This was an event that I was looking forward to at the convention. Even though I missed part of the show (guessing 30 minutes), the less than comical talent was not expected. I was disappointed in the performance, because it did not end my night with laughter. Instead, I got two actors with no comical skills, while the others were the only ones who gave me a good laugh.
Here we have Chris Ayres at the podium, who delivered his character with comical, yet serious, responses. The other actors (left to right) Keith Silverstein, Carli Mosier and Greg Ayres had to ask questions that referred to the situation that Chris's character was in. However, Chris has no knowledge of said situation and had to figure out what it was. Unfortunately, he actually had NO IDEA what the actors were talking about. He literally said “I have no idea what you're talking about” and I recall one of the actors trying to spoon feed him the answer. It took a while, but he did fine in the end.
In this performance, the actors were provided with props and they had to come up with some usage of it. During the duration of this skit, the consistently entertaining ones were on the left, while the one time comical statements were on the right. Pictured above is Silverstein being flamboyant and asking “do you like my bracelet?” to Chris. I recall Chris using that silver prop by placing it on his nose and said “hello Big Bird,” just like Snuffy Snuffleupagus. Mosier did one thing that was funny; she used the green props as melons, if you know what she meant. ;-) Greg too did something slightly humorous; he used the green props as earrings and starting moving it up and down. However, neither Mosier nor Greg was consistently funny; the rest of their act was not humorous at all. I barely laughed at their jokes.
Similar to Chris's skit above, here we have Greg guessing what kind of character each of the actors was portraying. This was not always an easy task, but he accomplished it.
Silverstein had to mock people when they were not looking. He did really well with his part; his body language and facial expressions were on point.
Chris acted like a fan excited to meet Greg for the first time. I have to say that he did act very enthusiastic and eager, but he had the craziest look ever! I remember the part where he slapped Silverstein on the arm for making fun of Greg. Quite funny.
Mosier had to replay earlier moments in slow motion. However, at least not physically, I did not sense the slow motion effect. She did repeat random lines from the previous skits though.
The last skit of the night was the powerpoint presentation. Sometimes the slides, by itself, tend to make the audience laugh. However, to make things more interesting each actor had to come up with things to say relating to each slide. Unfortunately, nothing memorable happened during this skit.
I enjoyed Anime Unscripted in 2011 and I came back in 2012, because I thought that I would get a good hearty laugh. The actors may have acting abilities, but not all of them have improvised comical skills. In the end, the show was not as great as last years.
© 2013 Linda Thai
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