Grant About Town

March 5, 2008
"Felt" at iO Chicago

Though it is the shortest month of the year even in a leap year, it was a long, hard February in Chicago as usual. Nothing is more demoralizing than the one-two punch of snow and cold, and that has unfortunately been my world for the last month or so. We very nearly set a record for the total amount of snow here in the month of February, despite the fact that we had no major storms. By major, I am talking about a foot or more at one time. It was 2-3 inches here, 4-6 inches there and it seemed like snow was on the ground all month. As I said to my buddy and fellow blogger Greg recently, the last month's weather was kind of like bleeding someone to death to maximize the suffering. I'd like to think that the worst is behind us at this point, but having endured many winters in Chicago I know better. They have had snow on Cubs opening day in April, so we're not out of the woods yet.

Despite the dreary weather, I have actually been able to have some fun in between the stretches of hibernating at home, counting the days until spring and wondering when the sun would shine again. One such occasion was last night when I attended a truly original improv event called "Felt" at iO (formerly the Improv Olympic) in Wrigleyville with my friend Jessica. This was my second attempt to see the show, it having been canceled on short notice a couple of Wednesdays earlier (it only plays once a week) when I tried to go with some meetup group friends. However, I was not going to be denied this chance to brave the Chicago elements in the hope of watching puppets make me laugh.

That's right, "Felt" features a group of 9 puppets performing improvisation that is most definitely not family friendly in terms of the subject matter. On the iO website it says "This show may not be suitable for children" and having seen the show I can confirm that this is very accurate. The puppets curse, they talk about sex, they meet people online and have disastrous first dates. If you took The Muppets and crossed it with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog from Conan O'Brien's show, I imagine this would be the result. Some of the puppets look like real people/animals including my personal favorite, a dog who wears a button down oxford shirt that looks a lot like one I own. Some of the puppets looks like furry monsters out of a Disney movie (see picture at right).

For those of you that have seen humans doing improv before, there is not going to be anything revolutionary here in terms of either the method or the subject matter. However, in the entertainment world the saying goes that you never want to work with children or animals as they will always steal the show. Similarly, a scene that would just be average with human performers takes on whole new comedic dimensions when the participants are puppets with a limited range of motion and emotion. For instance, in one scene a dog puppet showed up to a restaurant for a first date with a girl he met online. She told him that he "doesn't look anything like his picture" after which he proceeded to grunt and then dry-hump her leg repeatedly. I didn't say this was highbrow stuff, but it is funny as hell.

The show concluded with a game of "freeze" between the puppets and human members of the all-girl improv group, Virgin Daquiri, that opened the night. For those of you unfamiliar with improv, the freeze game is when two people start a scene and then a third yells "freeze," takes the place of one of the people and initiates a new round of dialogue. As if watching a group of puppets do improv was not strange enough, watching a puppet do a scene with a human that ended with them making out was truly off the charts. If you live in Chicago or are ever visiting and looking for something to do on a Wednesday night, I highly recommend it.