Max & Ivan The Reunion

Max and Ivan 

Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez or ‘Max & Ivan’ take on the guise of a number of characters in a high school reunion fraught with love lost, regrettable teenage band names, revenge and lust in The Reunion.

The cast of characters is vast, and the skill of Olesker and Gonzalez to totally transform into each persona without confusion from the audience is laudable. We have Brian, the allergy-prone dweeb in love; an arrogant Swedish boyfriend peddling his Herring schnapps; a flashback to High School band ‘Webcam Massacre’ and their song ‘Velvet Erection’; and an invisible gun-polisher, Jonathan Jones, who is pushed to the brink.

Last year, the same duo brought us Max & Ivan are Con Artists, and it was one of the highlights of the festival. The Reunion looks likely to do the same, with the duo’s familiarity on stage, timing and staging working in their favour. A varied cast of such complicated characters, with simple staging and no costumes, might fall flat with less talented performers but this doesn’t just work, it outrivals most other comedic duo performances. Could we have another ‘Bret and Jermaine’ or ‘Noel and Julian’ on our hands? It seems likely, especially given this duo’s penchant for a bite-sized sketch, which easily translates to television.    

The Reunion has an element of theatre sports to it, and is a nice break from the one-microphone observational comedy that seems to run through most of the festival. The audience engagement was a highlight rather than a filler and not many other shows will feature a geography-based sex scene, and for that reason alone you won’t be disappointed.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars