Improv comedy has never been my thing, and when my friend Bruce asked me if I wanted to check out the Capital Region’s improv comedy group, The Mop & Bucket Company, last week at Proctors, my first instinct was to say no. But I’m always asking Bruce to do crazy things, and he often agrees to do them, and so I said yes instead.

I hadn’t seen improv comedy since I was in college, though it’s a bit of a stretch to say that I actually saw improv comedy there. Oberlin had a very active group, called Primitive Streak, and supposedly they were very good, but it just wasn’t the sort of thing my friends and I were into, maybe because they often performed at the Cat and the Cream, the on-campus coffee house, and there was no alcohol there. The one time I caught a glimpse of Primitive Streak, it was while hanging out at The Feve, the downtown coffee house that served hummus and pita and all sorts of great things, with my friend Ed. It was mid-afternoon. We were having a nice, quiet conversation, when all of a sudden a group of people jumped up and announced that they were from Primitive Streak, and that they were going to perform right there and then, in the middle of the coffee shop. Ed and I looked at each other. “Let’s get out of here,” Ed said.

In any case, I’d never really understood why improv comedy was supposed to be funny. It had always seemed maniacally zany, but also incredibly irritating, like a loud group of people talking over everybody else. So I was skeptical about Mop & Bucket. Also, I had a sneaking suspicion that Bruce didn’t really know what improv comedy was. Only ignorance, I figured, could explain his desire to go to an improv comedy show; improv comedy just isn’t very Bruce-like. But the e-mail describing the event — “MopCo hosts the Capital District Improv Jams where anyone can perform in an evening of stimulating improv games and fun on December 18th at 8 p.m.” — had been pretty clear, and I figured he knew what we were getting into.

Being somewhat leery of audience participation, I suggested we sit toward the rear when we arrived at Proctor’s GE Theatre. Immediately, there was a call for volunteers. I slinked down in my seat, but a number of eager people rushed forward. They formed a line on stage, and then audience members were asked to yell out a category. The emcee would point to someone in the line, and they were supposed to yell out an example of something in the chosen category. So if the category was breakfast cereal, and the emcee pointed at you, you could respond by saying, “Cap’n Crunch” or “Raisin Bran. If the person failed to provide a proper response, they were eliminated. Midway through this game, Bruce turned to me. “What is this?” he said. “Why aren’t they acting?” “Because it’s improv comedy,” I said. “This is what improv comedy is.”

Bruce looked totally baffled. (Later, I asked him what he thought we were going to see, and he said something about serious theater, where actors responded to input from the audience. But if you re-read the e-mail Bruce forwarded me, as I did after the show, you may wonder why in the world he thought that. I know I did.) I thought for sure he was going to turn to me, as Ed did all those years ago, and say, “Let’s get out of here.” But we stuck with it, and it got better.

At its best, improv comedy results in skits that revolve around truly absurd scenarios — You’re meeting your lover for a tryst ... but wait! You’re standing in the middle of Proctors! — and as things progressed, I found myself laughing, almost in spite of myself. I didn’t always know what I was laughing at — at the comedy, or Bruce’s reaction to it. Some of the people participating in the Improv Jams were actually very good at improv comedy, and fun to watch, but what really made the evening were the four kids who showed up in the middle of the show. Within minutes, they were jumping up to participate whenever possible. It was clear they'd never seen anything like improv comedy before ... and that they loved it. Somehow, their enthusiasm was contagious, and it wasn’t long before I was re-evaluating my opinion of improv comedy. Maybe I'd been ... wrong. Maybe it actually was funny.

Anyway, I think I’m going to need to see a second Mop & Bucket performance to figure out what I really think of improv comedy. And I’ll have to drag Bruce along, as laughing at him is a big part of the fun. All I know is that whenever I think of attending the Improv Jams with Bruce, it makes me laugh. Even a week later.

For more on Mop & Bucket, click here. Got a comment? Add one below or e-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.