SU prez gives funnybone an extended tickle

Mike Otto

Die-Nasty’s 17th Annual 50-Hour Soap-A-Thon
Directed by Dana Andersen
Starring Matt Alden, Peter Brown, Tom Edwards, Jeff Haslam, Kory Mathewson, Mark Meer, Davina Stewart, Stephanie Wolfe, Donovan Workun, and special guests from Australia and the U.K.
Music by Paul Morgan Donald
Starts September 11 at 7 p.m. and runs continuously until September 13 at 9 p.m.
Varscona Theatre (10329–83 Avenue)
$10-$40 at the door

As president of the Students' Union, Kory Mathewson must often work long days — but staying awake for 50 hours straight for fun? That’s just insane!

While it may sound more than a little crazy, Mathewson will be testing the limits of sleep deprivation this weekend as he jumps on stage and joins the cast of Die-Nasty’s 17th annual Soap-A-Thon, a live improvised soap opera that will run continuously from 7 p.m. on Friday evening to 9 p.m. on Sunday night.

And it won’t be the first time that he’s attempted the feat either. Mathewson — who performs regularly with the local improv company Rapid Fire Theatre — first got involved with the Soap-A-Thon in 2006.

“Three years ago, fellow improviser Mark Meer approached me as one of the performers in Rapid Fire. He told me that there was this crazy long improv marathon going on and [asked] would I like to come out and do a few hours” Mathewson recalls.

“That year, I went on stage at Friday night at midnight or something and I just didn’t stop. I kept going the whole weekend! Mark kept telling me, ‘You know, you only need to do a few hours ... ’ but I ended up doing about 45 hours — 50 hours almost — on my first time,” he laughs.

But fun aside, being awake for that long isn’t without its consequences, Mathewson admits.

“I remember last year, it was right in the middle of the Soap-A-Thon, and things were starting to get a little bit weird in my head. The whole theatre was looking totally distorted to me, and I just started commenting on how the theatre was shaped differently — I wasn’t even commenting on what was happening in the scene! I just started talking about how weird and distorted the theatre was,” he laughs.

“And then, the girl that I was doing the scene with just started drinking a bottle of ketchup — like it was a totally normal thing to do!”

“So the audience must have been really weirded out when that started happening and we sort of shook each other down afterwards and said, ‘That was a little weird. Maybe we should just take it easy, get something to eat, and get ready for the next two hours.’ ”

As Mathewson explains, the 50-hour Soap-A-Thon is divided into 25 two-hour long blocks, and between blocks there are 10-minute intermissions so that the actors can grab coffee before going back on for another two hours, and so that the audience can also take a break. And yes, there is always an audience — even at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

“There are some funny moments where there are more people onstage than there are in the seats,” Mathewson smiles. “But there are definitely some people who come out and watch the whole thing. I had a friend last year who only came at the off-peak times. So, she would come Saturday morning at 2 a.m. and Sunday morning at 2 a.m. because she said the actors are just out of their minds at that time and it’s just hilarious to watch.”

And after having done the Soap-A-Thon a few times now, Mathewson feels he’s finally getting the hang of it.
“There’s definitely some strategy to it. You bank some sleep beforehand and you make sure that you’ve got the right food to get you through: you can’t have anything too high in sugar or else you’ll crash.

“You also have to be mentally prepared, so I find myself reading a lot of books or watching a lot of movies about the theme that we’re doing so that I have some stuff in my head that I can draw from and work with. It’s a high school theme this year, so I’ll be watching — I dunno — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club. Stuff like that.”

Kory's Artistic Process
As an actor, the 50 hours of a Soap-A-Thon can be divided into four distinct stages, Mathewson explains:

“First, there’s forming, which is right at the beginning where you’re just sort of laying the groundwork and you’re just sort of getting ready, just getting started. You’re just sort of building relationships with the other characters in the soap opera.”

“Then there’s norming, which is where you start living in that reality you’ve created and everything just starts being real to you. You interact with the other people and the stage, and it’s real. You’re existing in that reality.”

“And then there’s performing, which is when you start to get a little loopy in the head and things get a little crazy. That’s when the real abstract stuff will come out and you really start to just use your improv background and just explode with some totally off-the-wall things that the other improvisers then have to work to re-incorporate into what’s real.”

“Finally, there’s storming. The first thing that happens when you finish the Soap-A-Thon is that you've got to decompress all the stuff that’s in your head. So all the actors usually get together afterwards and write in a big book everything that they can remember. It’s really good to do that right afterwards because then you can riff with other people or else you forget things.”

And once it’s all over, of course, there is dorming — that is, the fine art of resting.

“After all that, I’ll take a nice big long sleep — which for me will be like 12 or 15 hours — and then I’m good to go.”