Robyn Lynne Norris’s free-form satire makes its premiere that is off-Broadway at Westside Theatre.
Go on it from the veteran: on line dating suuuuucks. Yes, apps like OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge reduce in the awkwardness that is included with approaching possible love passions in individual and achieving to discern another person’s singlehood when you look at the place that is first. But placing apart the truth that perhaps the many complex algorithm can’t constantly anticipate in-person chemistry, forcing potential daters to boil by themselves right down to a self-summary leads people to not merely placed across an idealized form of on their own for 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 ladies especially, internet dating could even be dangerous, making them available to harassment or even even even worse from toxic males whom feel emboldened because of the privacy for the Web.
Yet, online dating sites remains popular, therefore rendering it a target ripe for satire. Enter #DateMe: an experiment that is okCupid. Conceived by Robyn Lynne Norris, whom cowrote the show with Bob Ladewig and Frank Caeti, and located in component on her behalf very own experiences, the task is simply an extended sketch-comedy show, featuring musical figures, improvisatory sections with market involvement, and interactive elements (the show possesses its own OkCupid-like application that everybody is encouraged to install and create pages on prior to the show). In the place of a plot, there is a character arc of types: Robyn (played in this premiere that is off-Broadway Kaitlyn Ebony), finding by herself forced to try OkCupid the very first time, chooses to see just what is best suited regarding the software by producing 38 fake pages. If it appears overzealous, a number of her guidelines — including never ever fulfilling some of the individuals she converses with online — declare that this experiment that is so-called been made to fail through the outset. The cynicism and despair underlying Robyn’s overelaborate ruse is sometimes recognized through the entire show, with components of pathos associated with tips of a troubled past that is romantic recommendations that she’s got difficulty making deep connections with individuals generally speaking peeking through the laughs.
When it comes to part that is most, however, #DateMe is content to steadfastly keep up a frothy tone while doling down its insights
Robyn’s findings of seeing a number of the exact exact same expressions and character faculties on pages result in faux-educational portions where the other countries in the cast that is eight-member donning white lab coats (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 your performers speculate how a date that is first two solitary market people would get predicated on their pages and reactions for their concerns, one other a dramatization of an audience user’s worst very very first date — turn into the comic shows of this show (or at the very least, they certainly were during the performance we went to).
It really assists that the cast — which, along with 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, specially with a collection, created by David L. Arsenault, that mixes the aesthetic of living spaces and game programs; and projections by Sam Hains that infuse the show using the appropriate sense of multimedia overload.
#DateMe is really so entertaining when you look at the minute that just do you realize afterward just just exactly how trivial 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 doesn’t link the increase of dating apps to your predominance of social networking in particular, motivating a change more toward immediate satisfaction than in-depth connection. Similar to of this very very first times dating apps are beautifulpeople going to give you on, #DateMe: an experiment that is okCupid a completely enjoyable periods without making you with much to remember after it really is over.
