My overall impression
I am sorry only that I caught the last performance of this terrific show. If we are lucky, Robert Boesel and Matt Moore will continue to work together: each relishes the sudden (and seemingly, endlessly funny) improvisation that might catch his comedic partner off-guard, and each is savvy enough about his partner’s considerable gifts and abilities to never toss out a line his buddy can’t retrieve. Or stray too long or too far from the book that story is compromised or lost. They’re simply hilarious. Theirs could become what the comedy world has missed for so long: a comedy duo fast and fresh in which neither partner has to assume a permanent and limiting public persona, but instead a thoroughly contemporary model in which the writer/performer changes comedic character as the situation demands and works outside the duo as desired.
Amy Paffrath, as Heather, the Richard Branson (Moore) consort, brought what could have been merely a dancing doll to life, all the more remarkable because Heather says nothing, or next to it. Paffrath’s gift is to quickly make the audience believe that billionaire Branson would select precisely THIS woman as companion for a loooong journey into space because of her looks AND sympatico and responsive personality. Sleek and stunning, Paffrath could have easily relied on her arresting beauty to carry the part, but her connections to Boesel and Moore, established through facial gestures and physicality, were just right for the small venue—-neither too exaggerated nor too subtle. Call this a perfect example of bringing considerable talent, craft, and thought to a part that might not demand it, but which makes Robert’s (Robert Boescel) longing, desire, and frustration eminently and painfully believable on a number of levels.
The Timekeepers, the production’s band, is integral to the work, rather than backup. Dan McCollister (of the band CityCity), a thoroughly engaging singer and keyboardist, delivers the opening lines and orients the audience, reappearing as needed. Benji Vander Broek on bass and Jarrett Portnoy on drums complete the major-chops band. I’ll make it a point to hear their bands.
