Limited Perspective

I should not be up this late, typing on the internet but I have seen three different varieties of improv show in the past eight days and I feel like I have something to say and I'd better try to get it out. There is so much improv! And so many flavors! Last Thursday I saw an immersive, improvisational, one-man show at the Rendezvous in Belltown called Keefee’s House of Cards where the actor invites four audience members up to play blackjack and then deals out cards, conversation, and biting humor. The brilliance of it is, it's a one-man show with a sharply defined character, straight out of real life -- but with no script. Saturday it was Playback Theater Northwest at Seattle Asian Medicine and Martial Arts in Lake City. In playback theater, an audience member is invited to tell a story from their life, then the actors “play it back.” The evening builds slowly. But by the end, people have opened up about past relationships, ongoing struggles, transformational events i