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By
Greta Hale
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When
I first met members of BGSU’s improv group, the Plastic
Shatners, I knew they had vibrant senses of humor. Waiting
in the lobby of Anderson dorm, I asked group members where
the leader, John Serve was.
“Dropping
the kids off at the pool,” one member said. Another member
chimed in, very matter-of-factly, “He’s pooping
right now.” I was right to assume the group relied on
toilet humor as well as more sophisticated satire to entertain
its audiences.
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Their
brand of comedy is random. That is the essence of the group. Whether
thinking of the world’s worst thing to say at a job interview
or trying to act like a jaded superhero, the actors think on their
feet.
Senior
Sarah Goldman described the atmosphere of the group’s shows
and practices. “I think it’s funny how things fall together
and everything is completely random,” she said.
Even
the group’s name, the Plastic Shatners, is a random mix of
two names. The group’s leader, John Serve, and another actor,
Matt Robinson, came up with the name. Serve is a fan of William
Shatner from the original Star Trek. Serve does a good impression
of William Shatner, Robinson said.
“Since
it’s improv and the whole idea is to be as stupid as possible,
the Plastic Shatners seemed like the perfect name for an absurd
comedy group,” Robinson said.
Members
cited different reasons for joining, but they all agreed that improvisational
comedy stimulates their creativity.
“It
challenges me to be creative- it’s all about reinvention,”
Adam Smith said.
The
group’s skits challenge notions of political correctness and
incorporate crudity and sexual innuendos.
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Chuck
Little is an actor willing to push the boundaries of political
correctness and good taste. According to Kevin Duff, Little
makes some shocking jokes during the skits.
Little
proved it at the February 8 show by using the word cunt in
a skit. The surprise at hearing the word in public sent shrieks
of laughter though the audience.
“Chuck
looks like an all American boy- but the stuff that comes out
of his mouth…” Duff said.
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According
to Duff, Little also calls himself Chuck wagon and asks people,
“Have you ridden the Chuck wagon?”
Despite
the oddity of the members and their performances, the Plastic Shatners
is a well-organized group of 16. The group is split into two groups
of eight. Team Baker practices Mondays and Team Poltrone, the newer
group, practices Thursdays. Both teams practice together Sundays.
The teams were named after people who supported the Plastic Shatners
and encouraged the group to organize and perform. Team Baker is
named after Greg Baker and Team Poltrone is named after Chris Poltrone.
John
Serve, the group’s leader, started the group three years ago
because he had never heard of improv being performed on campus and
wanted to organize a group to perform it. The group stems from BGSU’s
Independent Film and Theatre Corp.
About
half of the actors made the cut after tryouts.
The
group performs without scripts. They use games to generate subject
matter to act out. During one game, Freeze, there are two people
acting out a scenario, for example, the audience might say, “two
men in a bathroom.” Any actor can freeze the game and take
the place of another actor.
At
Team Poltrone’s performance in February, during the Freeze
skit, one actor said, “Have you been using my toothbrush?”
and the other answered, “The one you’ve been scrubbing
the urinals with?
A
game called World’s Worst generated several funny one-liners.
The host names off a category and the actors act it out. For example,
one category was world’s worst names for cars. One actor said,
“New for teenagers, the Backseat, just get to the point.”
The host later suggested a category of the world’s worst thing
to say at a job interview. “Ugh.... I invented the blow job,”
another actor said.
Another
game that yields funny skits is called Party Quirks. An actor goes
out of the room while three other actors are told what weird quirks
they will pretend to have. The host then has to guess what their
problems are. During the February 8 performance, one partygoer was
a fetus, one was a man without pants and another was one of President
Bush’s daughters. The host was able to guess that rather quickly.
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One
of Smith’s favorite games is called Sibel. The audience
dictates the emotions of the two characters in a given scenario.
The game shows characters going from one extreme emotion to
another.
“I
think it it’s really funny to go from sad to horny,”
Smith said.
In
another game, actors have to act out a scenario and talk in
all Shakespearean dialogue. Watching two actors talk in Shakespearian
dialogue while they pretended to be two kids playing doctor
was very funny.
The
Plastic Shatners try to perform at least once a month. They
name every performance.
“It was inspired by Second City. They name all of their
shows, even though the titles have nothing to do with what
the show is really about. So like them, we name our shows
after stuff that has nothing to do with the show. Plus it
gives us a form of reference,” Serve wrote in a March
email.
For
example, the February show was named, “You Call That
a Balloon!”
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