Water Harmony

The practice of improv comedy has many levels. Many performers believe that if you can make an audience laugh, you have accomplished your mission. But there comes a time when a performance transcends the simply comedic; when the different players and pieces of a game coalesce to form a true work of art: a game at which people don’t simply laugh, but they are compelled to stand up and applaud.

Some time ago, during an Absoludicrous improv practice, such a work was created. Out of a simple ABC story game came a tale worthy of Dostoyevsky, regarding a snowman that just couldn’t melt. As the seasons turned he mocked his creators, then creation itself for sustaining and prolonging his existence. Contemplating the babbling brooks that flowed him by, he yearned for a return to that blissful harmony of running water that was denied him. He tried to move to Arizona, but the xenophobic citizens there sent him away, back to his native Russian homeland. He pleaded with passers-by to end his life. He lamented each autumn he was forced to behold, noting that snowmen should never see autumn: they should be built in the winter and melt in the spring. Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to end his wretched sojourn upon this bleak earth, he jammed a firecracker into his torso and lit it.

His fate remains unknown.