Impromptu Splendor
Featuring Matt Baram, Ron Pederson and Naomi Snieckus
September 26 edition
Runs the last Sunday of every month @ Theatre Passe Muraille
By Jeff Maus
This month’s installment of Impromptu Splendor—”an improvisational long-form in the fashion of a one-act play”—from The National Theatre of the World at Theatre Passe Muraille had a lot to offer the audience, including free smoked meat sandwiches.
Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus, from the National Theatre of the World, acted out a “Suburban Show,” full of gentle jabs at the suburbs west of Toronto. Picked from a dozen suggestions from the audience, it wasn’t the most original topic, but the suburbs provided good fodder. The set consisted of the black stage with the QEW drawn on it with chalk, including Hamilton, Burlington, with the biggest cheer from the crowd for Paris, Ontario. All over this landscape, these talented actors wandered through Southern Ontario and looked at who we are.
The theme that night was collective plays (Passe Muraille being significant home of the approach). The first guest performer, Miles Potter, was an original cast member of The Farm Show, a very successful and pioneering collective play about southwestern Ontario farmers. (The play’s creator, Paul Thompson, was even in the audience.)
Collaborative plays were improvised and shaped based on actors’ thorough interviewing of people on whom their characters could be based, in that case Ontario farmers. Potter was the director of the very successful, The Drawer Boy, based on the experience making The Farm Show. He was very funny, and reminded me of Buck Henry.
Raoul Bhaneja was another guest, and he has a natural confidence that had him owning his scenes throughout. But it was Snieckus who brought a bittersweet depth and mature perspective to her characters, adding some genuine moments to the comedy show. She and Baram were the hosts for the night and the two of them were a very good team. Up until the smell of free smoked meat filled the theatre announcing the end, they shepherded a grateful audience through a funny show accompanied by music that really helped set a nice atmosphere, both in the room and in setting the stage.
Almost as Baram promised in his introduction, “in the end, the lights will come down and it will be over.” Except it isn’t all over—the group will be back next month. Seems that a lot of the people that were there in the audience during this Sunday’s show will be back as well.
