Last Friday night, in Old Town/Chinatown’s newly opened, moderately cavernous Siren Theater, the cast of the new show Leviathan assembled, looking limber and pumped for some improvised storytelling. One by one, they walked into the blinding stage lights. “Oh my god!” guest storyteller Stephanie Schneiderman said mid-introduction, throwing her hands up to protect her eyes. Running gags were emerging around the Siren’s kinks, still being ironed out, like its brilliant lights and elusive bathrooms. Schneiderman, a Portland singer-songwriter, was under the damaging lights to set the scene for the Leviathan gang. She began by discussing her humanitarian work with MercyCorps, which the players dutifully translated it into an irreverent conversation about cultural misunderstanding and Southern Oregon tap water.
Leviathan’s model of improv doesn’t contain much of the famously-hated dead time where improv players futz around. Instead, as soon as any player crosses the stage, the scene ends and another begins. Sometimes scenes return, like vignette cut-aways. Each time the players ran through their ideas at Friday’s show, they signaled Schneiderman to tell another story. The model continued for two ridiculous hours. I laughed so hard that I involuntarily slapped my knee like a pleased grandpa.
I’ve been a fan of Shelley McLendon ever since I saw her in a Lone Wolves sketch, where she played an impassive, wide-eyed 16-year-old pulled around on a stage dolly by the Mercury’s own Wm. Steven Humphrey while she sang Benny Mardones “Into the Night”. (Wm. Steven Humphrey told stories for a November show of Leviathan but I missed it.) I decided WELL, I KNOW WHAT I LIKE and have followed her work with Bad Reputation Productions closely ever since.
McLendon and her Leviathan posse return tonight with the very funny Diane Gasperin and Kirsten Kuppenbender from Lez Stand Up as storytellers. Schneiderman had some great stories to tell but I wonder what REAL COMEDIANS can do up there. (There’s also a Liberators late-night improv performance slated for Saturday.)
Siren Theater, 310 NW Davis, Sat Dec 11, 8 pm, $12 presale, $15 door
