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From left: Jake Lucas, Eliza Caldwell, Nathaniel de Leon and Chris Caporaso perform an improv skit during their show in the Student Union Theater on Thursday night.

Agents of Improv bring quirky, improvised comedy to Student Union

By: Paresh Jha

Posted: 11/21/08

It takes a lot of imagination and bravery to go onto a stage unprepared in front of an audience ready to judge you.

The Agents of Improv do that on a regular basis, though, and they demonstrated that easy confidence in the Student Union Theater last night.

For the uninitiated, the Agents of Improv perform comedy sketches live on stage unrehearsed, unprepared, and completely random - a la "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

They began the show with some of their short acts. One of the first games was called LCD (Location, Career, and Death).

LCD requires a suggestion from the audience for the location, career and manner of death of a specific person. The game then becomes a giant game of silent telephone. The first performer mimes the LCD to the next person and then that person continues on with the next person and so forth.

At the end all the performers are asked what they think the LCD is to see how corrupted the original statement has become.

"It was really light-hearted and energetic," said Brenna Harvey, a 5th-semester English and sociology double major. 'Everyone looked like they were having a really good time, and it was incredibly infectious."

Amidst all the screaming from the crowd shouting out incoherent words, South Dining Hall, Squid Hunter, and death by pixie dust were deemed to be the LCD. After the four performers gave equally comedic performances, their guesses ranged from ATM swiping to shark hunting.

Eliza Caldwell, a performer in the group, had a hilarious interpretation of the pixie dust death, suggesting it was "cocaine from the sky."

In another sketch, Foreign Film Dub, two people were supposed to speak Chinese and two other performers would translate their speech.

While the performer's "Chinese" sounded more like a language from a galaxy far, far away, the translators did an excellent job of improvising scenarios for them that ranged from sword fighting to sword dancing.

After those short acts, there was some time for longer, more complex acts.

One notable game in particular, Catastrophe Compression, forced two performers to play out a comedic scene at a normal pace - then continue to recreate that scene, getting half as much time with each successive repetition.

And, of course, everything that can possibly go wrong in the scene inevitably does.

Watching two guys go grizzly bear hunting - with all the associated mishaps - only gets funnier when it's done in ten seconds or less.

"I don't know how they manage to keep straight faces when they do this. " said Paul Lim, a 7th-semester music major. "They improvise so well on the spot. I wish I came to see more of them earlier this year."