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â€"BEntertainment Paut 14 wAaTERILOO CHRONICLE WE DNE Theatre sports: a popular game of improvisation Une doesn‘ t usually say theatre and sports in the same breath But._ @uring the last year. there‘s been an event taking place on a fairlsy regular basis at the University of Waterloo called theatre sports _ _ Combining competitive aspects of team sports and content usual Iy associated with improvisation al theatre. theatre sports uap parently originated in Calgars and was introduced here by a UW undergraduate who had seen the activity in YVancouver Bernie Roekh!, a computer pro grammer in UW‘s department of electrical engineering. has been a regular participant in local theatre sports since they were initiated here last September ‘"There are several formaps to the games,. actually. Her _ in Waterloo. the way we‘ve been playing mostly invoives two teams of actors taking turns presenting scenes and a team of judges scoring the scenes for their entertainmeht value." "Typically. we have two teams of four people each, although we‘ve had teams with as few as three and as many as six. Gener ally, teams get together in ad vance, just because they want to have a general idea of who they‘re working with, get to know one another better and practise a bit. ~Basically, theatre sports is a game of improvisations in which two teams of actors compete {o produce entertaining scenes based on suggestions from an audience,‘" Roeh] explains. Roekh] says that during the fall and winter months. theatre sports was presented weekly During the summer, the games are more infrequent "The last two nights of games until next September will be this Friday (July 9) and Friday,. July The games take place in room HH1I80 of the Humanities Buildâ€" ing (right across from the Hu manities Theatre), and the week ly presentations have been at tracting regularly between 40 and 50 people, "just about all we can accommodate in a room that s1ize." Roehl says that in the fall it may be necessary to find a bigger location for the presentations, and that the event may be put on twice a week. Each evening‘s entertainment. beginning at 9: 30, usually goes on for 14 to two hours "On occasion. though. we‘ve played with pick up teams This invoives eight performers. say. going into the games and the audience selecting the two teams from among them ~ To accommodate the increas ing number of people who want to be plavers, Roeh] sars that prior Scenes acted out based on suggestions from audience By Victor Stanton UU\ very exhilarating to know you‘re going out on stage and you don‘t know what‘s going to hap pen 1t can be a little frightening. I guess. for some people, but onee vou get used to it it‘s a lot of fun It forces vou to be creative CC "From experience in other cities, occasionally you find somebody who‘s very pretentious and thinks theatre has to be something really really heavy and serious and so on. But then, they very rarely participate in theatre sports, because it is very different from what they‘re used to *Most people can see the valid ity to it because in improvisa tions you can get some very good performances out of people that you might not be able to get in a scripted play." Roeh] says he personally gets a lot of satisfaction and fun out of performing in theatre sports "Mostly. they‘re either other players who aren‘t playing that particular evening. or sometimes they‘re audience members who have seen theatre sports a bit and know what scenes are entertain ing and which ones aren‘t and what to look for in a good scene." Roehl says he has encountered no objectors to the games to the main â€" games between experienced players there fre quently will be a round for no ces ~We‘ve also been holding workshops for novice players, just to get them used to the game prior to game nights. Once we have a dozen or so people who are interested we will hold a work shop. We‘ve had two of these workshops so far during the summer. and they‘ve both been well attended." "In other cities and this concept has spread to places like Vancouver, Seattle. Los Angeles and â€" mostâ€" recently. Toronto > theatre sports games take place in actual theatres and frequently involve professional actors." Frequently, says Roehl. the audience at large will be in disagreement with the judges, but "that‘s part of the game, to0."" "It‘s not taken too seriously, or at least it shouldn‘t be." At the end of each everling‘s games. in addition to a winning team, an individual performer also is selected as "the most valuable player." Roeh] says that Waterloo is somewhat unusual in baving theatre sports centred around the university and inyolving mostly graduate students, campus staff members and ~some people from the general community." For each evening of games there pusually are three judges. ‘It‘s not taken too seriously, or at least it shouldn‘t be‘ JL {Left to right): Bernie Roeht, Linda Carson, lan Chaprin and Jim Gardner (at the piano) improvise a scene during a "theatre sports‘ event at the University of Waâ€" terloo. ET: one of the best - a films out this summer For once,. here is a picture that is enter taining. involving. ex citing. humorous and filled with some of the most amazing special effects ever seen on screen â€" and all with out a single act of either mayhem or slaughter. By Victor Stanton Endearing is an ad jective a reviewer sel dom gets to use when describing the vast majority of contemâ€" porary movies. But that word sucâ€" cinctly envelops ET. The Extraâ€"Terrestrial, perhaps the most enâ€" dearing movie ever made. By now, presumably, there‘s scarcely a perâ€" son on this continent above the age of four who doesn‘t know the basic premise of E.T. A little beingfrom outer space is stranded on Earth and befriended by a 10â€" vearâ€"old bovy Fleshing out the sim plicity of this story. producerâ€"director Ste ven Spielberg has filled nearly two. hours of sereen time with an incredible â€"amount of warmth. charm and wit. not to mention an aura â€" of _ believability that elevates fantasy to the level of probability and certainly desirabil it s E. T has been de seribed as posmibly the best Disney movie Disâ€" ney never made. That might,. however. sugâ€" gest something too cu tesy. and that E.T never is. Even with two preâ€"teen children. a dog and E.T. itself (the sex of ET. is never established), the film never â€" well, hardly ever â€" relies on apâ€" pearance alone. But admirably suppleâ€" ments it with subâ€" stance in both characâ€" terization and inciâ€" dent. (My slight reservaâ€" tion in praising this quality of the picture has to do with a biâ€" cycleâ€"chase sequence that. while admittedly fun for most of the audience, both in con tent and length of time devoted to it is far teo exaggerated and seâ€" verely strains the storyâ€"telling logic.) Spielberg is unques tionably a highly mani pulative film maker, and about the only jusâ€" tifiable criticism leâ€" velled against ET that I‘ve come across is that in one memora ble sequence near the end of the picture he indulges in sentimen tality more for the ef fect it will have on the audience than for its function in the story Indeed. after bringing practically _ everybody to fears over a seem ingly tragic conclusion, he reverses the situaâ€" tion without satisfacâ€" torily explaining it, and then proceeds to enterâ€" tain everyone on an almost pure slapstick level before bringing the picture to its true conclusion with genuâ€" ine sentiment and aweâ€" some dramatic power. But. while Td cerâ€" tainly say that Spielâ€" berg doesn‘t altogether play fair with his audiâ€" ences, I can easily for give this kind of manipâ€" ulation because it is in. such a positive vein. He seeks to arouse within us feelings of caring and pity for something. even something vastly different from ourâ€" selves, whereas most filmâ€"makers these days are content to work on our more primitive inâ€" stincts of fear and hatred. ET. is a movie about affection and innoâ€" cence, and it looks at life primarily from a child‘s point of view (This mental approach is superbly enhanced by the visual one throughout the picture, with much of it being filmed from the eve level of a youngster. ) But it is not a naive point of view Spielberg‘s portrail of childhood in present day suburbia is explicit in its realistic physical and emotional detail. and this is what makes Onlv a grinch could say he didn‘t like some thing about this most engaging of protures About the marvellous E.T. itself, perhaps not too much should be said, so that the wonder of it can be fully enjoyed, as it was meant to be, in the actual seeing I can‘t think of any other _ movie I‘ve seen in years that 1 would so unhesitatingly _ recom mend indeed whole heartedly encourage evervone to see Much of the success of this movie is due to the performances of plavyers who aren‘t stars in the Hollywood sense of the word. Young Henry Thomas and even younger Drew Barry more never come across as precocious little adults, for example. They are very real children. whose responses to both ET. and the adult world that seems to threaten the little crea ture are completely natural. the fantasy concept within this environâ€" ment so convincing. The few adults who have any prominence in ET. also are not mere stick figures, even though our obserâ€" vations of them are mostly from a child‘s perspective.