Improv feels almost as much like acting as it does like falling.
Every moment is a wit sprint to keep the riff in the air, no matter how gracefully the deliberately unlikely scenario is unfolding.
It's a lot harder than it looks.
"It's really acting without a net," says Cambrian Improv Theatre Club member, Heidi Gordon.
"When I walk into a gas station, I say, I'm at pump four, here's my money and I leave. In improv, if I walk into a gas station, there's all of a sudden hail and the gas station's on fire and there's your long-lost father and the potato chips are coming to life."
If that sounds hectic, imagine being in the final throes of preparing a live performance when the only certainty is that anything could happen.
"Some of our skits come off amazing and you know we came up with it on the spot and other times, things just aren't meshing," says Kari Pidgen.
"It's kind of a struggle but you have to commit to it, even it's crashing horribly and you want to run off stage."
The rush of that pressure is what makes Cambrian perform more often than any other local group.
John Welyki says the troupe's shows are critical to continued improvement.
Practising in an echo chamber of colleagues can build skills but there's no feedback like a live audience. He sees improv compared to acting as classical music is to jazz.
"In classical music, everything is written out and you have to do it in a certain way. If done right, it's going to sound pretty much the same no matter who's actually playing the roles or the instruments. With jazz, there's this thing called the head. Our various games are the head. It's this theme of music that everyone knows. Everyone sings along and we improvise, we elaborate, within that known theme."
Those themes are what members call the game within the game.
There are rules that keep the games flowing but there are also comedic devices performers use to draw on the audience's shared culture and experience.
"We're not supposed to be trying to be funny. We're supposed to be doing straight scenes but there's always a game involved inside the scene," explains Tamara Rose. "The person acting like a dentist is also a rodeo clown. There's always something underlying it."
Kayela Stradiotto is one of the original members of the six-year-old club.
She has seen membership ebb and flow, while Cambrian has undergone a number of evolutionary forms. Being completely free to play is what keeps her coming back for more.
"People actually do need to play, no matter what age you are. Play improves people's lives and seeing other people get that excited and have that much fun encourages everyone who sees them to have that much fun too. It's a whole level of interaction that most of us don't get anywhere else in our everyday lives."
The Cambrian Theatre Improv Club will perform at the Finlandia Club on Saturday, July 18. The bar opens at 7:30 p.m. and the show begins at 8.
