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Friday night I finally got around to checking out a show at Madlab, heading down for their current show, Too Much Christmas 2007.
Never having even noticed the place from the outside before, I had pretty much ZERO idea what to expect. The theater is at the corner of Grant & Long downtown, and VERY unassuming from the outside, just a small sign over a very nondescript door. There's a lot right there with a limited amount of free parking (reserved spaces), as well as plenty more in scores of pay lots surrounding the place. Inside the door is a tiny coatroom/box office, and a very small gallery that serves as a waiting area inside until the house opens. The art is all for sale, currently showing "Too Much Photography" in the gallery. There were some pretty interesting pieces there, though the one I liked the most (a photo collage of the Columbus skyline) was already sold... :cry:
The theater itself is TINY - About 3 rows of theater seats. The performance area is literally right in front of the front row - there's no raised stage, no curtains, it's just right there. Very intimate.
The show itself was pretty unique. Not quite improv, the framing story (setup by a pretty entertaining overdub of part of the traditional Rudolph animation) is a conflict between the elves and the reindeer on who would take over for Rudolph as Santa's new right-hand critter. The showdown: a series of comedic vignettes, numbered 1-25. Audience shouts out numbers, one is picked, and the cast does that particular number. At the end, the audience votes (by way of colored candy canes) to determine which faction wins.
The bits ranged from extremely funny to kind of long and tired bathroom humor (but even that some guy in the audience found so side-splittingly funny I thought he might need medical attention). All the bits were (I assume) scripted and rehearsed in advance, but the order in which they were done was assumably selected on the fly. They got through maybe 18 or so of the total before the alarm went off (literally a clock alarm set for 60 minutes after the initial setup was done) - at which point they stopped mid-skit and held the vote.
It was definitely shorter than I was expecting (ran about 1.5 hours total, without an intermission). Still - in all, especially not knowing what to expect, I thought it was a good time and a fun show. I'd definitely check them out again.
TMX '07November 29th-December 22nd
Thursdays-Saturdays
All shows at 8pm
$10-15 (sliding scale) for general admission
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