Laughs that matter
By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer
03/20/2006
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page D3 of Arts

Tulsa improv show benefits Heller Theatre Council On a chilly Friday evening, Heller Theatre was almost unnoticeable, tucked away at the edge of a park off a road many Tulsans have never driven. Pulling up to the tiny 50-seat house on a Laughing Matter Improv night, you might not guess at the lively madness going on inside. Take note: Laughing Matter is a group that knows its stuff and whose members don't hold back on the opportunity to make fools of themselves. You might think they relish it. Tulsa's longest-running improv group held its St. Patrick's Day program as a benefit performance and auction to pull in a few dollars for the Heller Theatre Council, which aids with production expenses throughout the season.

Star Zaferis (from left), Rhonda Wagnon, Julie Tattershall and Andy Axewell perform Friday as part of the Laughing Matter Improv at the Heller Theatre. ROBERT S. CROSS / Tulsa World

Andy Axewell opened the evening bouncing to center stage in a green wig sprouting shamrock antennae to welcome and instruct the audience before turning himself into Fungus Man, out to save the world from a severe shortage of toilet paper.

Instruct? Aside from the usual reminder to switch off cell phones and pagers and anything else bound to stir at the most inappropriate moment, most plays make few demands beyond common courtesy of the audience.

But on improv night, you want to pay attention. You may not get the cell phone speech, but you're chancing the evening's spotlight if your BlackBerry goes off. Instead, Axewell lets the audience in on a key ingredient to the show. With Laughing Matter's style of comedy, the game is only as good as the seated patrons' willingness to be part of it.

Audience members certainly weren't shy Friday night offering suggestions for situations when asked.

Axewell and co-host Jason Watts introduced the rest of the evening's players: Rhonda Wagnon, Star Zaferis, Eric Peterson and the group's founder, Julie Tattershall. They played games titled "four-headed leprechaun," "director" and "radio call in," among many others.

As games go, they are as absurd and silly as they sound. How else would you ever see a kangaroo selling snake oil to a lovesick Sean Connery? Where else could you watch Heller's energetic artistic director Tattershall turned into a ragdoll in the hands of a guest trying to pose her as an underwater welder.

The audience may select some of the games and decide on the scenarios, but the players must take over and think on their feet to make each skit work. Nothing is scripted. Sometimes they struggle (just what does a Spam maker look like anyway?), and sometimes a game just doesn't work. But when everything comes together, you end up with a brilliant skit called "emotional chairs" in which Zaferis, Watts and Wagnon find themselves in therapy for glow-in-the-dark acne. Alright, the acne was a little too out there (audience suggestion), but Watts' switch between a bipolar patient with extreme ups and downs in one round to perfectly executed ambivalence in another was dead on.

"Laughing Matter" is often likened to the television show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" for its style and audience participation, although the group was formed in 1989. Members have weekly rehearsals to keep the mental reflexes limber. Fungus Man's offhand answer to world security ("Politicians? There's bound to be fungus there") is completely random, yet speaks of Axewell's practiced style and ease in this medium even when caught up in a disjointed skit.

Wagnon can sound remarkably like a Teletubby in some games, but it was her make-up demonstration expert and a very large set of hands borrowed from a fellow player hiding behind her that closed the show on high spirits. For some reason, Cookie Monster from Sesame Street comes to mind. Imagine him with a powder-doused loofah and some lipstick.

With a thorough capacity for physical comedy, a lot of quick thinking and heaps of energy, Laughing Matter players stay on their toes. But if you find yourself in the audience some drizzly night, don't take for granted that participation is a large part of the show's in-the-moment fun and success.

Heller Theatre LAUGHING MATTER IMPROV shows are also scheduled for April 21 and May 19. The theater is at 5328 S. Wheeling Ave. For more about the shows, the Heller troupe or about Clark Theatre's youth Laughing Matter, call 746-5065.

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Karen Shade 581-8334
karen.shade@tulsaworld.com