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Overview
Drama
Harold Pinter
Characters: 4 male, 2 female
Interior Set
In a small house at a coastal resort live a man, his mentally wayward wife and their boarder who has been with them for a year. He is a strange chap, unkempt and in flight from we know not what. Enter an even stranger sleek Jewish man and his muscle bound Irish henchman. The mentally immature wife accommodates them with a room and then decides that it is time for the boarder to have a birthday. At the party she arranges, the new guests play cruel games with the boarder break his glasses, make a buffoon of him, and push him over the psychotic precipice. The next morning he is reduced to a gibbering idiot and meekly leaves with them.
"Fascinating capacity to be menacing, ominous and evocative of some dark and threatening doom." N.Y. Post.
"The most interesting play to be seen on Broadway." N.Y. Times.
Synopsis
This is improv comedy from top to bottom and from inside out. If you want to form an improv comedy workshop, sharpen your improvisational acting skills in a group setting, or simply study the subject on your own, Andy's well-thought-out text and invaluable exercises will put you on the right track. Improv Comedy is also a useful text for writers or anyone else who wishes to study the basics of controlled spontaneity as a path to believable humor.
Library Journal
Most of us are familiar with improvisational comedy without realizing that it follows a basic structure. However, the author states in his introduction that ``for every so-called rule of improvisation . . . you will sometimes break the rest of the rules. The heart of improv comedy is spontaneous creativity.'' Goldberg is a director and performer with the Off-the-Wall improvisational comedy group, and has been teaching improv since 1978. The various exercises which he presents build on the three elements of improvisation--character, plot, and scene. This book should serve well as the definitive text for anyone wishing to pursue a career in the field. Recommended for performing arts collections.--Howard E. Miller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Missouri Lib., St. Louis