Robyn Lynne Norris's free-form satire makes its off-Broadway premiere during the Westside Theatre.
Go on it from the veteran: on line dating suuuuucks. Yes, apps like OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge reduce in the awkwardness that is included with approaching possible love passions in individual and achieving to discern a person's singlehood when you look at the place that is first. But placing apart the reality that perhaps the most algorithm that is complexn't constantly anticipate in-person chemistry, forcing potential daters to boil by themselves down seriously to a self-summary leads people to not merely placed across an idealized type of on their own for general general public usage, but additionally encourages visitors to latch on the many surface-level aspects to quickly see whether someone's worth pursuing romantically. For ladies especially, online dating sites can also be dangerous, making them available to harassment or even worse from toxic males whom feel emboldened because of the privacy of this Web.
Yet, online dating sites remains popular, hence which makes it a target ripe for satire. Enter #DateMe: An OkCupid Test. Conceived by Robyn Lynne Norris, whom cowrote the show with Bob Ladewig and Frank Caeti, and situated in component on her behalf very own experiences, the job is actually a sketch-comedy that is extended, featuring musical figures, improvisatory sections with market involvement, and interactive elements (the show possesses its own OkCupid-like application that everybody is encouraged to install and create pages on prior to the show). As opposed to a plot, there is a character arc of kinds: Robyn (played in this off-Broadway premiere by Kaitlyn Ebony), finding by by by herself obligated to try OkCupid the very first time, chooses to see just what is best suited regarding the application by producing 38 fake pages. If that appears overzealous, a few of her guidelines — including never ever fulfilling some of the individuals she converses with online — declare that this alleged test has been made to fail through the outset. The cynicism and despair underlying Robyn's overelaborate ruse is sometimes recognized through the show, with items of pathos associated with tips of a troubled romantic past and recommendations that she's trouble making deep connections with individuals generally speaking peeking through the laughs.
When it comes to part that is most, however, #DateMe is content to keep up a frothy tone while doling down its insights
Robyn's findings of seeing most of the exact same expressions and character characteristics on pages result in faux-educational portions where the other countries in the eight-member cast, donning white lab coats (Vanessa Leuck designed the colorfully diverse costumes), break people on to groups. Perhaps the creepiest of communications Robyn receives on OkCupid are turned into cathartically songs that are amusingpublished by Sam Davis, with words by Norris, Caeti, Ladewig, and Amanda Blake Davis). And when any such thing, the two improvisatory segments — one out of that your performers speculate how a date that is first two solitary market people would go centered on their pages and reactions for their concerns, the other a dramatization of a gathering user's worst very very first date — grow to be the comic features of this show (or at the very least, these were in the performance we went to).
It really assists that the cast — which, along with Ebony, includes Chris Alvarado, Jonathan Gregg russianbrides.com, Eric Lockley, Megan Sikora, Liz Wisan, Jillian Gottlieb, and Jonathan Wagner — are highly spirited and game. Lorin Latarro emphasizes a feeling of playfulness in her own way and choreography, specially with a group, created by David L. Arsenault, that mixes the aesthetic of living spaces and game programs; and projections by Sam Hains that infuse the show aided by the feeling that is appropriate of overload.
#DateMe can be so entertaining into the minute that just do you realize afterward exactly just exactly exactly just how shallow its view of online dating sites in fact is. Because of this audience at the very least, it had been disappointing to see the show's blind spot in terms of competition and exactly how discrimination nevertheless plays away on dating apps today. As well as on a wider degree, the show does not link the increase of dating apps to your predominance of social networking in particular, motivating a change more toward immediate satisfaction than in-depth connection. Similar to regarding the very very first times dating apps will probably give you on, #DateMe: An OkCupid test offers a completely enjoyable break without making you with much to remember after it is over.