CODY RIVERS SHOW

Tangle

Dates and Venue 4-6 January 2007 @ 20.00 Waterfront Theatre (Granville Island, Vancouver)

Reviewer Ed Farolan

I looked up the meaning of "tangle" in the dictionary and it means "twist together in a muddle." True enough, this comic duo from Bellingham started off their show with a dance, twisting their hands and bodies together, which was funny and made the audience laugh. But then the same continued over and over, there was a lot of repetition in gestures and repetitive lines, a storyline that got muddled along the way leaving me totally confused, but confused not in a funny way.

When I saw this duo in the Fringe, they were funny, and there was a lot of variety in their routine. This time, it looks like they didn't have too much in dialogue, and more so, their dialogues weren't funny at all. There was no change in costumes (except for the ghost scene played too long in the dark).

I think that to interest an audience, especially in a comic routine, you have to vary from one scene to another. In the Fringe, they played different roles with different costumes: spacemen, supermen, group therapists, etc.

In the opening night performance, they even put in a filler in the beginning of the show, a group of four Vancouver comics called "Happy Birthdays," but even with the filler, the show lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.

A few groupies laughed throughout the show. I don't know if they were friends, or they were just high and would laugh at anything. But there were others like myself asking, "What's happening here? This isn't funny."

I just hope that this duo go back to the way they did their comic routine in the last Fringe. They are very talented, but need to work more on a script that's more interesting.

© 2007 Ed Farolan