SPRING
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Bernard Sahlins, cofounder and longtime producer of Second City and a guiding light of the International Theatre Festival, decided to create a Chicago-style version of Els Comediants–a company that would blend European carnival and circus with urban improvisational comedy of the sort Second City (and its predecessors, the Compass Players and the Playwrights Theatre Club) pioneered and popularized. The result is the Willow Street Carnival, whose debut production, Spring, opened last week.
Sahlins’s concept is promising. One or two more shows and he might make it work. But Spring is a disappointing effort, of interest only as an experiment that, one hopes, will lead to more successful results down the road.
It’s all pleasant enough, occasionally cute, and certainly well performed by the talented and experienced cast, which includes veterans of Second City, Friends of the Zoo, Latino Chicago, and the Practical Theatre Co. But it’s utterly lacking in spontaneity. Spain’s Els Comediants seemed to be parading a life-style; the Willow Street Carnival kids look like they’re doing a job (don’t forget those Actors Equity dues, guys). Despite brief efforts at audience participation, there’s no sense of connection between the cast and the customers; and the element of risk that’s essential to all good improv is nowhere to be seen.
