Rough stuff, with potential

A Kick in the Dickens, the Alchemist Theatre’s holiday comedy show, is a bit of a mess. The improv games are haphazard. The cast hasn’t 100 percent clicked yet. Whoever’s running the tech board should probably pay better attention so light cues aren’t early and sound cues aren’t late.

Despite all that, I liked it, even though I know it’s not an opinion every viewer will share. But if you’re a die-hard improv fan – or, like me, open-minded and willing to forgive a number of stumbles – it might be worth giving A Kick in the Dickens a shot.

The Alchemist’s concept is based on one developed by comedy collective The Show, although the only member of the collective in the production is Jason Powell, a frequent Alchemist contributor. He is joined on stage by Andrea Moser, Lee Rowley, Anna Figlesthaler and Matt Koester, who all have improv experience but not necessarily with each other on a regular basis, to my knowledge.

That shows. While the cast is generally passable at the improv games that take up the first act of the show, there isn’t that graceful fluidity that comes with familiarity. To compensate, the cast affects an uberpositive “woo rah rah” attitude that seems more suited for a pep rally or self-esteem assembly. It gets a little grating.

They could also benefit from a bit more practice, so expect this show to be better in its second or third week. One sketch where Powell was sequestered and then forced to guess the character he had been assigned to play (hardly improv in my opinion, but…) seemed designed to show how clever the cast was but lacked complementary humor, and by the time they got to the rhyming sing-a-long portion of the evening, the cast was willing to say anything to finish the games half of the show, even if it didn’t actually rhyme or had already been said once before.

What this cast is uncannily good at is responding to the pinwheeling and course correction required in games involving forced constructs, such as the classic audience-suggestions-on-the-floor game, where performers periodically grabbed lines of dialogue strewn about the stage, or another where actors could only speak in lines from a book – in this case, former Alchemist production scripts. More games like that – maybe a scenes-from-a-hat style exchange or something similar – would allow the cast to better show off their skills.

The second half hinted that longer improv seems to work better for this bunch. Taking the form of a long, “Dickensian” (a word here meaning in light period costume and with the skeleton plot of A Christmas Carol) Christmas tale with details filled in Mad Libs-style, the long-form segment gave its five actors a chance to really shine. It was rough in parts as well, but because the entire bit wasn’t five minutes, they took up a minority of the whole rather than the majority.

A Kick in the Dickens won’t please every holiday lover, especially at $17 a head. But if improv comedy is your thing and you don’t mind a little awkwardness every so often, this might be just the gift you’re looking for.

A Kick in the Dickens runs at the Alchemist Theatre through Dec. 22, all shows at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $17 and can be reserved in advance or purchased at the door.