Chaos Attraction

More Improvised Shakespeare

2013-03-13, 9:02 a.m.

Last year, I went to a performance of Improvised Shakespeare. They came to town again last night. Here's what went down. I was hoping they'd do a comedy, but....hoo boy...

Show title: "The Appearance of Ernest." (Or "Earnest." Who knows.)

So there's this girl named Portia and she's flirting with her boyfriend Benicio, who likens himself to a gondolier and says, "Let me be your pole." He proposes and then she is all "I'm so flighty, I'm hot and cold like this canal I just had you put your hand in" (it's Venice), "go ask my dad for my hand before I change my mind." Except Dad has already betrothed her to his servant Vernio (note: There's a lot of Ernest Goes To Camp jokes there.), who is all like, shy about the wedding night 'n stuff. Portia finds this out and says no and makes some comments about poking her eyes out, which she doesn't mean. ("Is this some kind of teenage thing?") Dad is all, marry him or go exile yourself to the forest of Venice, Portia chooses the forest. You know, because there's a forest. In Venice.

There's some evil woman named .... I already forgot what... who hates Portia and decides to screw Benicio before Portia can. She drugs up some muffins and feeds them to Benicio, who gets horny, turns into "Benicio del Toro" and screws her silly on the stage in all kinds of positions, including some relating to bulls. At one point, slapping is involved. Lucrezia is the lady's servant, who's always watching Lady Whozums screwing people. She hides behind a statue of a unicorn to do this. Wow, this is the dirtiest fake Shakespeare EVER.

There are some singing gondoliers who sing about love and how Person A loves Person B but Person B loves C and blah de blah. Some guy on the side of the road bitches them out for singing about love when his wife died in the canal.

In the woods, Portia comes across two obnoxious fairies named Pinkberry and The Weedwhacker, who force her to sing limericks. She doesn't like that. (Note: this is improv guys are screwing with each other to make her do that. Like, "Oh yes, let's listen to her sing! Limericks!") They offer her a wish, which they really really really hope is yogurt. Well, you can ask for anything, but you should probably ask for yogurt. They show her a scene of Benicio screwing whatsherface silly (there's a wheelbarrow pose with butt slapping) and she's all, "Can I have some poisoned yogurt?" They give her one that's poisoned and one that isn't and hope you keep track of which is which!

Portia returns home with a gondolier, only to be told that she has to answer 3 riddles in order to get into the palace. (At this point, one guy ran up to the upstairs balcony. The guy playing the gondolier also plays the duke, and the upstairs guy claims the duke is right behind him...forcing the dude to run back and forth between the two parts until he finally has the gondolier slit his own throat. Then the other guys attempt to bring him back to life and then claim he has a twin...and then the actor, as duke, claims the twin offed himself too.) Portia tells her dad she learned her lesson in the woods and she'll marry Vernio now. We're told that Benicio is now going to marry the evil lady.

While preparing for his wedding night, Vernio has Lucrezia and the evil lady poke out his eyes. He just happens to have a mask that looks like his own face to put on over the damage. Everyone else finds him fucking freaky. Also, your boss/future father-in-law would really rather you not share what you plan on doing to his daughter sexually. Just saying.

Portia and Benicio reunite, he apologizes, they go off to screw (ah, do five sexual poses) and leave the yogurt behind. Evil lady walks in and eats the poisoned yogurt. Her servant Lucrezia decides to eat the other yogurt and die with her, except that doesn't work. Lucrezia impales herself on the unicorn instead. The guy whose wife died runs in and says he just fell in love with Lucrezia, where is she.... "Well, try again, mate!" "Everyone says that..."

Some random blind girl wanders in to hook up with Vernio. Portia and Benicio watch and figure it's all going to work out...until a triplet runs in and stabs Portia for no reason. Benicio stabs the triplet, then explains the entire plot to the duke and the gondoliers (in "Person A loves Person B, which is me" terminology) before stabbing himself. The gondoliers sing one last song about love and watching whose yogurt you eat, and that's the end. Lotta jokes about yogurt. One guy got "acidophilus" in there, which is impressive.

I get the feeling that every show ends with the entire cast dead. Just a hunch.


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