Improv show about relationship keeps performers on their toes as they tour the Maritimes

TILT is a two-person show featuring Jean-Michel Cliche and Alex Rioux. (Source: Andrew Finlay)

Alex Rioux is keeping a secret from Jean-Michel Cliche and neither of them know what it is. They have been dancing around the subject for a while onstage, discussing the challenges of their domestic lives.

Finally, Rioux tells Cliche the truth: They steal cheese from Loblaws.

The secret doesn’t come from Rioux; it comes from the audience.

“Before the show, our stage manager asks the crowd what the secret is in the form of an ‘I am’ question,” Cliche said. “There’s a projection that comes up with the secret. Everything after is completely improvised.”

Cliche and Rioux are the stars of TILT, a show that explores a relationship between two characters with the novel twist being that every performance features a new secret pulled from the audience.

“The show begins as a scripted piece,” Cliche said. “The first half of the show is a journey through their relationship. Clearly something is not being communicated between the two of them. It’s very grounded. At a certain point Alex’s character musters up the courage to share the secret.”

Cliche is the associate artistic director of Solo Chicken Productions, a New Brunswick-based theatre company that is taking TILT on tour through the Maritimes this summer.

“The name TILT appeared before the story did,” he said. “I was reading about Coen Brothers’ movies and how they have this concept called the tilt. For me that was the crux of the show. We wanted a moment where everything got turned on its head.

“We thought it captured the energy of the show. We want audiences to feel that tilt with us.”

Cliche discovered improvisation in high school when, in his words, his teacher dragged him to a class one day.

“I hadn’t found my thing yet and it really connected with me,” he said. “It’s a really collaborative environment. You have to be so in tune with each other.”

Cliche studied theatre in university and coached an improv team at his old high school, continuing to develop his craft.

“There’s a lot more training and skill that goes into it than people can imagine,” he said. “I describe it as more like a sport. You have to run your drills. When you get to a game, you don’t know how those skills will come into play, but you always fall back on them. You’re thinking about your ability to connect to your fellow performers.”

Through his work, Cliche met and started to work with Rioux through Hot Garbage Players, building a natural rapport through countless performances.

Cliche said TILT came about in the wake of Rioux’s show “Fruit Machine,” which explored the history of the LGBTQ+ purge from Canadian military, RCMP and civil service in the 1960s.

“Alex created this beautiful, really complex piece about the LGBT purge,” Cliche said. “We were touring that play and once we were finished that tour, we were kind of thinking what’s next? Let’s jam something out.

“It was an artistic challenge to go, ‘We want to make something smaller scale but just as effective and polished as previous works.’ I always had an idea of a show that started scripted and became improv. It was an artistic challenge for ourselves that sounded exciting.”

Cliche said audiences have cooked up some truly odd secrets for the second half of the show.

“You get thrown this ridiculous curve balls,” he said. “Really strange, wild twists like, ‘I’m doing secret deals behind the Payless Shoes depot.’

“It’s been cool to play the same characters in these different iterations but finding heart is at the core of all of it. We both gravitate towards the heart of these characters. They feel like real people to us.”

TILT will kick off its summer tour at Memorial Hall in Fredericton on July 24 and 25. Other shows include:

• DANSpace at Halifax Fringe Festival from Aug. 27 to Sept. 7
• Marshlight Theatre in Sackville, N.B., on Sept. 19 and 20
• BMO Theatre in Saint John on Sept. 24

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