If you truly want
to be blown away by a Harold, Weirdass is the duo to see.
Visiting the UCB Theatre from L.A., together Weir (of “Mad
TV”) and Dassie generate as many characters, scenes and
events as it normally takes six to eight players to
generate. By necessity, Weir and Dassie will create multiple
characters to round out the world of a single scene, and
every one of these will advance character relationships and
add information.
When Weirdass hits
on a funny line, (in this show, ‘My Coke didn’t spill’ after
a car crash), it doesn’t feel forced -- it has come from the
interactions. In this show, the audience’s first sign that
it was in the hands of two masters was the way Weir added
the fact that her character was a mother 25 years older than
Dassie’s neighborhood high school boy, and from that they
were off and running.
If Weirdass
could be said to be using any form or format, it would be
one where the players play around the same event or moment
in time and keep revisiting it as a callback. The car crash
served that purpose, and with these players’ inventiveness,
they recalled little details of the crash to repeat them
perfectly in order while filling in other little pieces of
the event not previously shown, and events leading up to and
after the crash.
Of course, trust
in each other as players and honing the ability to react
with substance to each other’s moves is challenging to
perfect. Weir and Dassie are married, and maybe that helps
them reach the level they hit when performing together.
