BLIND DATE REMODELS IMPROVISATION, BUT WHAT DOES IT DO TO REFLECT MODERN LOVE?

Putting problematics aside, Blind Date improvises through its awkward premise and finds opportunities to warm even the most critical of hearts, operating under the intention to find something to love about anyone.

Canadian actor, director, producer, and theatre creator Rebecca Northan presents Blind Date as a 'spontaneous theatre' creation— Northan's term for improv theatre which does not operate at the expense of the participant. During the show, an actor dressed in fishnets, heels, and an appealing red dress assumes a fake french accent and a red clown's nose. She performs as 'Mimi' on an impromptu blind date with a randomly selected audience 'bachelor'. The February 3rd showing I attended at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts (Burnaby) featured Ali Froggat in the role of Mimi, and celebrated local business-owner Charlie Sigvardsen, the 88-year-old face of Charlie's Chocolate Factory.

The show is initially set in a French cafe with the lead performer eventually encouraging her male companion to follow along from the cafe setting to her car. Here, a behind the scenes improv team plays along, lining up sound effects to match various gestures such as the opening/closing of the imagined car doors. The setting again changes when she brings Charlie into her apartment— the show's conclusion depending on an audience vote.

The events depicted find themselves perpetuating a generic and outdated dating mechanic. The 88-year-old audience companion, despite his sweet nature and charm, does little to challenge old fashioned female/male social roles: he "pays" for the date and suggests asking her father for permission in marriage. Unfortunately, the theory behind Northan's spontaneous theatre doesn't allow for a performance that challenges these gestures. In order to maintain Charlie's dignity, the show relies on defined gender roles as a point of familiarity from which other absurdist actions and events can generate humour, instead of using comedy as a device to point out the questionable dating mechanics of the past.

As an audience member, understanding and empathizing with the challenges of date-improvisation with an acting-inexperienced stranger, it seems unfair to dig too deeply into the problematics Blind Date perpetuates. This asks for a broader investigation of complicity and comedy, and particularly in the case of Blind Date, intent. The success of the show isn't found in bad fake accents or the design of the sets, but in the success of its goal: we did discover a lot to love about Charlie.