What I liked
Some truly fun actors with strong improvisational skills. While some performances are better than others, there are ones that really shine. Some of the bottlenecking issues that seemed to plague past productions by Last Call were greatly improved (though occasional problems still remain), and there are some really clever activities you may find yourself engaging in…
What I didn't like
…however, I didn’t really find most of the activities very mob-like or what I’d expect to engage in for this sort of theme. With so many concurrent activities happening at once, it’s impossible to get a sense of what everyone’s doing and how it results in the ending you receive. It would be really great to get a better sense of the night’s overall narrative—with all of the missions happening concurrently throughout the show, the bulk of the story gets lost.
My overall impression
There’s fun to be had if you get into the spirit, and certainly the performers seem game. But like with other Last Call productions, it’s hard to get a sense of the important events of the night that bring about whatever ending you achieve and not all audience paths are created equal. Also, despite beginning on an appropriate note, it doesn’t feel very mob-like for a mob story. The head of your family gets killed by a rival gang and no one’s trying to get revenge? Ultimately, The Collective isn’t a bad show, but I’d really like to see Last Call stretch their wings and try other forms of immersive theater that aren’t so reliant on continuous fetch quests.
