Improv Mantra #26

In Which We Take a Short Break for Self-Promotion

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Fear Manifests Nothingness

I first have to make a confession: when I first said in a discussion with Karen, "Fear manifests nothingness," I had an inkling I was making words up, but they still seemed to say what I was trying to get across. That being said, the Cambridge Dictionary does, in fact, define nothingness as, "a state or place where nothing is present, or where nothing important is present" (emphasis mine).

Bridging, blocking, babbling, asking unproductive questions; these are all examples of ways we express our fear on stage. If we look at the issue with a critical eye, we can see that a large part of our fear is fear of change.

Fear of change creates resistance, and this resistance presents itself in the forms mentioned above, among others. When we give into our fear and resist change, we are unlikely to create anything of value in our scenes. Acceptance (that old familiar, "Yes, and..." attitude) manifests story, scenes, and characters that move everything forward in a productive and cooperative manner. Fear grinds things to a halt, manifesting nothingness.

An extreme example of fear of change involves an improviser being faced with their own character's imminent death on stage (we've all been in that position ourselves.) An actor who gives into their fear of change will do everything in their power to avoid that death, causing the scene to lose any power it might otherwise have had. 

"Fear of change creates resistance"

An improviser who gives into and accepts their character's death has a powerful effect on the story; will the audience be appalled, saddened, amused, or happy at the death of the character? If you've created a strong character and set a believable environment, you have the ability to pull the audience along with you and elicit whatever response you want. Don't let your fear take that power away from you.

Die, already.

Happy improvising!

Small Talk On a Big Stage

We do our best to see as many improv groups perform as possible. First, it's common courtesy to support your fellow artists, and second, it's important to observe others in the act of creating art so you can better critique and improve your own work.

As we watched, one common thread began to emerge among some of the groups: the practice of engaging in non-productive small talk in scenes.

We all need to be conservative with our time and energy on stage; we don't have the luxury of wasting time that might otherwise be going toward advancing or expanding our story. On too many occasions, however, we've witnessed actors engaging in conversations that neither added information nor pushed the story forward. They were chatting.

"Pay closer attention
to what is

being said on stage"

It must have seemed to them as if they were being productive; they were talking about stuff, but that stuff was trivial and unimportant. It wasn't building character or environment, it wasn't driving the plot, and it wasn't creating conflict. At times it seemed as if there was conflict, but in reality it was only argument.

Dialogue must be purposeful. Ask yourself this question: if I were watching a TV show or movie, or reading a book with dialogue like this, would it hold my interest? Would I watch or read it again? Would I recommend it to my friends? If the answer is "No," then pay closer attention to what is being said on stage.

Dialogue should:

• Reveal character
• Create environment
• Drive the story (plot) forward
• Create/enhance conflict

But what if my character likes small talk? Well, that would technically fall under "reveal character," but be careful you aren't using that as an excuse. Non-purposeful dialogue is a fear reaction, a sneaky form of bridging. Make sure that character also provides dialogue that serves a purpose, otherwise you're wasting everyone's time. The audience deserves to hear what's behind the small talk. Delve deeper and release what's inside.

One easy way to push yourself to use purposeful dialogue is to create a strong character. If the character is well defined, the dialogue should come naturally. Once you have set your environment, put you character in it with all your energy, and trust what the character has to say. Listen to yourself, and if you find yourself babbling, adjust.

Trust that you have something useful and important to say. If you don't, then cede the focus to someone who does, and retake the focus when you do have something purposeful to say. Silence is not a sin; it's a choice that is as purposeful as saying something out loud.

Happy improvising!

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Intelligent Design

The following is an excerpt from our book, 

"The 5 Elements of Improv":

Intelligence affects a number of aspects of a character’s expression. A highly intelligent character will speak and act in a very different fashion than one of low intelligence. Characters will display their intelligence through how they speak, what they say, and the choices they make.

Avoid the mistake of assuming that because you have chosen a doctor as your character’s profession that they must, by default, be of high intelligence. We once (very briefly) had a doctor who was not only an exceptionally poor listener, but was also quite uninformed in basic matters of medicine and nutrition. When called on his lack of knowledge, he became rude and combative. The moral of the story is this: there are doctors (lawyers, police officers, architects, politicians, professors, etc) who graduated at the bottom of their class. Embrace this fact, and enjoy playing intelligence (as well as any other characteristic) against what is assumed for a particular profession. The audience will enjoy seeing the dichotomy, and you will have more fun building a scene with a character who is not defined by a cookie-cutter mentality.

"The moral of the story is this: there are doctors (lawyers, police officers, architects, politicians, professors, etc) who graduated at the bottom of their class."

A note of caution regarding the portrayal of low intelligence characters: there is a tendency to cause these characters to talk and act like useless idiots, good only for a few laughs. To do so is to waste an opportunity and is a cheap way to avoid responsibility for driving the scene forward and supporting your partner. The internal and external lives of low-intelligence people are just as rich and vibrant as those of other intelligence levels. They necessarily manifest themselves differently, as the components of their lives are likely (though not always) different from those of smarter people. This could, in fact, apply to any intelligence level. The point to take away from this is to be careful not to fall into the stereotypical behavior of any aspect of your character. Play to the top of your character’s intelligence; stupid people don’t know they’re stupid. Explore the infinite possibilities available to you, and surprise the audience.

Happy improvising!

The Problem with "Games"

At the crux of the ongoing conflict between the Long-Form and Short-Form camps of improv is the deceptively simple term, "game".

Those in the long-form group have a tendency to look down their noses at their short-form comrades, basing their opinions on fundamental misconceptions such as, "The terms “long-form improv” and “short-form improv”...tend to imply different relationships between participants. Short-form improv tends to involve small teams (or more purely, individual actors) competing against each other to produce a sole victor. This is to say that in short-form improv, the relationships between actors (or teams) are immediately oppositional and ultimately competitive. On the other hand, long-form improv tends to involve a single team of actors working for each other to produce a victorious whole. In long-form improv, the relationships between the actors are immediately supportive and ultimately cooperative." (Hauk, Long-Form Improv)*

There is a small cadre of long-form enthusiasts in the United States that seems to get their information regarding short-form from Whose Line Is It, Anyway? What they don't appear to understand is that, while WLIIA? is certainly entertaining, it is not an accurate example of short-form improv. It is, in fact, a hybrid form of improv designed exclusively for television and is no more a real-world example of short-form improv than Chopped is of home cooking.

"Whose Line Is It, Anyway...is not an accurate example of short-form improv."

Here's the gist of it: the term games simply refers to a scenic form. Long-formers might call this a gimmick, and in doing so are intending it to be derisive. Merriam-Webster, however, defines "gimmick" as, "an ingenious and usually new scheme or angle". Games do not make for bad improv; bad improv makes for bad improv, and can be found with equal ease in both short- and long-form.

Games are templates for driving scenes. They provide a format that can be quite simple or insanely complex. The point is they give the scene its basic structure, with the actor's scene work supplying the details. Long-form formats such as the Harold are little more than an extended series of scenes and games loosely (if at all) tied together by common themes. They are templates, just as games are. In fact, most of what we refer to as long-form is in reality a collection of short-form; it's rare to see true long form unless you go to see performers like TJ and Dave.

Both forms of improv employ games, but not all improv must use games. Short-form can and is performed with little to no use of games, just as long-form is often performed with heavy reliance on games. 

It's doubtful that Renaissance artists spent their time ridiculing the art form of other artists. "What? You're a sculptor? Ha! It's easy to make something look human if you can use all three dimensions. Try using oil paints...they're flat, and they never dry!"

When improvisers waste their time putting down their fellow improvisers they sound petty and show themselves to be insecure and unknowledgeable. We should instead be learning from one another and reveling in the joy improv brings to us all.

Happy improvising!

*To set the record straight, Ben Hauk could not be more wrong about short-form improv. He apparently derives his view of the form from nothing other than Whose Line  and ComedySportz. The joke's on him, though: in neither format is the competition real; it's simply a veneer put on for the audience's sake.