MAN CAVE / ON THE FRINGE: Pro-Mania!

Interspersed with pre-recorded video segments, Pro-Mania captures all the lively attitudinal bombast of any promotion worth it's salt.

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MAN CAVE / ON THE FRINGE: Pro-Mania!

POSTED: Monday, September 12, 2011, 12:00 PM

Filed Under: Comedy | Man Cave

Man Cave is a testosterone-laden Monday feature that highlights the weekend haps of a pop culture-loving Philly dude.

This weekend I checked out one of Philly Improv Theater's many contributions to the Fringe Festival. Produced by Alex J. Gross and Ian Vaflor, it's a pro-wrestling spoof called Pro-Mania!. Any wrestling fan will want to see this, because I know you have a good enough sense of humor to appreciate the peccadilloes of your favorite variety of sports entertainment. Pro-mania! is more silly than satire though, and the half-sketched half-improvised show (much like an actual pro-wrestling event, if I'm not mistaken) is an absurdist cavalcade of high-enegery, very crowd-interactive shenaniganry. Odd chanting ensued.

Interspersed with pre-recorded video segments, Pro-Mania! captures all the lively attitudinal bombast of any promotion worth it's salt. It even features a local sports-entertainment personality, Bryce Remsburg, head referee at nearby promotion Chikara Pro. There's no ring, so to speak, but there is a mat of sorts upon which wrestlers did their best imitation of Monday Night Raw.

While there is actually a clothesline or two (and even a sweet hurricanrana from comedian Joey Dougherty), don't come expecting significant action, it's just theater, folks! The meat of the thing is in the characters, which is where Pro-Mania! really excels. There's a Twilight-esque vampire, a South-Philly Jew, a hilarious lady lawyer who bores everyone to tears with her procedural documents, and a garbage bag-wearing mystery man who is being controlled via remote joystick by his opponent's rival.

I enjoyed the chaotic, anything-can-happen live magic that comes with any underground pro-wrestling event — especially one that's comedy-based. Crowd interaction alone was probably worth the price of admission. While I'm not the craziest pro-wrestling fan, that's mostly because too much of it is concerned with fake wrestling, as opposed to the glorious asininity of schtick, which makes Pro-Mania! an ideal entertainment selection as far as I'm concerned. I would love to see it have legs beyond just the Fringe Fest.

Through Sept. 16, $10, Mainstage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., MORE INFO HERE.

(ryan.carey@cityaper.net)

(@slackerDIYtoday)

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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