Publication date: 07/17/2002
Groundbreaking 'News'

BY LESLIE KATZ
Of The Examiner Staff

    The show the audience will see tonight at the Magic Theatre will be different from what Thursday's or Friday's or Saturday's theatergoers will experience. In fact, every performance of True Fiction Magazine's "Ripped from the News" will be spontaneous and unique.

    What likely will remain constant, though, is the mind-boggling talent of the True Fiction improv team, a group of five savvy comedians complemented by a musician and lighting artist who are equally quick on the uptake.

    It simply doesn't matter that every gag in this entirely improvised full-length -- 90 minutes -- comedy doesn't necessarily work. The thrill, and real theatrical tension, in the show is in watching the troupers think instantly, and out loud, on their feet. What'd be a nightmare for the average person (isn't there a study somewhere that says the majority of the population massively fears public speaking?) is one of those wonderfully wacky, surreal dreams in the hands of these improv pros.

    The seed for the plot -- and unbelievably, there is one -- comes from newspaper headlines. Before the show, folks in the audience are asked to tear clippings from various newspapers strewn on a table in the lobby. Inside the theater, a selection of these clips is pinned on four posts at the corners of the stage, and the actors busily peruse them before things get under way.

    On Friday's opening night, the players couldn't resist these juicy headlines: one about government scientists growing a virus from scratch; another about Chinese walking fish invading a pond in Maryland; and a third about telecommunications giant WorldCom asking its employees to sign away their rights to benefits.

    The troupe first seized on the fish. Curly-headed Barbara Scott immediately became a sick woman who'd only be cured by walking fish soup, so her brother Paul Killam adventured to an Asian market in search of the exotic ingredient. Regina Saisi and Diane Rachel, with goofy Chinese accents, were downright hilarious as the fast-talking market proprietors hawking their wares, while the rest of the cast became the predatory paddlers.

    The next thing we knew, we were transported to a house full of people named Matilda in a segment that apparently wasn't taken from a headline. There, Rachel became a rich matron, Matilda, who had a penchant for calling her servants Matilda. In order to get an inheritance, she was forced to oversee her slow, illiterate 24-year-old nephew, played by Craig Neibaur.

    Next the story transformed into a long, and sporadically sidesplitting, gag about a macho Vietnam vet Marine pilot (Saisi) and his wimpy co-pilot (Killam) on a mission transporting a vial of bubonic plague (held by scientist Neibaur) to Afghanistan.

    The second act began with Rachel in a spot-on impression of a humorless WorldCom exec who had absolutely no qualms about having her staffers sign a contract that would eliminate their employee benefits. At one point, she even mentioned something about taking a worker's first born.

    Surprisingly, the shenanigans almost added up to a real, cohesive story, thanks also to fine work by Joshua Raoul Brody at the keyboard providing instant mood-setting musical accompaniment, and lighting improvisor Mark Rachel, who knew just when to black out a scene and move on.

    And oddly enough, unlike much of the nonstop news permeating today's media, in the end, some of the topics in "Ripped" even resonated awhile -- particularly after you stopped for a minute and let all storylines and jokes sink in.

    Ripped from the News continues at 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays through July 28 at the Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. Tickets are $22-$37 general; $10 seniors and students. Visit http://www.magictheatre.org/ or call (415) 441-8822.