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Taking a crack at improv photo by Drew Fleming Sanford Shaman and Judy Dolmatch act out some improvisation in a theater workshop at the Ashland Racquet Club. `Playshop' puts comic wannabes in spotlight By CHRIS BRISTOL ASHLAND -- Only at the double funeral of an elderly Jewish couple who converted to Hinduism could it be an issue: What are you going to say? "I've got to know," Sylvester demands of his sister, Sara. "We've got to send the bodies of our parents afloat down the Ganges River, and you have a tendency of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time." Sara stammers. She argues. She pleads. Then she fishes around in her pocket for a scrap of paper that contains the answer. "Not tonight, dear," she reads, deadpan. "I've got a headache." Admittedly strange advice. She could have just as easily said, "Keep your pants on." At another inopportune moment during the sketch, she did. And that's just what it was -- a sketch. Weird, silly and often funny, it's called improvisational comedy -- the same brand of humor that drives the surprise success of Drew Carey's top-rated ABC-TV show "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" Sunday at the Ashland Racquet Club, five local risk-takers paid $45 each to try their hand at improv. The six-hour "playshop" was coached by Judy Dolmatch, a founding member of the fledgling Ashland-based comedy troupe Hamazons. The idea is simple: Create scenarios, using ground rules, that in turn create improbable situations. The results can often be, well, hilarious. For example, the players in the aforementioned funeral sketch (Dolmatch and Sanford Shaman) had to make use of snippets of dialogue written on scrap paper and tucked in their pockets. The catch is, they don't know what the dialogue is, until they've read it. Non sequiturs are built-in fun, but the sketch works even better because the players intentionally set themselves up by embellishing scenarios-on-top-of-scenarios, such as the religious contradictions and Sara's made-up habit of saying inappropriate things. "You don't want to go for what's obvious, what's safe," Dolmatch explained afterwards. "You want to get into trouble." Which brings up the question: Why would anybody but the most outrageous Jim Carrey/Robin Williams extrovert want to do this? According to those in Dolmatch's class Sunday, asking that question is like asking George Mallory in the early 1930s why he wanted to climb Mount Everest ("Because it's there"). Mallory's fate bedevils all comedians. "After a few lines it feels pretty safe," explained playshop participant Wendyn Curtis, "because you're all in the same boat." All of which leads to this sketch: rough flight, with Curtis as pilot and Karen Basin as the flight attendant who has to calm the passengers. The passengers are panicking, Basin tells Curtis. To which Curtis replies, reading from the bit of improv dialogue from her pocket: "You made your bed. Now sleep in it." "Um, OK," Basin says, turning around to address the passengers. "Ladies and gentlemen, the pilot suggests, well, um ... maybe you should all try sleeping." Now that's improv. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA