Time to Improvise

San Francisco Bay Guardian
May 11, 2005

By Robert Avila

Pick of the Week: Friday, May 13, 2005

Bay Area Theatresports, San Francisco's premiere improvisational theater, is in the unscripted midst of its third annual long-form festival, showcasing top-notch new and veteran players in various formats. This evening, BATS presents The (Improvised) Time of Your Life, a completely spontaneous three-act play based on the great comic dramas of the 1930s. Featuring an expert cast joined and directed by Tim Orr – member (with Rafe Chase and Stephen Kearin) of the killer trio 3 for All, who help close the festival May 28 – the format's a bit unusual, grounded in a single setting without the cinematic "cuts" of other long-form styles. The title's nod to William Saroyan, whose plays reside in the great grab bag of cultural memory accessed by the lightning wits onstage, reminds us that his wholehearted, impressionistic style has a certain improv ethic about it anyway. Saroyan's famous advice to aspiring writers could have come to him after seeing a BATS performance: "Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell." 8 p.m., Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg. B, Marina at Laguna, S.F. $15. (415) 474-8935, www.improv.org.