Robyn Lynne Norris’s free-form satire makes its premiere that is off-Broadway at Westside Theatre.
Go on it from a veteran: on the web suuuuucks that are dating. Yes, apps like OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge reduce regarding the awkwardness that is included with approaching prospective love passions in individual and having to discern somebody’s singlehood into the place that is first. But placing apart the fact perhaps the most algorithm that is complexn’t constantly anticipate in-person chemistry, forcing potential daters to boil on their own down seriously to a self-summary leads people to not just placed across an idealized form of by themselves for general general public usage, but additionally encourages visitors to latch on the many surface-level aspects to quickly see whether someone’s worth pursuing romantically. For females especially, online dating sites could even be dangerous, making them available to harassment or even worse from toxic males whom feel emboldened because of the privacy associated with the Web.
Yet, internet dating remains popular, therefore which makes it a target ripe for satire. Enter #DateMe: an experiment that is okCupid. Conceived by Robyn Lynne Norris, whom cowrote the show with Bob Ladewig and Frank Caeti, and located in component on her behalf very very very own experiences, the task is actually an extended sketch-comedy show, featuring musical numbers, improvisatory sections with market involvement, and interactive elements (the show features its own OkCupid-like software that everybody is encouraged to install and create pages on ahead of the show). In place of a plot, there is a character arc of types: Robyn (played in this premiere that is off-Broadway Kaitlyn Ebony), finding by by by herself forced to try OkCupid the very first time, chooses to see just what is most effective regarding the application by producing 38 fake pages. If that appears overzealous, a few of her guidelines — including never ever meeting some of the individuals she converses with online — declare that this alleged test has been made to fail through the outset. The cynicism and despair underlying Robyn’s overelaborate ruse is sometimes recognized through the entire show, with components of pathos associated with tips of a troubled romantic past and recommendations that she’s got difficulty making deep connections with individuals in basic peeking through the laughs.
When it comes to part that is most, however, #DateMe is content to keep up a frothy tone while doling away its insights.
Robyn’s findings of seeing a number of the exact exact exact exact same expressions and character characteristics on pages lead to faux-educational sections where the other countries in the eight-member cast, donning white lab coats (Vanessa Leuck designed the colorfully diverse costumes), break people on to groups. Perhaps the creepiest of communications Robyn gets on OkCupid are turned into cathartically amusing songs (compiled by Sam Davis, with words by Norris, Caeti, Ladewig, and Amanda Blake Davis). Of course such a thing, the two improvisatory segments — one in that your performers speculate how a very first date between two solitary market users would get predicated on their pages and reactions with their concerns, one other a dramatization of a gathering user’s worst very very very very first date — turn into the comic features associated with the show (or at the very least, these were during the performance we went to).
It surely assists that the cast — which, along with Ebony, includes Chris Alvarado, Jonathan Gregg, Eric Lockley, Megan Sikora, Liz Wisan, Jillian Gottlieb, and Jonathan Wagner — are highly spirited and https://datingrating.net/cs/420-seznamka/ game. Lorin Latarro emphasizes a feeling of playfulness inside her way and choreography, specially with a group, created by David L. Arsenault, that mixes the aesthetic of living spaces and game programs; and projections by Sam Hains that infuse the show with all the appropriate sense of multimedia overload.
#DateMe is really so entertaining when you look at the minute that just later were you aware exactly just exactly how shallow its view of internet dating in fact is. Today for this viewer at least, it was disappointing to notice the show’s blind spot when it comes to race and how discrimination still plays out on dating apps. As well as on a wider degree, the show doesn’t link the increase of dating apps to your predominance of social media marketing in particular, motivating a change more toward immediate satisfaction than in-depth connection. Similar to regarding the very very very first times dating apps are going to deliver you on, #DateMe: An OkCupid test provides a completely enjoyable break without leaving you with much to remember after it really is over.