THE
QUAKERTOWN FREE PRESS
McCoole's, the perfect venue for Sam Malone's
Hairpiece
AUG 29, 2007
BY: ERIC ASARIS; CORRESPONDENT
What's this? Lucky the Leprechaun has a walk-on part in "Lord of the
Rings?" George Washington's teeth were made from heroin? Some people have
a subconscious fear of butter? "Beatlemania"
was a big bug festival during the American Revolution? What insanity is this?
It's not insanity, folks; it's the improvisational hilarity of a local comedy
troupe called "Sam Malone's Hairpiece."
Okay, maybe it is a little bit of insanity, but that's what makes it so funny,
so unpredictable, and so … well, improvised.
The Piece (as the troupe's fans, family and friends call them) performed their
improv/sketch comedy show "Master (Hair)Piece Theatre"
at McCoole's Arts and
The founders of the Piece, Mike Tingle and John McGarry,
met three years ago at Bucks County Community College where they took an
improvisational acting class taught by Bill McLaughlin, who is still a friend
and mentor to Tingle and McGarry. The duo went on to
study improv and sketch comedy at Chicago City Limits in
"I never really thought it was possible that you could take a class that
taught improv," said McGarry, "but it just
took hold [of us], and here we are doing our own stuff."
The group's name (an obscure reference to the toupee worn by Ted Danson when he played a bartender on the 80s sitcom
"Cheers") came about when Tingle and McGarry
had to name their team for a contest held during their improv class at BCCC.
"We were just sitting there forever and nobody was getting anything,"
said Tingle of how much trouble it was for the group to think up an appropriate
name. "So I just started rattling off whatever random thought came into my
head." Tingle seemed to have a particular affection for 80s TV shows,
thinking up names like "The Ben Savages" or "Tom Selleck's Mustache," but Sam Malone's Hairpiece was
victorious, and now they use it for their current group of performers.
It is probably worth noting that the name they chose for their improv group was
itself an improvisation. They needed a name, and they were able to create one
through knowledge of pop culture and a sort of silly inventiveness, which is
exactly what they do so wonderfully onstage.
For their performance at McCoole's, Tingle and McGarry were joined by performers Dan Hornberger, Kristin
Mellor and Andrew J. Stanton. McLaughlin was present offstage, lending support
to the group.
In the tradition of the TV show "Whose Line is it Anyway?"
(an improvisational comedy show that originated in Great Britain) the Piece
took ideas from the audience about what they should perform, such as naming
emotions for the performers to act out, where the scenes should take place,
what an actor's next line should be and so on.
One particularly good improv had the audience name a cliche
(in this case, "Letting the cat out of the bag") while Tingle stood
offstage where he couldn't hear the suggestion. Then the other performers had
to act out the cliche in a scene, which could not end
until Tingle guessed it.
Another funny bit (with Tingle, Hornberger and Mellor) involved the audience
requesting a scene (a man trying to sell antique photographic portraits to a
married couple) and required the actors to start their lines with the letter following
the first letter of the last line, going through the entire alpha-bet in order,
which proved quite a challenge once they got to X, Y and Z (zebra-stripped
pants and xylophone lessons, anyone?). The real challenge came when the actors
had to go through the alphabet again backwards. However, the group's real
talent was turning the simple scene into a dramatic love triangle, while still
effortlessly doing their alphabet shtick.
There were some written sketches to supplement the group's improv performances.
Many of these sketches had a tinge of dark humor to them, but the group's
playfulness helped to offset the black comedy.
One sketch was a sitcom called "Oooohhhh
Adolf!" in which a teenage Adolf Hitler (McGarry)
attended art school and tried to play cruel tricks on his teacher (Hornberger),
only to have the pranks backfire on the future Fürhrer.
Portraying Hitler as a mischievous-but-bumbling youth made German dictator seem
like a harmless idiot, just as actor Dick Shawn did in the Mel Brooks film
"The Producers" (1968), where Shawn portrayed Hitler as a dimwitted
hipster.
Another skit involved the current Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal. Tingle
portrayed Vick, wearing the quarterback's Atlanta Falcons jersey and trying to
buy some dogs from two English gentlemen (Stanton and Hornberger). When one of
the gentlemen replied that his dog has won several kennel club awards, Tingle
asked, "How many dogs did he have to kill to get those?" Again, the
dark humor of the scene was tempered by Tingle's performance of Vick as a rich
buffoon. The scene ended like a Public Service Announcement, when Tingle
exclaimed, "What am I doing? Gambling is wrong!"
Master (Hair)Piece Theater ended with a special treat
for the audience when McLaughlin came from backstage to lead the group in a
game of "Understudy," in which one actor would tag another actor and
finish their performance for them, which created a stream of absurd, constantly
shifting scenes, often referring back to hilarious elements of other skits performed
earlier that night. Several improv performers were in the audience that night
(all former students of BCCC) and they were called onstage by McLaughlin to
help out with the performance.
The above descriptions of the various skits and bits performed by the Piece really
do not do them justice. The hilarity of a Piece performance really has to be
seen to be appreciated and area audiences may indeed get more chances to see
the Piece in action. The group may have another performance scheduled at McCoole's in September, and they hope to do future
performances at McCoole's at least once a month, then
perhaps on a weekly basis.
McLaughlin stated that the upstairs black-box theatre at McCoole's
is the perfect venue for the Piece as the room gives the right kind of intimacy
between actors and audience members required for an improv performance.
If you missed Saturday's show and the Piece does indeed come back to McCoole's, please do not miss out a second time. You are in
for a clever, crazy and hilarious improvisational treat.
If you wish to learn more about Sam Malone's Hairpiece or to confirm future
performances, you can visit their website at www.sam-malones-hair-piece.com.
You can also contact McCoole's Arts and