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Rating: A+
Halfway through the Cody Rivers Show, Andrew Connor
thanks his brain for its capacity to remember.
“Dear Brain,” he scribbles on an imagined
pad. “Thanks for the memories.”
If gratitude keeps a good thing going, the Cody
Rivers Show has legs of steel. The applause that
erupted from the audience at Theater 99 will surely
refuel this speed-loving duo as they continue their
act at this year’s Piccolo Festival.
Imagine free-falling through an atmosphere of
people, places, and situations while laughing gas
pumps in your veins. This summarizes The Cody River
Show’s uncanny ability to recite vast amounts
of seemingly irrelevant information and link it
into a montage of hilarious stories. It showers
the audience with spasmodic vignettes that combine
dance, song, and dialogue. It flaps like a pair
of frenzied wings, spilling anecdotes and interchangeable
characters over the crowd.
The performance exudes enough energy to warrant
inspection of the nearest Red Bull distributor,
and performers Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor are
spot on with their multi-faceted interactions.
They stamp and weave with the gracefulness of dancers,
they exchange offhand comments like best friends,
and they seamlessly shift into fresh vignettes
as the previous story settles in. Indeed, The Cody
Rivers Show demands high octane from its audience,
but the effort is unnoticed as you laugh and guffaw
until your jaw hurts.
Appearing on stage as slow-motion characters with
low, pinched voices, the duo allows a moment to
pass before they unleash their comedic fury. They
are nimble trespassers in a world inhabited by
strange, recognizable characters, yet they create
this world and rule it like kings who enjoy intelligent
humor and practical jokes.
If anything evokes the act’s narrative, it
is a series of ellipses — think Celine in
a good, theatrical mood: characters and dialogue
alternate with the slap of a hand on a knee, and
then it’s off to another scenario.
In one scene two bumbling doctors describe the
fate of the planet. They mindlessly repeat themselves,
saying, “It’s bleak,” and “If
you bemoan our generation,” until the spin
grows laughable, and the audience realizes the
gag. Another spans continents. The duo morphs from
place to place and features a variety of characters,
all of which turn out to be interconnected. The
storyline is too complicated and disjointed to
explain, but to their credit, The Cody Rivers Show
brings it together flawlessly.
Later, a spawned duo appears to track the movements
of the two performers. But the spawn speak another
language, a comb-over of sentences that flips words
and readjusts their meanings. There are revisited
adages that carry new weight.
“If at first you don’t secede, then
you’re not South Carolina.” Or, “If
you can’t stand the heat, stand next to the
freezer.”
A magician makes silence disappear; a character
reveals he is able to turn into a car, but only
when he isn’t riding his bicycle; the duo
performs face-to-face theater, a playful way to
involve the audience without making everyone grow
stiff, and then goes on to hide behind the stage,
performing for no one, an experience they deem
intense.
That intensity lasts throughout the show. When
you stand to leave you feel like you’ve been
through a final exam, but instead of hand cramps
your jaw aches and your brain buzzes with good
cheer.
The Cody River Show jokingly describes one of
their vignettes as the new generation of theater.
If that’s true we need to extend thanks to
their brains, and for the memories.
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