By: Joshua Stahl
Xavier Players received much laughter and applause as they performed “Toolbox,” the club’s improvised comedy show.
Twelve members of the club took the floor in the Gallagher Student Center Studio Theatre this past weekend.
The foundation for “Toolbox” is audience participation.
The actors would often refer to the crowd for inspiration about which locations, objects and situations they should bring to life during the show.
This seemed not only to cater to the wants of the audience, but also provided the improvised nature of the show.
The show was comprised of several “games” the actors would play involving these randomly suggested scenes.
These games ranged from actors “freezing” a scene when they wanted to join to changing the context of the actors’ positions to, for instance, Santa Claus being interrogated for trespassing on a national monument with Edward Cullen of “Twilight.”
The humor came in such odd circumstances, such as a newlywed couple shopping for shag carpet for their new house, or Aslan of Narnia trying to salvage his relationship with an incredibly high-maintenance Ice Queen.
One game involved one-line prompts written before the performance by the audience, which actors would pull out from their pockets and insert into random moments of dialogue.
No matter the situation the crowd threw at the players, the scene would go on with much laughter to follow.
Even when given the scene “Tornadoes in Space,” the players put together a quite humorous scene on the set of a movie about just that, tornadoes in space.
Each actor did well with the odd characters they had to play such as partying ninja turtles, an annoyed Italian gondolier and an actress attempting to “taste the entire world.”
No actors were left out of the fun onstage, and that is exactly what it looked like: fun.
The players spent nearly an hour simply having fun at their own expense as they entertained the accepting audience.
All in all, the players were able to put together well-rounded characters on the spur of the moment without missing a beat.
The audience responded with much laughter and applause.
The pantomime was well-executed, and the crowd involvement made for an entertaining show.