Robyn Lynne Norris’s free-form satire makes its off-Broadway premiere in the Westside Theatre.
Go on it from the veteran: on line suuuuucks that are dating. Yes, apps like OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge reduce from the awkwardness that is included with approaching possible love passions in individual and achieving to discern a person’s singlehood when you look at the beginning. But putting apart the fact perhaps the many algorithm that is complexn’t constantly anticipate in-person chemistry, forcing potential daters to boil on their own down seriously to a self-summary leads people to not just placed across an idealized type of on their own for general general general public usage, but additionally encourages visitors to latch on the many surface-level aspects to quickly see whether someone’s worth pursuing romantically. For females especially, internet dating can also be dangerous, making them available to harassment or even even worse from toxic males whom feel emboldened because of the privacy of this online.
Yet, online dating sites remains popular, therefore which makes it a target ripe for satire. Enter #DateMe: An OkCupid Test. Conceived by Robyn Lynne Norris, whom cowrote the show with Bob Ladewig and Frank Caeti, and located in component on the very very own experiences, the task is actually an extended sketch-comedy show, featuring musical figures, improvisatory portions with market involvement, and interactive elements (the show features its own OkCupid-like software that everybody is encouraged to install and create pages on ahead of the show). Rather than a plot, there is a character arc of types: Robyn (played in this off-Broadway premiere by Kaitlyn Ebony), finding by by herself forced to try OkCupid the very first time, chooses to see just what is most effective in the software by producing 38 fake pages. If it appears overzealous, several of her guidelines — including never ever fulfilling some of the individuals she converses with online — declare that this so-called test has been made to fail through the outset. The cynicism and despair underlying Robyn’s overelaborate ruse is sometimes recognized for the show, with components of pathos associated with tips of a troubled romantic past and recommendations that she’s got difficulty making deep connections with individuals in basic peeking through the laughs.
When it comes to part that is most, however, #DateMe is content to keep a frothy tone while doling away its insights
Robyn’s findings of seeing a number of the exact exact exact same expressions and character faculties on pages result in faux-educational portions when the remaining portion of the cast that is eight-member donning white lab coats friendfinder (Vanessa Leuck designed the colorfully diverse costumes), break people on to groups. Perhaps the creepiest of communications Robyn gets on OkCupid are turned into cathartically amusing songs (published by Sam Davis, with words by Norris, Caeti, Ladewig, and Amanda Blake Davis). If any such thing, the two improvisatory segments — one out of that the performers speculate how a date that is first two solitary market users would get according to their pages and reactions with their concerns, one other a dramatization of an audience user’s worst very very first date — grow to be the comic features associated with the show (or at the least, these people were during the performance we attended).
It surely assists that the cast — which, as well as Ebony, includes Chris Alvarado, Jonathan Gregg, Eric Lockley, Megan Sikora, Liz Wisan, Jillian Gottlieb, and Jonathan Wagner — are highly spirited and game. Lorin Latarro emphasizes a feeling of playfulness inside her way and choreography, particularly with a group, created by David L. Arsenault, that mixes the aesthetic of living spaces and game programs; and projections by Sam Hains that infuse the show utilizing the appropriate sense of multimedia overload.
#DateMe is really so entertaining when you look at the minute that just do you realize afterward exactly just exactly how shallow its view of internet dating in fact is. Today for this viewer at least, it was disappointing to notice the show’s blind spot when it comes to race and how discrimination still plays out on dating apps. As well as on a wider degree, the show does not link the increase of dating apps to your predominance of social networking in particular, motivating a change more toward instant satisfaction than in-depth connection. Like the majority of for the very very very first times dating apps will likely give you on, #DateMe: an experiment that is okCupid a completely enjoyable break without making you with much to remember after it is over.