For Science!
by Small Matters Productions
Review by Brian Carroll
49 min | Comedy, Clown | General
This was a sleeper at the 2019 Winnipeg Fringe. I put it on my maybe list because the company had produced Ask Aggie and Butt Kapinski, but I didn’t hear much buzz on the Winnipeg streets early in the Fringe.
For Science! is a very intensive audience participation show. With no communication devices except a whistle, a stopwatch and overhead slide and video projections, two white-lab-coated, mute scientists run a set of “experiments” with volunteer subjects from the audience. I’ve never seen so many people volunteer to get on stage. Nor have so much fun doing so. This is a great family show with plenty of fun for children, teens and adults alike.
After we saw the show, For Science! buttons started appearing on Fringers’ t-shirts all around the Winnipeg Fringe. Charming indeed!
Fast forward to 2020 where Digital Fringe is presenting a live recording of For Science! as part of its Volume 1 offering.
Around the world, scientists are working hard to find treatments, cures or vaccines to fight the COVID-19 virus. Well, not all scientists. These two scientists, trained physicist Christine Lesiak and her obsessive-compulsive lab assistant Ian Walker, work very hard to fight boredom. Not only do they make science fun, they make it funny. And then they make it funnier still.
Performed and recorded long before COVID-19, these two clowns from Small Matters Productions practice neither physical distancing, nor social distancing, nor any distancing at all. They set up experiments before the audience, with pretentious titles like “tactile gratification impulse,” “geometric overlap fortitude” and “projectile target recognition.” They then step aside, start the stopwatch, and wait for audience participation. And gales of laughter.
There is a serious note within all these clown proceedings. The Professor and the Lab Assistant take on the dreaded Confirmation Bias. The “experiments” start out small and their “results” look predictable. But the audience soon discovers that the “experiments” become increasingly elaborate. And the audience participation will exceed your wildest expectations.
For Science! by Small Matters Productions is playing at Digital Fringe Vol. 1. Rentals cost $11.99 online. A 10-show pass is $39.99. Rentals include a 3-month streaming period. Visit https://vimeo.com/ondemand/digitalefringevol1/ to rent this show and for the list of all 10 shows.
brianmcarroll 