Asad Mecci and Colin Mochrie ©Aaron Cobb

Look into my eyes. Believe what I tell you. You will see the funniest show in New York City if you go see Hyprov: Improv Under Hypnosis at the Daryl Roth Theater in Manhattan.

Left:Taylor Schon Right: Matthew Shahlyng

Hyprov: Improv Under Hypnosis is a touring show out of Canada that combines hypnosis by hypnotist Asad Mecci, and a constantly changing troupe of volunteer hypnotized improvisers, drawn from the audience at every show, under the brilliant stewardship of improv comedy icon Colin Mochrie. Mochrie is best known for his many years on the hit improv comedy TV show, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

Asad Mecci and Hyprovisers HYPROV Photo by Carol Rosegg

By themselves, hypnosis and improvisational comedy are two of the most interesting things you could go see, regardless, but put together like this, with writing assistance from Bob Martin, co-creator of “The Drowsy Chaparone,” and director Stan Zimmerman, who wrote for both “Roseanne” and “The Golden Girls,” Hyprov combines the best elements of both a hypnosis show and improvisational comedy into an evening which is a non-stop laughathon of creative confusion.

Colin Mochrie, Asad Mecci, and Hyprovisers HYPROV Photo by Carol Rosegg

In every hypnosis show, volunteers are first induced into a state of suggestibility by the hypnotist. Rather than being asleep, as many think, hypnotized subjects are always awake, and just concentrating so intently on what they are told that they cease to be aware of anything else. When given suggestions by the hypnotist, they respond automatically from their subconscious mind without critical thinking. That’s when the entertainment happens.

Volunteers are typically first asked to recall sensory experiences, as in feeling too hot or too cold. Then, as their hypnotic state deepens, they may experience amnesia, like forgetting their own name. Finally, at the deepest level, volunteers become “artificial somnambulists,” or sleepwalkers, who see an imagined reality in their own minds.

Watching your friends hallucinate that that they have lost their belly buttons is funny enough. But Hyprov takes all that one step further. After Asad whittles twenty volunteers down to the five people who have gone the deepest into a trance and who seem the most expressive, Mochrie creates situations in which they become improvisational actors in a series of predetermined scenarios.

In the Second City improvisation tradition, improvisers begin a scene by asking for a few basic elements from the audience: An occupation, an activity, and a location, for example.  Then the troupe must assemble those random elements into a cohesive story which pays off in the end.

That’s hard enough to do when surrounded on stage with talented peers who know the rules of the game, such as to always build on suggestions by saying “yes…and” instead of denying them. This often leads to absurdly funny combinations of ideas and circumstances. I saw the show twice Saturday night and each had different sets of suggestions on the same theme, which led to an equally entertaining, but entirely different conclusion.

In one skit, everyone was sent to the old West. Mochrie was a desperado on the run with his partner because they had both done a terrible crime. In the first show of the evening, that crime was jumping rope. In the second show, they were illegally playing basketball.

In another scene, Mochrie was a Sam Spade-like detective who must solve a murder in which everyone else is involved. In one performance of the detective skit, Mochrie combined the suggested activity of eating with the suggested occupation of magician, to create and solve the murder mystery of “The Magician Who Ate Too Much”.  In the other performance, Mochrie had to solve the murder of a teacher who was stapled to death.

At every show, Mochrie jokes about being terrified by the challenge of this show, but exhilarated at the same time, for good reason.

The idea of combining hypnosis and scene work isn’t entirely new. Back in the 90’s, the leading British stage hypnotist, Paul McKenna, had a TV show (which you can see on YouTube) in which also put hypnotized subjects into a fictional scenario’s to see how they would respond.

But here, Mochrie not only does that, but also provides the comedic glue that holds this show together through his lighting fast improviser’s mind. In the film noir detective skit, one volunteer was assigned to create sound effects as if in a radio play, but told that they will always make the wrong sound. So when Mochrie said “suddenly a shot rang out” and the volunteer went “moo”, Mochrie retorted with “I didn’t even notice the cow!”

Some of the funniest comebacks in that skit were provided by “hyproviser” Matthew Shahlyng, who was called upon to play all the other characters in the film noir story. After the show, Mr. Shahlyng admitted to me that he was an experienced improvisational performer as well. That’s what you call “the luck of the draw.”

How good this show is at any given performance depends to a great deal on the creativity and animation of the hypnotized volunteers. In the hands of a lesser improviser, it would probably not be as successful, but with Mochrie’s endlessly inventive mind, he manages to turn even the least interesting utterances of the hypnotized subjects into great jokes.

In the first performance I saw, the witty volunteers matched Mochrie beat for beat with remarks which were comic gold. In the next show, however, a volunteer playing a jilted lover could only respond by saying “No, no, no” over and over.  Mochrie finally echoed her, and he turned out what was a fundamentally boring reaction from the volunteer, into an entertaining interchange.

All during the show, Asad works alongside Mochrie, keeping the hypnotized volunteers focused and in trance.  Watching these two great puppet masters at work is endlessly fascinating.

Michael Urie

Mochrie also took advantage of the flexibility of the format at the first show of the evening, where actor Michael Urie (“Ugly Betty”) was in the audience. Mochrie called him up onstage, and interviewed him about his career. Then Mochrie asked a hypnotized audience member to create an interpretive dance, as he recounted the details he had learned. The mime show put on by that hypnotized audience member, Taylor Schon, was no less brilliantly funny than something you’d might have seen done by Jim Carey. Surprisingly, he was not a performer at all, but someone from Australia who worked in finance. As he told me afterwards, he was “running on instincts and adrenaline,” fully aware of what was happening onstage, but just “happy to go along.” That is a very typical description of the hypnotic experience.

There are other spins on hypnosis shows which are equally interesting. In my one man show as  Hypno-magician “Jeffrey Powers” and The Hypno Party, which I hope to bring to NYC very soon, I use magic and mentalism to “explain”hypnotic phenomena before guiding the volunteers into hypnosis. No matter how you frame it, hypnosis is fascinating entertainment. If Vegas can support multiple hypnosis shows at any given time, why not New York City?

My only disappointment with this show was Asad’s induction style. The art of hypnosis involves the creative use of metaphor, guided imagery and certain language patterns to guide the subject into hypnosis, and effectively deepen their experience.

Asad uses commanding repetition of simple commands to drive his volunteers into hypnotic submission without employing creative hypnotic language. To a fellow hypnotist, that old school approach seems a little raw. Regardless, he gets results onstage, which is all that matters.

Rufus Wainwright Credit_ V. Tony Hauser

Hyprov is aided by mood-specific music composed by Grammy winning vocalist Rufus Wainwright, and accompanied throughout the evening by Musical Director John Hilsen, who turns music into yet another character in the show.

So if you want to see what happens when your creative imagination is unleashed, or just laugh at your friends until it hurts, go see Hyprov, running now through October 30 at the Daryl Roth Theater, 101 East 15^th Street, in Manhattan.