'The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows' Off-Broadway review — Abby Wambaugh delivers an inventive variety show
Read our review of The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows off Broadway, the debut solo comedy show by Abby Wambaugh running at Dixon Place through October 25.
Summary
- Abby Wambaugh's The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows runs off Broadway at Dixon Place through October 25
- The show covers a variety of comic formats and includes heavy audience participation while also touching on themes of grief and miscarriage
- Theatregoers have called the show creative and also heartbreaking online
- The show is recommended for fans of Wambaugh and fellow comedian Hannah Gadsby
Abby Wambaugh could be a pesky vacuum. She could be a basketball player scoring a hoop. She could be a talking orange in a fruit bowl. On paper, all this sounds delightfully silly and screwy. But The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows — with unfussy direction by Lara Ricote — also transcends “silly and screwy” in its cornucopia of fruits, prop gags, and sobering David Sedaris-esque essay read on personal grief after miscarriage.
Wambaugh has constructed a versatile variety show lampooning various comedy-memoir formats in rapid succession. The show prods at the absurdity of conventional structures and the people who try to box Wambaugh into them. (Not just comedically; Wambaugh is non-binary, and a segment recounting a cis-woman comedian dispensing ignorant advice ends up sowing laughs.) Interlaced are threads about her personal life, children, and miscarriages.
In a segment titled “What Women Want,” Wambaugh desperately tries to cover the same-named, dated Mel Gibson comedy movie, but her audience, as conveyed by prerecorded voiceovers and lighting that targets various seating sections, keeps obsessing over the previous segment recollecting the aftermath of a miscarriage. It’s a clever way that Wambaugh anticipates what’s still sitting in viewers' brains, and it implicitly asks how serious, personal topics can alter the formula of a comedy show.
Pivotal to Wambaugh’s show is the immersive audience interaction. She will put on a banana hood and sequester herself in a mobile curtained booth, and then scootch over to front-rowers and get them to engage. Her audience rapport, namely her knack for bouncing off spontaneous reactions, works like a charm. If you’re randomly selected to participate, go with the flow. You might discover something about yourself. Abby will thank you.
The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows Summary
Comedian, writer, and improviser Abby Wambaugh has got a show for you. Well, more like 17 shows strung together. And they aren't exactly full shows, but fragments of ideas she’s weaving together. You’re getting the first 3 minutes of 17 shows! And if some run longer, it’s because time is elastic (her words). The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows rotates around a variety of comedy bits that run the gamut: stand-up, “Old Man Learns Parkour,” an impersonation of the number 9, a David Sedaris-like read, miming, and a sing-along.
What to expect at The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows
Wambaugh makes a meal out of the scrappy, spare stage design and props, and she involves the audience in her antics throughout. If Wambaugh sidles up to you in a “Scare The Banana” booth, ring the bell and scare her (a soft "boo" will even do). If she hands you a gift box, open it. If she gives you the mic to provide basketball-dribbling sound effects, commit to it. If she requires an audience member to do the worm, do it to save your fellow theatregoers an agonizing wait.
What audiences are saying about The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows
Audience buzz about The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows has been positive, with Show-Score users describing the show as creative, funny, heartbreaking, silly, and pure.
Read more audience reviews of Abby Wambaugh’s The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows on Show-Score.
Who should see The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows
- Fans of Abby Wambaugh, an award-winning comedian, will be game for her variety show, and they might be lucky enough to be roped into interactive gags.
- Those who enjoy comedian Hannah Gadsby’s work might be interested to check out this show, of which Gadsby is a backer.
- For those who have undergone fertility struggles, Wambaugh’s David Sedaris segment tackles the grief of miscarriages and the attempt to fit the grief into a schedule — and a comedy show.
- Writers may get inspired by Wambaugh’s metaphor of chasing a storm cloud to develop an idea.
Learn more about The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows off Broadway
Fueled by Abby Wambaugh’s virtuosity, The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows is the kind of variety show where each act complements the next. The more they accumulate, the more they combine into a touching patchwork of community and comedy. Wambaugh’s show could stake a claim as one of the most inventive comedy shows of the theatre season.
Photo credit: Abby Wambaugh in The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)
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