Haus of Ruckus' “Dojo to Go,” November 15 through 24

Friday, November 15, through Sunday, November 24

St. Ambrose University's Studio Theatre, 2101 North Gaines Street, Davenport IA

When the area stage duo of Calvin Vo and T Green present their latest Haus of Ruckus comedy Dojo to Go, running November 15 through 24 at St. Ambrose University's Studio Theatre, audiences will again be treated to many fan-favorite elements from this now three-year-old company: a cheerfully insane premise; plenty of verbal and visual gags; a cast that includes Ruckus veterans Amelia Fischer, Andres Garcia, Sarah Goodall, Max Robnett, Isaac Smith, David Weaver, and Keenen Wilson; puppets. But there are at least two things that Vo and Green – best-known for their slacker-buddy slapsticks featuring alter egos Johnny and Fungus – won't be delivering with their new show.

“It's not a Johnny-and-Fungus play,” says Green, despite the pair's two previous productions for St. Ambrose – 2023's Are We There Yeti? and this past winter's Spaceworms – being very much Johnny-and-Fungus plays. “It initially started as a play called Kung Fungus, which was about Fungus saving Johnny from a bunch of mutants. But it's nice to be able to do standalones every so often, where we have different characters that we haven't written before and that audiences haven't seen before. Johnny and Fungus are like live-action cartoons, and they're fun, but we can do other things.”

Vo adds that a Johnny-and-Fungus outing “is a lot like watching a standup show that has a story with it. There's a lot of fourth-wall breaking and bringing the audience into the joke and laughing at stuff together. It's more of an experience than it is a play. But when we do these other things, like Spooky Pete (in 2022) and Dojo to Go, it's a lot more story-centric, and the way the story plays out onstage is much different from our weird little standup act.”

Regarding Dojo to Go, Green says, “It's about these four kids who have to make a delivery on a night where the city of Brooklyn is overrun by mutants. So it's a fight-choreography bonanza, and writing it was sort of like writing an action comedy, but putting it through the Haus of Ruckus lens. It's kind of a love letter to '80s to '90s action cartoons that were sort of everywhere at the time.”

“We write a lot of love letters,” admits Vo. “We're lovers. That's the thing.”

He quickly catches himself. “That's not to say that we are lovers. Because we're not. But that confusion has happened.”

“It's pretty common,” agrees Green.

The most obvious precedent/inspiration for Dojo to Go is, of course, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But as Green says, “What's funny about Ninja Turtles is that after it came out, everyone made shows ripping them off for a couple years. You had Biker Mice from Mars, Street Sharks, Cowboys of Moo Mesa … .”

“Extreme Dinosaurs,” continues Vo. “There's a whole slew of cartoons that came out around the same time with anthropomorphic animals. But they were almost pro-wrestler-action/animal-mutant shows. So we paint Dojo to Go with that color. The villains feel like the villains of those shows, and the heroes feel like those heroes.”

“But when we first had the idea,” says Green, “there was a day that we went onto YouTube and just watched clip after clip of Street Sharks, Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice from Mars … . And we maybe got through about four minutes of each before we were like, 'We can't watch this anymore.'”

“There's nothin' in there,” says Vo. “It's so empty. So we were like, 'How do we write a show that takes this idea, but then uses it – and I don't want to pat ourselves on the back – to make full characters and plots that make sense and things that have some sort of consequence?'”

The key, Vo and Green realized, was to have Dojo to Go pay tribute to, but also openly mock, the conventions of those animated programs from decades prior.

“Part of that craze in the '90s,” Vo says, “involves residue of the '70s-'80s action-film genre, where there's a lot of – how do I put this …? – pulling from the well of Asian cultures without being in any way Asian. In these kung fu films of the '70s, a lot of times it's about American heroes who become ninjas, so there are these white-guy ninjas going around beating people up. And then there are things like Big Trouble in Little China (from 1986) that really do have a strong Asian undercurrent, but they're problematic in different ways.

“So what we did while we were writing the show,” Vo continues, “was include a lot very specific choices that are making fun of that idea of people who are drawing from an Eastern aesthetic without knowing anything about it. Steven Seagal movies, Chuck Norris movies … . Even with Bloodsport and Street Fighter, you've got a lot of movies that sort of pan-Asian everything. And that creates a stereotype. So we sort of play with that idea. There are a lot of specifically Vietnamese and Asian cultural references in Dojo to Go. But there are also a lot of jokes at the expense of people who stereotype these things.”

Aside from adapting Don Wooten's own adaptation of Aristophanes' Plutus for Genesius Guild this past July, Vo and Green have had roughly eight months off from Haus of Ruckus stage shows since February's Spaceworms at St. Ambrose – their longest break yet. They were months in which, among other activities, the pair traveled to Brooklyn to perform standup comedy, and also, alongside other friends, made their first trek to Iceland. (Vo: “I saw a volcano, Mike!”) The time off, they agree, was beneficial, if unusual.

“We had, I think, four weeks between (January's) Punk Rock Lobster and Spaceworms,” says Green. “And that was just crazy.”

“Whiplash,” agrees Vo.

“So it was interesting to get into it again after such a long break,” Green says. “I think we realized that writing a standalone play is a different process than writing a Johnny-and-Fungus. Because we've written so many Johnny-and-Fungi at this point, it's like, 'Okay, so Fungus says something stupid, Johnny goes 'What?', Fungus goes 'Oh' … . And then we put that in 30 times. But we had to change the process for this one, and it took a little longer as we figured out how these characters should sound and how they interact. But it has been fun.”

In addition to the Haus of Ruckus regulars and Vo and Green themselves, Dojo to Go features St. Ambrose students and company veterans Megan Rohn, Zach Ulmer, and Esther Windt, with fellow students Ebby Barber, Ava Melvin, Callie Thomas, and Brynn Christian (a scenic-change artist) making their debuts for the comedy outfit. But just because Haus of Ruckus trafficks in madcap farce, don't presume that the process of putting one of its shows on, specifically on a university level, isn't also educational.

After St. Ambrose theatre instructors Daniel Hale and Aaron Hook offered the Haus of Ruckus team the use of the Studio Theatre space as part of a hopefully long partnership, Vo says that “part of that partnership is that we provide opportunities for students in our show. So that lends itself to the shows feeling a little bit different than when we're at the Black Box Theatre or other spaces. What we get to do in the space is more in the realm of educational theatre. And what's really nice is being able to do full days of workshops.

“For example,” Vo continues, “in our past shows, we've done workshops on building character and physicality, and we're definitely doing that this third time around. And stage combat is something we also provide workshops for – like, full days where we've gone through and workshopped the basics of stage combat, working through techniques and conventions. We're not just rehearsing a show. It's an opportunity for the students to put the things they're learning with Dan and Aaron to work in an environment that isn't a class.”

Hook himself is designing the sets and lighting effects for Dojo to Go, and with Vo providing sound, projections, and puppets, additional members of the comedy's creative team include stage manager Bella Vitale, makeup and hair designer Amy Rotramel, and costume coordinator Juliette Carizey. (Of her own behind-the-scenes involvement, Green says, “I help out where I can.”)

Meanwhile, with Dojo to Go ready to open, the Haus of Ruckus duo knows that it's time to start preparing for 2025, though no projects are currently set in stone.

“There are other stories bubbling that I think we might play around with,” says Vo. “You know, we really like the magic of it all.”

“And the H.R. Pufnstuf of it all,” Green adds, also noting that “there's a possibility that Johnny and Fungus might come back. But we ran out of locations for them to go to.”

So why not … Iceland?

“Holy crap!” Green exclaims, giving me exactly the reaction I was hoping for. “Yes! Johnny and Fungus Go Iceland!”

“What's really funny about that,” says Vo, “is that T keeps going, 'We should throw them in a volcano.'”

Haus of Ruckus' Dojo to Go will be performed in the Studio Theatre of St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center from November 15 through 24, with performances on both Fridays and Saturdays, Thursday, November 22, and Sunday, November 24. The shows begin at Haus of Ruckus' usual start time of 7:34 p.m., and $12 admission is available by calling the St. Ambrose ticket office at (563)333-6251 and visiting the production's cur8.com reservation page. For more information on the comedy and the company, visit Haus of Ruckus on Facebook and Instagram.