Every week, The Torch Theatre invites a guest monologist from Phoenix’s arts, music and culture scene to share their real-life stories as part of the show “The Neighborhood.” The founders and faculty of The Torch Theatre, as part of the troupe The Foundation, interpret these stories in various short-form improvised scenes.
Saturday’s show featured Emily Spetrino-Murtagh, best known as the co-owner of Grand Avenue’s vegan restaurant and pie provider Bragg’s Factory Diner. Spetrino-Murtagh is also a local musician and artist.
Most of her stories revolved around interesting experiences and customers at the diner, especially one man, Michael George, whose notable actions ranged from spilling coffee on the floor and crying about it to turning his headphones to face outward so everyone could hear his music. George also had a habit of standing outside the diner’s windows and staring in at customers after he had been asked to leave.
Six performers participated in Saturday’s show: Jacque Arend, Jeff Cardello, Mack Duncan, Jose Gonzalez, Sam Haldiman and Shane Shannon.
Arend was the standout of the group, developing unique and quirky characters for every scene she stepped into and using her facial expressions and body language to convey these realistic and entertaining people.
Haldiman and Shannon were both also strong performers. Haldiman’s physical comedy — he spent one scene rolling around on the floor crying over a spilled beverage — was distinctive and well-suited for how expressive he was, while Shannon’s portrayal of the creepier side of the stories by peering in the diner windows was also a source of entertainment.
But improv is about more than just what an individual person is capable of — it’s about how two or more performers interact with each other, building characters and scenes together and playing off each other’s cues and punchlines.
You could tell everyone in Saturday’s show knew each other well, both personally and professionally. They all had an easy chemistry, and each different pairing brought a new, exciting flavor to the scenes.
The highlight of the show was the running joke of the mariachi band that originally showed up at a Denny’s to serenade someone celebrating their birthday, an adaptation of the time a Bragg’s customer hired a harpist to play while the customer ate in the restaurant on their birthday without first telling Spetrino-Murtagh or any of the other staff.
The first time the band appeared, the four performers not already in the scene moved together to stand behind the seated couple. Each person pretended to play a traditional mariachi instrument — guitar, violin, upright bass and trumpet — and the group invented a short song on the spot. As they reappeared in later scenes, with different performers subbing in depending on who was already in the scene, the band returned to that same song, developing the band as a character just like some of the others.
The joke was hilarious and fresh, not overused or annoying, and always timed perfectly. The mariachi band was a good example of how the performers worked together to enhance and develop scenes while still letting the core of Spetrino-Murtagh’s story and the main performers’ acting shine through.
Not every scene in “The Neighborhood” was perfect. Some fell a little flat or dragged on too long. Some of the running jokes got pulled in too often.
But overall, the hour-long show was good. Spetrino-Murtagh’s stories were amusing and the scenes based on them were strange, funny and charming. The Torch Theatre is a source of reliable entertainment and audiences always leave satisfied.
Spetrino-Murtagh said Saturday’s show was her first time at The Torch Theatre. They did an amazing job with her stories, she said, and her favorite scene was one that traced clowning through several generations of a family.
“The Neighborhood” takes place every Saturday at 8:30 p.m. at The Torch Theatre, located on Central Avenue south of Camelback Road. Tickets are $10; upcoming monologists include Javier Gilmore, Tom Blunt, Alex Danvers and Jason P. Woodbury.
Contact the author at kimberly.koerth@asu.edu. Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
