(Alissa White -- The Beacon)
By Corey Fawcett, Staff Writer -- fawcett13@up.edu
Last Friday night, UP's improv group, the Bluffoons, opened for the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) to a full house in the Mago Hunt auditorium.
The Bluffoons performed for 20 minutes before UCB took the stage for a little over an hour. UCB originated in Chicago in 1990 and has since relocated to both New York and Los Angeles. Comedy greats like Amy Poehler, Horatio Sans, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh and Ian Roberts have all been part of the group.
Members of the Bluffoons flitted around the packed theater lobby before the show began, making sure everything was in order. When asked how he was feeling about the upcoming performance, Bluffoons veteran and junior Eric Lyness politely requested that we save questions for after the show.
"We don't have any thoughts or feelings right now," Lyness said while instructing students where to wait in line. "We're excited!"
The group that performed on Friday was from Los Angeles, and the University of Portland marked the end of the UCB Northwestern tour.
"They actually contacted us first," senior Matt Vanderlaan and Bluffoons de facto leader said. "I thought, ‘We're going to do what?'"
UCB wanted to make a stop at UP on its Northwestern tour last year, but the Bluffoons did not have sufficient funds to host the group at the time. This year, the Bluffoons communicated their financial needs to the Campus Program Board to ensure they would have the resources.
Before the performance, UCB did a three-hour improv workshop with the Bluffoons.
"This is their day job, so it got really specific," Vanderlaan, who watched UCB's show on Comedy Central as a kid, said. Among the things they worked on were acting natural as opposed to trying to be funny and choosing what to emphasize in a scene.
During the opening performace, the Bluffoons played "four corners," a game in which four players stand in a square formation and rotate on cue, playing out a different scene with each rotation.
They also played a game where two seemingly unrelated couples eating at a restaurant discover by the end of the skit that they are linked in some way.
For their final game, they acted out a scene that could be rewinded or fast forwarded.
"We pulled people with lots of experience with improv," Vanderlaan said, adding that he and some other Bluffoons are talking about forming a troop after they graduate and basing it out of a local theater company.
UCB took the stage to a well warmed-up audience. For the first half of their set, the performers based a series of skits on a dialogue they had with a member of the audience. For the second half, they based their skits on audience suggestions.
"Who has the weirdest text in their inbox?" UCB performer Suzi Barrett asked.
One member of the audience had a text from her friend that said "I can't believe she posted those pictures to Facebook."
The skit based on this text ended the entire show with a simple line: "Grandma, we need to talk."
"(The show) went fantastically," Lyness said. "We're thrilled with the turnout."
UCB member Joe Wengert agreed.
"It's been a fun tour," he said. "And Portland's great. I love it here."
Wengert, a writer and actor who has worked with Amy Poehler, has been with UBC for 10 years.
"Improv is the most exciting form of comedy. You never know what it's going to be like when you step on stage," he said. "I also like the finality of it. No two shows are the same. The only people that will ever experience that show are you and the audience."
