Gravity Boots is an absurd nonsensical comedy show playing at the Gilded Balloon. The basic premise is that an inventor created a contraption that produces and tells stories, then stores them in differently coloured light bulbs or ‘story bulbs.’ His two cats, Strog and Duffy, who are also the two musicians for the show, turn mischievous and decide to try out the contraption for themselves.
The result is a show that felt like improv gone wrong. It’s as if when planning this show they wrote down extremely random things on slips of paper, put them in a box, shook it around, and dumped it out. Whatever order they fell in, that’s what they would do. The premise is flimsy at best with absolutely no through line, except two guys with fuzzy ears and tails attached to themselves.
The performances might have been more enjoyable in a number of ways. When characterising a stereotype by using an accent, it helps if those accents are different. It also helps if an actor can hold a straight face at his own jokes. The token female of the group seemed to have no purpose other than to be the butt of sexual jokes, especially in a song about an eagle sexually attacking a pelican, rather than contribute to the production despite how very dismal it was.
The two young men who act out the stories from the ‘story bulbs’ wear an all white costume consisting of a turtleneck shirt and long johns. The costume distracted more than helped their efforts at humour, primarily because they changed costumes for nearly every scene. There was no need to provide a boring ‘blank slate’ that made me feel like I was watching them awkwardly perform in their underwear. Really, all it managed was to make them sweaty.
If you like seeing strange unrelated things happen, then this is probably the show for you. Otherwise, skip it.
