Always & Game

That's an intersection in Improvtown.

I was talking today with an American improv friend of mine (Lisa) who is in London for the summer. We got to talking about improv, specifically the notion of game in the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre context.

I realized in how she was talking about it, whatever was considered the game of an improv scene was something that a character (allegedly) always did. The clue for finding game was listening for the word "always."

For example, say Foxy and I start a scene at a restaurant. I start sharing how I had a tough time getting to the restaurant be-, beco-, because of uh, "Man, I always trip over my words. Because of a nightmare tube ride."

That sentence, "I always trip over my words," is the clue about my game in the scene: I always trip over my words. So the rest of the scene (to an extent) can be "about" my tripping over my words in different ways.

That game may not be all that interesting to watch, so I might play several games in an improv scene rather than just one. And by saying "always" I don't mean literally always but figuratively always. I don't mean thus from start to finish of a scene tripping continuously, (without stop), over your words. I mean doing that periodically, often enough, potentially each turn you take an improv scene, or probably more satisfactorily, at strategic moments. You have to find those strategic moments, and that's part of the art. (It's not a science, as far as I can tell.)

Admittedly, I'm not THAT big of a fan of this kind of play as a total practice (at least I don't think I am), though there's a lot of fun in it, and it can make playing an improvised scene simple (you just make your initial move out to be something you "always" do, and then find ways to do it in the scene).

It is with doing something "always" that we say in improv "there's a pattern." I've tended to teach recurrence and transference as opposed to patterns. That is, make things recur within a characterization, or even transfer some recurring things of one characterization to another character. But I think the "always" approach is a better one. I may try to test it out the next time I teach the UCBT notion of game.

It's amazing how in talking to Lisa I've had some shocking, amazing insights into improv--and I've only seen her a handful of times!

How I see improv

Last night my improv program had an informal performance. Foxy alludes to it in the prior post.

After the show, I was talking to one of the performers, who is a software engineer, who has presumably never performed onstage before, and who has never done improv for an audience before. He told me, "I think I'm addicted to improv."

I ended up sharing with him how I saw improv. This was an old view of mine that I rediscovered in talking to him. It basically is this:

Improv is unscripted drama. Pretty much the only difference between improv and plays is that plays have a script and improv does not. That means, in improv, the actors don't know what to say, but in plays, the actors do know what to say.

What that means in an improv class is that you are learning the structure of plays so that you can act them out in the moment without the aid of a script. You learn about the crafting of scenes and the crafting of plays. When you improvise, you basically become a playwriting collective: You use the structure of plays and follow that structure as your group performs.

Audiences unfamiliar with improv tend to see improv as saying funny lines. They think that when performers are onstage, they say funny line after funny line after funny line, and they have some mysterious gift or raging talent for saying funny lines.

But as you tend to learn in improv classes, your "lines" are really just behavior--behavioral reactions in the moment as you follow the structure of plays. You are doing something else other than saying funny lines. You are following playwriting techniques, and the result of following them sometimes is audience laughter.

When you analyze the laugh lines in an improvisation, abstracting them from the context of an improvised scene, you usually find there is nothing particularly funny about them. Instead, it is something about the moment that makes the audience laugh. In truth, it is usually what the improviser did that makes the audience laugh, rather than what the improviser said. The word "toaster" is not by itself very funny, but said in a particular context, at a particular moment, given the prior information in the improvised piece, and given the understanding of what the improviser's character may be trying to do, saying it may provoke an uproar in laughter to burn into an audience member's memory for a lifetime.

When you take an improv class, you realize improv doesn't have anything to do with saying funny lines. It is more about the interaction between characters, their conflict, and the movement toward a decision in that conflict. Granted, talk is definitely an element of the improvised scene, but it's not the focus. If you focus on the speech in great improvised scenes, you will usually find that it doesn't explain why they were so great. Instead, if you focus on the choices of the improvisers and the context in which those choices occur, you will have a better understanding of what made great improvised scenes so great.

So you learn about choices in an improv class, not about saying funny lines.

Granted, the focus is obviously going to depend on the beliefs of the improv teacher. Indeed, there are improv teachers out there who do care about saying funny things, and they may even denigrate you for your failure to say funny things. (I'm definitely not one of those teachers!) In rough, the approach may be a little bit different if you're talking a short-form improv class or a long-form improv class. In a short-form class, you may learn techniques that will make the audience laugh. In a long-form class, you don't really do that. Instead, you learn techniques to perpetuate improvised scenes. Essentially, in a long-form class, you learn about the creation of unscripted drama, while in a short-form class, you learn about the creation of audience laughter.

As a side note, though: To date, I've never really taken a short-form improv class, only listening to what others have said about it and about classes, coupled with what I've seen of short-form improv.

... So that's how I see improv. I come from the long-form perspective, so that's probably why I emphasize the dramatic elements of it (i.e., its play(writing) elements) rather than its comedic elements (i.e., its laugh-inducing elements). There is no right or wrong way to see improv, unless perhaps you set a way as right or wrong or subscribe to a particular mindset that sets a right or wrong way to see improv.

Faith In Fun

I'm in a theatre right now, watching a Harold that Ben's workshop group has put together. And the short point I'm making is this.

Watching people enjoy improv is fun. Isn't it? The show I just watched* may not have been terribly polished, or finessed (which is not to say the guys weren't good, many of them were, I'm saying that they're new to improv) but they were really having fun. And that was engaging and allowed me to see past any foibles.

Have you ever watched improvisers who aren't having fun? It's horrible. I guess I'm affirming the power of investment and enjoyment when compared with the traditional lone requirement of "mad skillz".

Incidentally, Orange, the UK mobile phone service provider are a massive, massive waste of time and energy.

*Oooh... chronology.

For an improvisational artist, what is the value in having a form?

Generally speaking, the value of having a form for the improvisational artist is challenge.

When I layer on a form, I offer an obstacle which the improvisers must take on. If I tell you to enter an improvised scene and exclusively endow the other players, that becomes your form. It is a challenge for you to improvise with that obstacle.

The alternative to form is formlessness: Simply approaching improvisation as "anything goes." That may sound nice in theory, but in practice, it is opening the door to the permission of "serious shit going down" onstage. I think of anarchical-type behavior. I think of hitting people, pushing people's buttons, violating people's personal boundaries, etc.

You may say that that's ridiculous, that that wouldn't happen onstage, but when I ask "Why?," you answer with form. You reveal your form. "Because nobody wants to do anything illegal onstage." "Because we don't want to upset our audience." "Because I love my group and I wouldn't do anything to hurt them." Etc. These are expressions of the form you follow. You avoid illegal activity onstage, or you observe the tastes of the audience, or you support the well-being of your groupmates.

This is just like saying you endow the other players in your scenes, you yes-and all of their offers, and you do three scenes, a group scene, revisit the three scenes, another group scene, then weave everything together. These are parts of the form of popular styles of improvisation. So might be your private interests expressed above.

Ultimately, form is a choice. You choose to comply with and operate within a form. You challenge yourself. The reward is linguistic: You get to say you can operate within that form. You are able to do that form. You are (truly) a doer of that form.

But the better reward is often the fruit that comes from doing a form. Forms are like seeds: You can water one with your ideas, and it comes out in a specific plant, and water another one with your ideas, and a whole different plant emerges. Both might be improvisation, only they yield different species of improvisation.

The point I wanted to make originally in typing this post is a different one on form. It is: With respect to creativity, what is the value of having a form? For another time.

High Status

Is there any greater indicator of high status in a scene than a character in possession of a Hawk?

Is it not true that Del Close himself owned a great many Falcons*?

*no it is not.

What happens when you start calling something "an artform"

A couple posts below, Foxy talks about the suggestion and wonders why we take one in improvisation.

I feel the answer to that question depends a bit on how you see improvisation. If you see improvisation as an art, then there is little obligation to do anything, as the word "art" tends to imply doing something without rules, and "doing something without rules" is not even a rule.

But if you see improvisation as an artform, then you start getting into obligation. If some practice has a form to it, generally speaking, it has some criteria you have to meet in order for you to properly say you're doing the form. If you miss those criteria, you aren't really doing the form. It would be improper to say you are doing that form.

That's only a law of speech: "You can't say you do something if you don't meet the criteria." And human life generally operates this way: If you don't do this, that, or the other, you can't be called a doctor, or a lawyer, or store manager. Missing those criteria denies you the privilege of being called those things. Some sets of criteria are more accommodating than others, but hopefully you see my point.

If you see improvisation as an artform, the question becomes, "What exactly is the form?" That is, "What are the criteria we need to meet to say we're doing the form?"

It just so happens there's no absolute answer, it really depends on how you define a form. Now, if there is a form-creator, and he lays out the criteria for the form, you are lucky in that you have a relatively easy way to determine the form and what falls within it and what falls without it. (You can still have some controversy because words are sometimes subject to interpretation...) But if you don't have a form-creator, or if that form-creator is relatively lax in his form-ation, then you start to have different artworks masquerading as the artform. Some of these may generally match the artform as intended, while others may drift noticeably away from it.

For example, I'm from the U.S. where we do Harolds, and I'm currently in the U.K, where Harolds aren't commonly done. When I worked with a group Foxy's in, one of the members said they had done Harolds, but for her a Harold was something like three scenes. (I can't remember exactly what she said.) Now, for me, a Harold is a LOT more than that. That is, the form of the Harold has a lot more criteria than that, and this person, from my perspective and my understanding of the form, had NOT done a Harold (relative to the law of speech I outlined above).

With respect to the solicitation of a suggestion from the audience, you have to ask yourself if it's part of the artform. If you don't believe it's part of the artform, then it's understandable to say that you don't need to do it--the form does not obligate you to solicit a suggestion. However, if you believe it's part of the artform, then you NEED to take the suggestion. If you don't do it, you are, to that extent, NOT doing the artform.

I think of drama: You do what's written in the play. If you don't understand something included in the text, you have to find some sort of justification for it. Presumably it is there for a reason that the playwright understands, so you don't just cut it because you don't understand it. Instead, you ask, "Why is this here?"

And I apply the same logic to improvisation, esp. where the word "improvisation" means "improvised theater." Treating improvisation as theater, you subject it to many of the practices of stagecraftspeople, and one of those practices is to revere the text, which in the case of improvisation is the form. And so you understand that I'm not peculiar in my opinion, look to what Elaine May said many years ago at The St. Louis Compass, one of the first U.S. improvisational theaters: "The actor's business is to justify." The comment allegedly came as a response to an improvisational actor who didn't think her character would make a particular choice. It wasn't her business to resist; it was her business to justify. (Cf. Something Wonderful Right Away by Jeffrey Sweet, and look at the interview with Del Close.)

And so, you look at the suggestion, and you ask yourself, "Why is it included in the artform?" The answer(s) at which you arrive may differ from the answers at which others arrive. Some answers might be "right" in the sense the form-creator reasoned their inclusion in the way you answered. Other answers might be "wrong" in the sense the form-creator did not reason them in that way. But those "wrong" answers might purely be "artistic" answers, understandable interpretations of why the inclusion in the artform. That's gonna happen when the form-creator is lax.

If you don't want to be obligated when you do improvisation, don't think of it as or call it "an artform." Else, generally, I'm going to uphold you to certain criteria, certain standards. If you want to be free from obligations, merely think of it as or call it "an art." I will be more open-minded to your work.

Which leads me to a potential future post: For an improvisational artist, what is the value in having a form?

Natural Laws of Improv, 1 in a series of more than 1

Improv scenes seem to exist in a world with a series of observable natural laws. I present some for your perusal.

1. Saying a person's name immediately summons them.
2. Wallets do not contain money.
3. Everyone knows everyone else on a first name basis.
3.1 If they don't, they will within four lines of dialogue.

More to follow...

Welcome to the show.

Hello.

Here is a blog.

It seems only right that starting this, I talk a little about starting shows. Here's some context...

A question from a phone conversation I had last night is sitting with me at the minute, we're drinking tea as I write. The question is this:

"Do we need to ask for suggestions before improvising?"

My knee-jerk answer is no. We don't need to. But then why do we? Because we always have before? To demonstrate to the audience that we're improvising? Because the ask is a useful device to unify the group mind? Is it a good way of making you think differently? Should we not get suggestions at all? I'll get round to my thoughts on the above questions in due course, right now I feel like gen'ralisin'.

I hear people talk about the mercurial nature of inspiration like it's a timid kitten or, as in a recent article in the guardian, a skittish deer. Something that requires gentle coaxing and care that might vanish back into the dense, cognitive woodland if we tread on a twig (not the kitten obviously). People talk of being "bereft of inspiration", I commonly feel uncreative in my company's main office, whereas there are folks who are prolific, never seeming to run out of ideas, suffer writer's block or "dry up", regardless of environmental factors.

My point, relates to improv. In many improv formats, there is, hard wired into the firmament* of the structure is the ask. May I have a word please?", "An object bigger that this?", "Can I have a word please? Say, that reminds me of..."They're there! Right at the top of the Harold, most every Armando I've ever seen begins with one of these and they're even more prevalent in short form improvisation. The question asks "why?" and in an environment where there are traditionally no wrong choices, that's almost impossible to answer. For the sake of argument, let's look at a generic short-form scene for now and not bring Harolds and their kin into this.

It seems to me (and by inference all rational people**) that getting an suggestion from the audience is the norm in the eyes of the public and many improvisers. If you ask someone to describe an improv show to you, ten'll get you twenty that shouting stuff out will be included in the early stages. Hell, most improv shows I've seen get the audience to practice shouting stuff out (wait, I do this. Why the hell do I do this? Do I not trust the audience to be able to think on the fly? I have to warn them? Rehearse them?). Is the fact that we usually begin with a suggestion a good argument against the obvious alternative of starting without one? I'm not convinced it is. Is the fact that I usually take milk in my tea a reason to not try it black? (I have a longer diatribe here about different patterns in improvisation and this sentence is here to remind me to write it.)

A suggestion can inspire, in fact my feeling is that the best reason for getting a suggestion from the audience is to inspire a scene and to force me out of my usual patterns of thought. I have a few things that I keep coming back to in scenes, when I recognise them I try to eliminate them, at the moment the list includes birds of prey, high status buffoons and bad Russian accents. These things are almost always quietly waiting in my near obvious, ready to jump into a scene. Getting a suggestion however forces me to accept a new idea, alien to my preexisting obvious that can both surprise and challenge me and in turn, force me into more unfamiliar content or narrative territory. Look for a moment at the Harold, you take a word from the audience, place it like fuel into a machine for spouting related ideas and then use those related ideas as the raw materials for the subsequent show... neat. To surmise, I like suggestions as a means of inspiration. I really do.

"A suggestion can be a useful tool for getting the group on the same page for
the show."

I heard someone say this, or something like it, about two weeks ago and I can't remember who it was. I agree, sort of. I would hope that whatever group is performing should already be on the "same page", I worry that taking this as gospel might limit some people, create a negative sense around jumping and justifying, an idea that if what you're about to do or say isn't immediately relevant to the suggestion, the shows theme, then it's wrong. And any sentence that ends with the word wrong in bold type doesn't sit well with my understanding of improvisation.

The most common justification of the audience suggestion is this:

"If we don't ask the audience for a suggestion, they won't think we're
improvising."

And every single time I hear it, I die a little inside. My preference in this matter is the same as Keith Johnstone's (and sadly I've no book to hand to quote, but I think it's in Impro). As long as the audience are entertained, who cares if they think you're improvising or not? I'm serious. Plus, there's always some fucker who claims you're scripted anyway and you'll never convince him otherwise. The flip side, and this is not a side of this argument I've ever looked at before, does the audience have a justified expectation that you will reassure them that you are improvising? They've presumably paid for improv, how will they know you're providing them with some? There's no hard and fast method that will prove you're genuine, but asks and suggestions are about as convincing as you'll get. I still think it's a weak-ass rationale.

So there, there's some thoughts about suggestions. I was going to talk a little about not getting a suggestion, but I've been writing for an age and want to go make tea. I certainly think starting scenes from nothing is an equally valid method of working and something everybody should try at least in workshops. Personally I like both, sometimes I want a little inspiration from the room, sometimes I don't, sometimes I really want to start a scene with a certain emotion or action sometimes I will and other times I'll kill that idea and get a new one. Besides, who doesn't' like variety?

I guess I ought to make a conclusion eh? I figure, do what you feel is right, but every now and then try something else and check once in a while that you at least have a reason for doing whatever it is you're doing.

You might see this statement paraphrased a lot if I keep this blog up.

Right, that's quite enough for the first post. Maybe I should've started with something smaller. But hey, thanks for reading this far.

Foxcroft

* It's an electronic firmament... one assumes.
**Which is a term I use for people who agree with me.

[Edited to correct my lame-ass HTML formatting issues]