I need to geek out a moment here and talk about Adsit & Gausus. They're two people - Scott Adsit from 30 Rock and Christina Gausus - two veteran improvisers with some pretty palpable sexual tension (they've made out or boned in two out of the three shows I've seen) and a lot of training and they're fearless and so amazing to watch, always. The whole thing is about simplicity - they just do long, subtle scenes with drama and a bit of comedy, and they never pander to us or themselves. And the scenes never hinge on one pattern or one joke, it's just about them, doing this scene, figuring out who the people are together. When patterns emerge, you only notice because they're real, and you believe them, and it's never forced. Their show is so close to good theater in that way, making everything about the connection between them, starting with nothing except the way they're looking at each other, sizing themselves up at the top of the show.
But then they just blow your mind with the way they set up the last twenty minutes. At the last show I saw, this past Monday, they started with a scene of two people standing at a girl's doorstep after a bad date. By the end of the show, after many other scenes, all of which they intertwine in some way by the end, believably, always, they replayed the doorstep scene with a completely different ending, switching characters, changing it completely, but never having any doubt between them that this was the way it was going now. It's understanding and chemistry and comedy at its smartest and most moving.
So hey - go see them in December at UCB. Also Scott Adsit looks a lot like Peter Boyle.
