Hi. How are you? Good? Yeah. Me too. Bit of rain today, yeah? Did you get caught in it? I didn’t. Well, I almost did, but then …I had an umbrella. Is this awkward? Is it wrong to talk like this in a theatre review? Should I stop? Do you think? Oh. …Okay…
I know that was strange, but I wanted to break the ice. It’s so hard to do. No one knows this better than Holly Bodmer and Dot Howard of Odd Comic. Their piece Would Be Nice Though… is a site-specific, audience interactive experience that takes you through the nerve-racking moments just before that big interview, but honestly to describe more than that would be unfair to the piece. An excellent example of modern performance art, Would Be Nice Though… is intelligent, hilarious, charming, witty, relevant and personal and more importantly it is as a completely successful work in an area of performance that’s still being defined. To call it “theatre” is to diminish its techniques and your expectations.
It is performance, but not in any traditional sense. Bodmer and Howard are pitch-perfect in their embodiments of socially awkward desk-job hopefuls, and also in their ability to play with their audience, not just for them. The piece delves into the heart of silent elevator rides, shuffling bus stop choreography, and being the audience of an interactive performance - all of life’s moments when nothing that is said is the right thing. Would Be Nice Though… keeps us in that small-talk purgatory long enough for us to realize the tender and inescapable fear strangers have for each other and all of the subtle and generous ways we have to put others, and ourselves, at ease. I felt bonded to the other audience members at the end in a way I have never felt before. The vulnerability and bravery of the piece is almost shocking and the expert way Bodmer and Howard crafted our experience left me challenging my ever-expanding assumptions of what is possible in live performance.
