“Audience Beware… You’re in for a Scare!” the publicity for Geesebumps proclaims. We are urged to “Prepare to scream with laughter and terror”, and promised “a thrilling journey” and a “nostalgic trip into hilarity and horror.”

The Outfox Improv troupe is riffing off Goosebumps, USA author R L Stine’s prolific output of children’s horror novels written in the 1990s, which also became a TV series. The Wikipedia page (linked above) offers comprehensive coverage of the phenomenon. It’s clear Outfox are intent on being true to the form as they set about inventing, with us, a whole new story.

Director Malcolm Morrison role-plays R L (Ronald) Steen, requesting our input and guiding the improvisers, and us, as the story is collectively developed. The audience is asked for something that was popular in the ’90s but no longer a fad and a voice from the back offers Tamagotchi (a digital pet; the name translates from Japanese as Egg Watch. My teacher companion tells me later they were banned in schools because children were fixated on them.)

Morrison/Steen entitles the story ‘Tama-Gotcha’, characterises it as a pet that we love then discard, and endows the players – Dianne Pulham, Guanny Liu-Prosee, Jas Bryham, Jem Palmer and Tristram Domican – as inhabitants of Yellow Town, where Yellow High is more prestigious than those in Green, Red and Blue Towns.

Dianne and Jas become besties doomed to have their friendships challenged by a demanding Tamagotchi and the pending departure of (Jas) to Green Town. Initially Dianne calls Jas Maxine but when she (Jas) goes to the store to collect her mail-order Tamagotchi, Mr Smith (Jem) calls her Chrissie and eventually its Dianne who is Maxine, so I’ll go with those names.

Guanny becomes Maxine’s long-suffering – and medically suffering – Mum, concerned about her daughter’s grades and given to collapsing. I wonder if she’s possessed by Maxine’s Tamagotchi which plaintively keeps bleating, “Feed me,” – voiced by Tristram who also becomes George, a geeky student who would like a friend himself.

A friendship of sorts develops with Chrissie as he endeavours to fix her misbehaving Tamagotchi – then works on creating a new one. She shares her secret with him, about having to move to Green Town because her father has a new job – a confidence he will betray. Meanwhile wannabe drummer Maxine has gone off to Band Camp and comes back too cool for school, and no longer interested in her Tamagotchi – or Chrissie.  

The friendship and parenting crises blend with a plague of Ants (Jem and Guanny) wanting to infest the Tamagotchis, warning they will take their owners’ voices so they will never be able to tell what happened.

When Chrisse wants to return her Tamagotchi, Mr Smith reveals it came from Amazon. Asked by Chrissie if there are any instructions of how to break the curse, he suggests engaging with it might work. This lands for me as the moment that brings meaning to the story. Although R L Stine is on record as saying he doesn’t attempt to incorporate moral lessons, it is the friendship theme that holds this story together.  

Geesebumps is also a ‘pick-a-path’ story. Producer and Tech Operator Elliott Lam creates and projects slides in the spooky Goosebumps style that marks a turning point in the story and gives us three options. Invariably we seem to choose – by voice vote – the least active or inspiring option, which the players gamely try to incorporate. While I guess its purpose is to increase audience engagement, I’m not sure adds value to the concept.

The improvised dramady all gets resolved, of course. I admire the troupe’s skills fidelity to the genre. What’s missing, however, is our engagement in anything scary.

It’s on again tonight (Saturday), at two/fifty-seven, 2/57 Willis Street (enter from Victoria Street and take the lift to level 2). Who knows what geesebumps that will bring.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer