From now until March, the Improvised Shakespeare Company is performing at the Garner Galleria Theater downtown. The troupe got its start in Chicago, but has spun off into performances around the world, now including this long, half-year run here in Denver.
The show is exactly what it sounds like: five performers take an audience suggestion of the title of a Shakespearean play that doesn't exist. From that, they proceed to improvise a 90-minute performance of that play. All the trappings of Shakespeare are there -- much of the improvisation is in poetic meter, and much of that in rhyming couplets. Heightened language, tricky wordplay, and clever metaphors are peppered throughout. As many Shakespearean tropes as possible are hauled in -- lovers forced apart, women disguising themselves as men, villains scheming for vengeance, lowborn characters speaking truth to power, and more.
And above all: it is funny! I can imagine the slyest references hit better the more actual Shakespeare you know, but I don't think you have to know Shakespeare to laugh a lot. The mask does slip plenty, usually to slip in a modern joke or indulge in one of improv's most reliable laughs: putting another performer on the spot to watch them wriggle out of it.
The degree of difficulty on this type of improv seems off the charts to me. You have to pay attention to the rhyme and meter at all times. The language is far enough from normal to be almost like performing in a second language. It seems to me that only a handful of people could do it well... and most of them are probably employed by the Improvised Shakespeare Company. That they're able to basically make you forget about how difficult it must be for most of the show is, if anything, yet another testament to the skill involved -- they make it look easy.
On the night we went, the "play" performed by audience suggestion was "The Benefits of Economic Collapse." The result was inspired most heavily from The Merchant of Venice, though the 100-minute improv wove in splashes of As You Like It and other comedies. It was, of course, one-of-a-kind; as the performers themselves declared, it was the first and last ever performance of "The Benefits of Economic Collapse." But I have no doubt that attending the Improvised Shakespeare Company at any other performance would be just as entertaining, just as funny, just as breathtaking a display of wit.
I enjoyed the performance tremendously, and would even see them again during their run in Denver. The production was top notch, grade A, and if you're at all a fan of Shakespeare, you should absolutely get out to see them.
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