THE MACKENZIE MORGAN ADVICE DISPENSARY
Gryphon Theatre, 22 Ghuznee Street, Wellington
15/02/2014 - 01/03/2014
Production Details
Professor Mackenzie Morgan dispenses all the advice you never knew you didn’t need.
Professor Mackenzie Morgan is clearly not qualified to solve her own problems, let alone yours. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to try in this New Zealand Fringe Festival koha show.
The batty but lovable Mackenzie has a couch and, with luck, an audience. Veering between heartfelt discussions and rampant silliness, Mackenzie exhibits her own human fallibility and vulnerability, bringing the audience along with her. Maybe everyone will learn something about themselves.
Mackenzie Morgan is a character created by Christine Brooks in the Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT)’s 2012 season of improvised soap opera The Young and the Witless. “I wasn’t quite ready to let go of Mackenzie after the soap opera and neither was the audience so she started dispensing advice and now it’s a show!” says Christine Brooks.
Protoversions of The Mackenzie Morgan Advice Dispensary have been turned into a 50 minute show, which will premiere at Fringe Festival 2014 at Fringe at the Gryphon.
The Mackenzie Morgan Advice Dispensary
Dates: 5pm, Sat 15, 22 Feb & Sat 1 Mar 2014
Venue: Gryphon Theatre
Tickets: Koha (pay what you think the show was worth at the end)
Bookings: www.fringe.co.nz
What people are saying about The Mackenzie Morgan Advice Dispensary
“I liked that while it was comedy people actually told you about real issues and then the advice you gave them was good. I also liked how there was a mixture of funnier and more serious problems.” Audience member
“After a bit of a warm up chatting, Mackenzie Morgan asked me what was troubling me. I answered seriously that I didn’t have a job and didn’t know what to do with myself. As we talked about this I started to warm up and became less nervous. The conversation ended with me singing a song about how I wanted to be a rock star astronaut (AKA Chris Hadfield). I don’t really know how we got from the start of the conversation to that point but it seemed completely natural. I found out later that we got a standing ovation.
I was a bit stunned by it but I really enjoyed the experience.” Audience member (who participated)
Theatre , Improv ,
1hr, Saturdays only
Strong on the traits that produce laughter
Review by Hannah August 16th Feb 2014
Mackenzie Morgan, the character embodied by Christine Brooks in the eponymous Advice Dispensary, evidently has a following. The spontaneous claps and cheers that greet her entrance make this clear, and, having only recently relocated to Wellington, I’m suddenly worried that I might not ‘get’ this show, given that I wasn’t able to witness the Wellington Improvisation Troupe’s 2012 soap opera The Young and the Witless, in which the character was created.
In the end it’s not a huge issue – I suspect some of the jokes go over my head, but it’s still an enjoyable way to kick off a Saturday evening.
Mackenzie Morgan is a brightly dressed, teapot-wielding professor (of psychology? psychiatry?), who offers biscuits and romantic advice to audience members daring enough to come on stage and share their emotional quandaries with her (and the rest of the audience).
The night that I see the show the ‘patient’ is a young American man called Ben (or is it ‘Bin’?), who gleefully divulges the details of his recent romantic history, proffering information so willingly that Brooks has to do very little prompting. This creates the impression that she is not entirely in control of the direction the show is taking, but I suspect that with a less garrulous participant this wouldn’t be the case, and Brooks is good at pulling humour from the conversation while avoiding mockery.
The appearance of Mackenzie’s husband after Ben has been sent back to his seat takes the show in a different direction, turning the spotlight on the amorous problems of the advice-giver herself, and there’s a hint that this storyline will be further developed in Brooks’ further two shows throughout the Fringe.
Reviewing improv always feels like doing a disservice to the ephemeral nature of the event – it will, of course, be different every time you see it. Suffice to say that Brooks’ improvisatory style is strong on the traits that produce laughter – reincorporation, metatheatre – and she is adept at creating a non-threatening atmosphere of audience participation.
Given that this is a koha show, there’s no reason at all not to go along and check it out for yourself.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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