Student

Professor

Improv

15 April 2020

A Critique on UCB’s Performance of The Harold

The first scene after the Pattern Game did not establish a base reality right away. Starting

only with the lawyer’s name and their location in a prison. The action they were taking being that

of discussing the case at hand and establishing the acquainted relationship. Afterward the lawyer

finally names the accused. I feel like they could have explored more into the “literally slimy

lawyer.” Most of the focus was on the accused and there was really only a scratching-the-surface

level of depth into the “slimy lawyer,” which made me unsure on who exactly the unusual person

was. It was also a pretty static scene, which was the nature of a convict-lawyer relationship.

The second scene did a better job in establishing the base reality. I think it was on how

potent the character Tabitha was, who was an expressive character from the start. One thing I

noted was a tendency of asking the other character in establishing the world. Like, “You think

Betty is putting the third cat in?” and “Is this a workout bar?”. They led to entertaining moments,

however, that could have put the scene on a “no” track.

The conspiracy board-game scene didn’t exactly establish the relationship. It could easily

be a father-son, friends, or even lovers’ relationship. The conversation kept their relationship

vague and they could have built on that aspect, there may have been an inkling with the line,

“You’re so young Tim,” but it is not acknowledged much after that. It had a great closer,

however, taking the themes of money and the irritation toward the rich and bringing to a concise

statement, “You’re gonna get another job.” This could be explored deeper into the next acts.
 The muffin-man scene was great! The building of the base reality was quick and the

game of playing out the trope was set into motion right away. The trope being the “That was

your dream Dad!” The walk-ons added great character interactions that built the characters. Like

the customer which made the muffin-man put on his… muffin-man persona. As well as the art

director, allowing for a more in-depth exploration of the son and his dreams and how the muffin-

man reacts to authority.

The first scene of Act 2 was probably the weakest scene, it felt like it was not really

going anywhere. I could see the potential in the exploration of the “slimy lawyer,” but again, it

did not really go anywhere. The iffy-ness of the scene was probably felt by the accused as he

blurted out a substantial line that could either end it or bring it somewhere different than the

direction it was going. The second scene of Act 2 started great, especially with the callback to

Betty who was only a mentioned character in Act 1. The only critique I would say was that it was

a static scene, but it was lifted by the entertaining dialogue that it brought.

The third scene of Act 2 had a great line of, “He believes everything that I believe.” Not

only is this good to establish the character by overtly stating it, but also brings it to a “two-peas-

in-a-pod” relationship. I’m not sure what makes it funny, but I chuckle every time I re-watch it, it

might be how blunt it is stated. There was also the acknowledgement of the fact that Dan had

interacted with two types of curtains on the same wall next to each other.

The fourth scene of Act 2 was good in the dialogue department. One of my main

criticisms were the use of the r-slur, which is unfortunate, but understandable given that this was

performed in 2013, where there was not much awareness on the connotations of the word. My

other one was that the table just disappeared. The performers most likely stopped acknowledging

it due to the chair being thrown through the area of the table.
 Act 3 did a good job of tying the entertaining bits from the scenes, like the two types of

curtains, the relationship between the muffin-man and his son, and the bluntness of the

conspiracy theorist. It tied the themes together well, my main criticism being that it started with a

pop culture reference, Ally McBeal. From context clues, I could tell it was a TV show, but the

reference did not land on me.