Bechdel Test and other improvisations

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 in their lives. The effect, after watching the actors bring these stories to life is an experience of unity in the space. If theater is about arriving at empathy, playback is the most direct route there.
Tonight it was Bechdel Test at Jet City Improv in the U District. This was like what most people think of as improv, taking suggestions from the audience and then acting them out, with the objective of being funny. The twist of this show is that the audience is asked to suggest movies that do not pass the Bechdel Test, meaning at no time in the movie do two named, female characters have a conversation about something other than a man. Then the actors, all women, would recreate the movie to add scenes to allow the movie to pass the test. It was a riot.
The common thread of all three shows – what a high wire act!
Pictured: a test (get it) tube in which they serve shots at Bechdel Test -- photo by me. 

Originally published on my Facebook page on January 12, 2018. 

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