HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?
GRIFF: Definitely best show of my improv career. The jokes were like wine flowing fast and cheap. I had a lot of fun. Marie Bologna was my rock and my harder rock in this show. Jams and I ran around a did a lot of silly things that played well off each other and Marie was usually doing the leg work to make it all cohesive. Towards the end of the show she did some goofass robot edit that we should have picked up on but instead it was just the same scene plus a robot so that was our bad. That show felt like the right amount of goofing and emotion. One thing I keep thinking though is that it felt like I was putting on “the Griffin Wenzler show” and not sharing enough with Jams and Marie. Then again, maybe I’m just assuming I was more important than I was. Either way, I need to work on sharing and listening. But then again, maybe not because that was a blast.
JAMES: This was almost what we accomplished on Monday night. Tonight we did a lot of fun stuff, but it wasn’t all connected. Griffin and Marie were playing hard and funny, those two work really well together. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the junkie prostitute character that Marie whipped out. The nightmares just won’t go away. While we were having fun, listening to each other, and supporting each other’s moves, I feel like what really pushes a show from good to great is the connections between the scenes. This show was good, but a little disjointed.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF/JAMES?
GRIFF: Tonight Jams played some games with me that felt like it was just us hanging out. He committed in a way I haven’t seen yet. He was extremely comfortable just seeing where things went and played his characters strong. He didn’t drop anything. Actually he heightened everything about his characters and the scenes. Nothing felt forced or ham-fisted. I realize this is more a review of Jams’s performance than saying what I learned, but that just felt like Jams and Griff being they own selves for the first time onstage and I didn’t learn anything new about him so much as I recognized him.
JAMES: Griff has really grown since we started this. He’s gotten a lot more comfortable making bold moves and seeing them through. He’s trying out new characters, and sometimes playing a lot more honestly and close to himself. We’re going to keep tracking this as it develops.
HOW DO YOU FEEL/WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT IMPROV?
GRIFF: I often talk about missed opportunities in our shows rather than what went right. Tonight was a demonstration of utilizing many of the things I have written. We made strong character choices and committed to them. We made everything personal (even if it started as a bit or was surrounded by bits). And we generally didn’t give a shit and had a great time. I have no idea how to repeat this kind of show because when it happens it feels like the easiest thing in the world and as soon as you start the next show you might forget what that felt like. Hopefully we do this enough to begin to remember the good things and they become more consistent.
JAMES: I’m becoming less and less satisfied with just making the audience laugh. I feel like that’s almost the bare minimum you should be accomplishing, and that we can do so much more. Especially with scenic montages, there’s so much potential there, but most of them devolve into unrelated scenes trying to be as funny as possible. Our show on Monday still let us play all sorts of different games, but also tied everything together. I probably worry about the structure of a piece more than most people.
IF YOU HAD ONE SPELL TO CAST ONCE A DAY WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
GRIFF: Probably the crucifix(sp?) spell from Harry Potter to get rid of all the Voldemorts in my life. QUIT BULLYING ME!
JAMES: I would cast the spell that let’s you cast infinite spells in a day.
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