Rebecca Northan in Blind Date

DETAILS

Blind Date by Rebecca Northan
Loose Moose Theatre
Friday, March 14 - Saturday, March 29

More in: Theatre

Find It...

Loose Moose Theatre

“’Allo! Do you know me?” Rebecca Northan, complete with clown nose, red dress and French accent tugs on my coat sleeve as I stand in line to pick up my review passes for her new improv show, Blind Date.

“Uh, yes — I think so?” I say. I open my mouth to tell her that I just interviewed her to preview her show a few days ago. Realizing she wasn't speaking like a French woman from an early ’90s sitcom at that time, all I can manage is another “I, uh….”

A box office attendant opens up. It's late. The show should be starting right away, so I hope she won’t be offended by my walking away in mid-sentence. Taking a brief moment to thank the Lord, I abandon the friend I had come with, and he's promptly accused of checking out her backside while she was talking to me. He takes her affronts like someone who's clearly defended his eyes' tendency to wander in the past, and I make a mental note to think up some new pervert jokes, possibly with reference to the fact that his apartment is right next to a high school.

She finishes with him, and he sidles over. I try to spit out some half-formed insult about remedial French immersion classes, but he mercifully interrupts.

“I think we were just screened,” he says, replacing the fog in my brain with glorious, golden understanding. I check my watch. The show should have started 10 minutes ago. Then, another beam of realization: it did.

Blind Date tells the story of a romantic relationship between Mimi, played by Northan, and one male audience member of her choosing. While the concept may be pure, it would undoubtedly fail if not for Northan's impressive repertoire of one-liners and clever control schema like the lobby screening process and her onstage, fourth-wall breaking “time out box.”

“Let me go shopping!” she exclaims with all the faux-naïf cuteness she can muster. She walks up the aisles, idly chatting with audience members and supposedly selecting a participant. She stops by Alex Mailman, a 24-year-old music teacher.

“You!” she says. “You are cute and smiley! Would you like to go on a blind date with me?”

The rest of the show consisted of Northan alternately throwing herself at Mailman and zinging him, and Mailman politely trying to take her cues between uncomfortable looks over his shoulder at his girlfriend. While Northan's endless supply of hilarious one-liners certainly produced the greatest volume of laughs, Mailman's reactions, while sparser, were arguably the funniest parts of the show. At one point, immediately following the onstage birth of their son, Mailman wrapped up the umbilical cord like an extension cable, pondered it for a moment, and calmly re-inserted it.

While Northan may steer the story in some predetermined directions, its overall quality is entirely reliant upon the co-star she chooses. This might appear to make the show into a game of comedy-roulette, but that would be discrediting her selection process — presumably designed so that she can avoid spending 75 minutes onstage with Doug, who everyone says is the funniest guy in accounting and should totally try standup.

Hopefully, dear reader, you're able to feel my pain in attempting to review this show. If there ever was a completely unreviewable performance, this is it. Each night's success is dependent on so many variables — least of which is your own personal experience — that it's impossible to say, categorically, whether it will be worth your hard-earned money. On the other hand, $15 is relatively cheap, and on the offhand chance you get to see a show half as funny as the one I saw, it's absolutely worth the risk.