The Available Cupholders
The Hideout Theater, through Jan. 27
The Available Cupholders used to be called the Well Hung Jury, and while we prefer the older name, we’re even more enamored of the newer hijinks purveyed by this troupe of comedy improvisers. We think we know why, too, and it’s a tripartite reason.
First, because the individuals who form the fierce quintet – Jon Benner, Michael Joplin, Jeremy “Bearded” Lamb, Ace Manning, and Bill Stern – are natural wags of a particularly smart type; this proves handy in accommodating the comedy part of the comedy improv rubric.
Second, because these guys have been a team for years now and have worked together in Austin, in Chicago, and while touring the country as one more-or-less cohesive force of impromptu chicanery; this affords them a familiarity with one another’s style of play, a history of gambits and established rhythms and power struggles to draw from, which serves to streamline their forays into off-the-cuff narratives.
But third, and possibly most important, is that the Cupholders give a damn about the art form for its own sake. You can tell, watching them in action. You can tell, listening to them offstage or reading the chatter on Internet forums. Improv isn’t just an excuse for these five to grab some attention under the spotlights; it’s a unique school of performance that they’ve dedicated a large part of their lives toward exploring (and expanding) the boundaries of.
This month at the Hideout, they’ve got four Saturday at 8pm slots to do whatever they please. What they please is to break in a new format each night, building their shows from both unexpected audience suggestions and structures beyond their usual repertoire. This past Saturday saw the Cupholders riffing off the Chronicle‘s own “A Shot in the Dark” personal ads, acting out scenarios suggested by audience-chosen listings from last week’s issue. What made this especially tricky (and funny as hell) was that there were so many cross-gender roles to be enacted in bringing these missed connections to life. But then, the Cupholders have always been able to pull off that particular switcheroo, sometimes even without devolving into stereotype. This may be due to the improvisers’ natural affinity for the opposite sex or their skill as actors, or perhaps it’s the sheer, crush-inducing prettiness of Bill Stern’s hair; in any case, the role reversals nicely skewed the troupe’s antics, adding to a night of well-wrought improv and drawing much laughter from the small but appreciative audience in the upstairs theatre.
This coming weekend, these guys will be assaying a format called Huge Clock, wherein they’ll improvise a drama for 15 minutes. Then they’ll immediately restage the whole thing in half that time. Then they’ll restage that reduction in half that time, and so on, ad absurdum, until they trip over Achilles or the tortoise, and there’s nothing more to be done.
There’s a lot of improv to be seen in Austin these days, and much of it is good; the Available Cupholders are an excellent example of why and how.
This article appears in January 12 • 2007.