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![_Heat Things Up With <em>Desire</em> at the Blanton [Art Preview]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2010/02/minter-thumb-110x110-478584.jpg)
Heat Things Up With Desire at the Blanton [Art Preview]
And while that reputation—like Out of Bounds—is built on improvised comedy, it was two New York City-based sketch troupes that kept lips a-flapping throughout the festival, though for distinctly different reasons. First, Rue Brutalia took a late night Thursday slot and spun it into gold, offering takes on scaremongering, denial and what it would be like if Tom Waits gave your commencement speech at The Julliard School. Two days later, FUCT brought a mixture of over-the-top scenes, masochistic stunts and illusions that utilized the aforementioned hideaway man parts in a Britney Spears-Paris Hilton sketch that pretty much destroyed the tired comedy convention of dudes dressed as chicks. The set was highly dependent on shock value, but it drew equal-sized waves of laughter and gasps from the sold-out crowd.
Achieving a similar reaction: the second half of Unexpected Company’s set. The Rhode Island troupe’s performance was a tad slow to start, and its moments of fourth-wall breaking felt uninspired until troupe member Billy Domineau stepped forward to deliver a raw, honest monologue about the time he was fooled by his dad and a fake fossil. Apparently the younger Domineau was not amused, and his repressed emotions fueled a surging fifteen minutes of improv, culminating in a mid-stage kiss.
More consistently successful with its meta was Pimprov, though much of that only tickled the performers in the audience. However, the Pimprovisers did snag an audience volunteer through Esther’s Pool’s 6th St. windows (does the term “audience volunteer” apply if she didn’t start out in the audience?), then proceeded to reenact the events of her day. But when they reached the moment their volunteer arrived on stage, the troupe swapped places with three audience members, thus setting up local improviser Noah Voelker for some prime uptight, white-boy jive talk.
Voelker wasn’t the only Austinite who delivered in front of company. Get Up weaved a tight narrative about a monastery, a bewitching brew and magical amulets, while Girls Girls Girls proved it’s not what’s on the outside that counts, but how well you can walk like Charlie Chaplin and paint tarted-up Picasso recreations. Improv for Evil previewed “Cochise,” an improvised ‘70s cop show running on the Hideout Theater mainstage in November, and as the title character, Jason Vines was a loose canon who wore as many pairs of sunglasses as he damn well pleased. Backpack Picnic drew a short scheduling straw—opening for FUCT—but offered up a new celebration to the pantheon of fake holidays: Chairs Are Guns Day. Out of Bounds provided the last stage for $10 Bourbon, which took its final bow together just before Cody Dearing and former Austinist contributor Eric Seufert completed their runs with Look Cookie.
As improv in Austin grows, it must contract a little as well. But if things continue as they did for Out of Bounds in 2008, it shouldn’t affect the festival any. Nope, things are on the up and up, and it’s certain that this year’s Out of Bounds, the largest yet, will be outdone by next year’s edition.
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Should have put this in entry, but FULL DISCLOSURE: Austinist was a sponsor of Out of Bounds, and I was one of the festival's performers. I did not appear in any of the shows mentioned above.