideas to combine them into their own performances while reeling him in just a little to keep the story on some sort of coherent track.
Also of interest was the fact that the advertised deaths of the characters weren’t actually played out on the stage with over the top theatrics. Instead the story was halted at a suitably climactic point and the cast would line up across the stage. They would each take turns stepping into the spotlight to provide a post mortem to the story and describe how their character had died. This was where the one-upmanship was clearly evident with the deaths becoming increasingly more bizzare as each character stood forward.
This team of improvisers have the polished impro chops to generate a unique experience every night, all of it being gutbustingly hilarious. There wasn’t any noticeable flat spots in the show with everyone working together to make it look quite seamless. This is a fantastic impro format that is sure to become popular.
For more information go to www.myspace.com/noonelived