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Callboard Magazine (2002)
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Killing My Lobster
By Karen Macklin
Originally published by Callboard, August 2002.
(c) 2002, All rights reserved.
When San Francisco-based companies make it bit, they typically do one thing: leave San Francisco. But one local comedy troupe has been sticking it out here in the Bay Area, despite some hefty successes over the past few years. With a name that brings to mind perverse images of dead crustaceans, Killing My Lobster has become perhaps the city's best-known sketch comedy group, having performed its loopy, yet intelligent brand of humor in venues all across the city-and more recently country. Deriving abnormal amounts of silliness from the most normal occurrences of daily life the committed (um, I mean dedicated) Lobster compadres have won awards, while gaining recognition by nationwide comics and even Comedy Central.
To mark the company's maturation, its next show will push the Lobster boundaries even further. Directed by KML member James Bewley, Tango Dell'Amore tackles the topic of love in all of its tortured and twisted glory. While the show is still based in sketch comedy, the idea of a visual aesthetic will play an integral part in its development-a concept that suggests a significant evolution for KML. To this end, the troupe is collaboration with San Francisco Opera costume designer Cristo Verdosci, whose attention to attire is helping KML generate script ideas. "We're exploring the characters' identities through their costumes," says Bewley, who jokes that past costumes have always been selected from low-budget wardrobe consisting mainly of aprons, football helmets and Members Only jackets. The use of clothing to inform the script has allowed all sorts of neurotic characters to spring forth, including the "woman incapable of subtlety" (garbed in an ill-fitting tango dress) and the "too-tall man" whose clothes are ridiculously small. Bewley says that the characters all have one thing in common: They are uncomfortable in their own bodies and this resonates in their personal lives.
Another way in which Tango is a departure for KML is in its presentation, which will involve a main show with a four-piece band coupled with a sideshow cabaret act that will make use of material that never made it into the show-as well as on-the-spot improv. "Every night there will be something new," says Bewley. "That's not something we've tried before, unless something in the show went wrong." But make no mistake; this production will be carefully orchestrated with the company planning to devote one month to writing, one to rehearsing and one to performing. But what about dancing? "Somewhere in there," says Bewley with a chuckle, "I guess we'll have to learn how to tango."
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