After dinner at Pizza Pi, we strolled down the street to Wing-It Productions to take in the Friday night showing of “Final Transmission,” a “dark, frightening, and unscripted sci-fi play.”
I can’t vouch for dark or frightening, but unscripted? Yes. Definitely unscripted — as in, “sometimes, the stage was empty while the cast and crew figured out what to do next.”
In the end, this melding of improv (with many clever performers) and a darker storyline makes for an uneasy marriage. For better or worse, audiences associate improvisational theatre with comedy these days, and, frankly, “Final Transmission” is at its best when the cast members set aside the experiment’s dramatic mandate and let the zingers fly.
The audience (primed by alcohol) also made it clear they appreciated the lighter touch. Off-hand jibes between the actors drew hearty belly-laughs, and, when given the opportunity to submit lines for inclusion in the play, the audience contributed gems like “I really miss you when the time came to pound the chicken” and “I regret that I died a virgin.” In short, we *wanted* to laugh.
And we did. But then, driven by a directive to make this a drama, the actors would veer off into maudlin sequences that felt positively forced: a woman singing to her dying lover, a final survivor delivering a tearful outburst, a woman pondering her own ability to be invulnerable in anyone’s eyes.
Veering back and forth between the two extremes has its challenges, as the audience, primed by an eagerness to laugh at the hijinks served up early in the show, seems uncertain what to do when something gruesome or depressing unfolds.
That said: we certainly got our $16.00 dollars’ worth, and, frankly, if we were in town longer, we just might pop back in just to see how different the show can be from night to night. If you’re in the Seattle area on a Thursday or Friday night through the end of October and not in the mood for the predictable fare served up at other venues, you should definitely check it out.
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