Robyn Lynne Norris’s free-form satire makes its off-Broadway premiere during the Westside Theatre.
Go on it from the veteran: on line suuuuucks that are dating. Yes, apps like OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge reduce in the awkwardness that is included with approaching prospective love passions in individual and achieving to discern another person’s singlehood when you look at the beginning. But placing apart the fact perhaps the many algorithm that is complexn’t constantly anticipate in-person chemistry, forcing potential daters to boil by themselves down seriously to a self-summary leads people to not merely placed across an idealized form of on their own for general general general public usage, but in addition encourages individuals to latch on the many surface-level aspects to quickly see whether someone’s worth pursuing romantically. For ladies especially, internet dating can also be dangerous, making them available to harassment or even even even worse from toxic males whom feel emboldened because of the privacy regarding the Web.
Yet, internet dating remains popular, hence 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 situated in component on the very very very very very own experiences, the job is simply a sketch-comedy that is extended, featuring musical figures, improvisatory portions with market involvement, and interactive elements (the show possesses its own OkCupid-like software that everybody is encouraged to install and create pages on ahead of the show). caribbean cupid visitors Rather than a plot, there is a character arc of types: Robyn (played in this premiere that is off-Broadway Kaitlyn Ebony), finding by by herself obligated to try OkCupid the very first time, chooses to see just what is most effective regarding the software by producing 38 fake pages. If that 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 built to fail through the outset. The cynicism and despair underlying Robyn’s overelaborate ruse is periodically recognized through the entire show, with components of pathos associated with tips of the troubled past that is romantic recommendations that she’s got trouble making deep connections with individuals as a whole peeking through the laughs.
When it comes to many part, 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 same expressions and character faculties on pages result in faux-educational sections where the other countries in the eight-member cast, 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 songs that are amusingpublished 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 users would get according to their pages and responses with their concerns, one other a dramatization of a gathering user’s worst very very first date — grow to be the comic features associated with show (or at the least, they certainly were during the performance we went to).
It really 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 in her own way and choreography, particularly 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 utilizing the feeling that is appropriate of overload.
#DateMe can be so entertaining into the minute that just do you realize afterward exactly just exactly just just 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 towards the predominance of social networking most importantly, motivating a change more toward immediate satisfaction than in-depth connection. Similar to of this very very very very very first times dating apps will likely deliver you on, #DateMe: An OkCupid test provides a completely enjoyable break without making you with much to remember after it is over.