Robyn Lynne Norris’s free-form satire makes its off-Broadway premiere in the Westside Theatre.

Go on it from a veteran: on the web dating suuuuucks. Yes, apps like OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge reduce in the awkwardness that is included with approaching possible love passions in individual and achieving to discern a person’s singlehood within the place that is first. But placing apart the truth that perhaps the many complex algorithm can’t constantly anticipate in-person chemistry, forcing potential daters to boil on their own right down to a self-summary leads people to not just placed across an idealized form of by themselves for general general general general public usage, but in addition encourages individuals to latch on the many surface-level aspects to quickly see whether someone’s worth pursuing romantically. For females especially, online dating sites can also be dangerous, making them available to harassment or even even worse from toxic males whom feel emboldened because of the privacy regarding the Web.

Yet, online dating sites remains popular, hence which makes it a target ripe for satire. Enter #DateMe: An OkCupid Test. Conceived by Robyn Lynne Norris, whom cowrote the show with Bob Ladewig and Frank Caeti, and located in part on the very very own experiences, the job is simply an extended sketch-comedy show, featuring musical figures, improvisatory portions with market involvement, and interactive elements (the show features its own OkCupid-like application that everybody is encouraged to install and create pages on ahead of the show). In the place of a plot, there is a character arc of types: Robyn (played in this off-Broadway premiere by Kaitlyn Ebony), finding by by by herself forced to try OkCupid the very first time, chooses to see just what is best suited regarding the application by producing 38 fake pages. If it appears overzealous, a number of her guidelines — including never ever fulfilling some of the individuals she converses with online — declare that this experiment that is so-called been made to fail through the outset. The cynicism and despair underlying Robyn’s overelaborate ruse is periodically recognized through the show, with items of pathos associated with tips of the troubled past that is romantic recommendations that she’s got difficulty making deep connections with individuals in basic peeking through the laughs.

When it comes to part that is most, however, #DateMe is content to keep up a frothy tone while doling away its insights

Robyn’s findings of seeing most of the exact exact exact same expressions and character characteristics on pages result in faux-educational portions where the other countries in the cast that is eight-member donning white lab coats (Vanessa Leuck designed the colorfully diverse costumes), break people on to groups. Perhaps the creepiest of communications Robyn gets on OkCupid are turned into cathartically amusing songs (published by Sam Davis, with words by Norris, Caeti, Ladewig, and Amanda Blake Davis). Of course such a thing, the two improvisatory segments — one in that the performers speculate how a very first date between two solitary market people would get according to their pages and reactions with their concerns, one other a dramatization of a gathering user’s worst very very very first date — turn into the comic features regarding the show (or at the very least, they certainly were during the performance we went to).

It surely assists that the cast — which, as well as Ebony, includes Chris Alvarado, Jonathan Gregg, Eric Lockley, Megan Sikora, Liz Wisan, Jillian Gottlieb, and Jonathan Wagner — are highly spirited and game. Lorin Latarro emphasizes a feeling of playfulness inside her way and choreography, particularly with a collection, created by David L. Arsenault, that mixes the aesthetic of living spaces and game programs; and projections by Sam Hains that infuse the show with all the feeling that is appropriate of overload.

#DateMe can be so entertaining into the minute that just do you realize afterward exactly exactly how shallow its view of online dating sites in fact is. Because of this audience at the least, it absolutely was disappointing to see the show’s blind spot in terms of competition and just how discrimination still plays away on dating apps today. As well as on a wider degree, the show does not link the increase of dating apps to your predominance of single muslim usa social networking in particular, motivating a change more toward immediate satisfaction than in-depth connection. Like the majority of associated with very very very first times dating apps will probably deliver you on, #DateMe: An OkCupid test provides a completely enjoyable break without making you with much to remember after it is over.