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*Laura Benik writes:
How have you developed a feeling of what is needed when telling a story?*
For me it’s a gut feeling, from years and years of writing plays. But teaching that: not easy. So I’m curious how you feel you got there / are getting there.
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Ah, thanks, Laura. This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. I think I’ve talked about scraps and tatters of this all over the internet so this is my attempt to put it all in one place.
WARNING: This is a bit like one of those modern cooking websites where you get the author’s entire life story before you get anywhere near the recipe - so please feel free to skip to the end if you just want the improv theory.
First thing to say - I used to hate narrative improv. I had been introduced to the art form through Chicago-style longform, specifically iO - where relationship and theme were more important than narrative. What I loved to watch was brilliant, silly, playful relationship scenes that were linked to other scenes thematically rather than narratively. And every time I was in a show trying to tell a story, I felt stifled - trundling along rails strung between yawning gaps of logic, the rickety edifice of the structure creaking under the weight of the required suspension of disbelief.
A suspension bridge, if you will.
Basically, I felt no joy in it. Here’s the bit where I come out as the husband because that’s what is required of me. Not because I wanted to play that role, not because I see any value in it. And actually, is the husband a role at all? Is he required to be a fully-rounded character or just a function of the plot? Yuck! No, thank YOU.
Narrative felt like a straight jacket. Associative improv felt like a river flowing with possibility. And I understand those two things are not interchangeable, it’s not like you can kayak down a jacket or restrain a deranged person with a river, but you get my meaning.
And then I started playing a narrative improv show on the regular - a Tim Burton-inspired musical called Happily Never After - and everything changed.
At first HNA (as we called it for short) was HEAVILY structured. First there’s a dance by the peasants, then we meet the protagonist, then the antagonist or the person who can affect change etc etc for 45 minutes until everyone was dead.
That structure survived the first year of performing it regularly. And then a magical thing happened - we loosened up. The story got into our bones and we didn’t have to think about it anymore.
And that’s when the play started.
Ghost orphans, princesses who turned into dragons, a lamp with a mind of its own, two guards who fell in love and abandoned their posts - we learned to trust that if we leant into the relationships and mischievousness - the plot took care of itself. Partly because we’d drilled good storytelling into ourselves (by rehearsing lots but also by being a human in a world stuffed to the gills with story) but mostly because relationships and fun lead naturally to big revelations, objectives and things happening. For a couple of years, that show was like a rocket ship - playing in it felt like dancing on air. It was one of the few times that I could see The Matrix of improv - dodge bullets (plot holes), learn kung fu in seconds (physical theatre) and always know where to find an exit (edit the scene).
So that’s how I learned to stop worrying and love the plot. And even though that was a lived experience - I believe I can distill it down to a few teachable behaviours. Which are these: