Brilliant moments can't sustain improv saga for 50 very long minutes
The Dark Triad Healing Experience.
COMEDY FESTIVAL
THE DARK TRIAD HEALING EXPERIENCE ★★☆
Club Voltaire, until April 20
Improv is a key skill for any comedian. Shows dedicated to the art have been part of the Comedy Festival since its inception, and this year’s program features everything from improvised sketch comedy to Broadway musicals devised on the fly.
The deliberate unpredictability can be both blessing and curse. When improv goes right, inspired wackiness ensues; when it doesn’t, extreme mortification.
You get a bit of both in the The Dark Triad Healing Experience, where three performers – Carla Scotto, Jesse Vogelaar and Amelia Williams – deliver a solid 50 minutes of improvised theatre, using the title of an imaginary self-help book, invented by an audience member, as a springboard.
Perhaps it would have been better broken up into several shorter sketches rather than the improv saga on offer.
The storyline and the banter, while capable of moments of sardonic brilliance, aren’t witty or inventive or playful enough to sustain themselves over the long haul.
Sporadic fun grenades from Scotto and Williams don’t quite make up for the awkward fizzers.