I used to hate performing narrative improv.
The promise that a narrative show makes to the audience is that we’ll tell them a recognisable story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Reader, that was more of a promise than I was prepared to make. I didn’t like the loss of freedom. I resented having to come on as the same character more than once. What if I didn’t like that character? What if the world we’d created was boring?
And there was always a moment - about 3/4 of the way through a show - where we’d have to do this terrible scene to make the show makes sense. Content-wise, the terrible scene was always different but functionally it was the same - it was the improv admin scene. It was a scene devoid of emotion or depth or playfulness whose sole purpose was to move the plot along.
I hated that scene. I resented being in it so much. No one on stage wanted to be in that scene. And no one in the audience wanted to sit there and watch it. It was the pits.
I started to think of plot as a monster - an all-consuming beast that demanded to be fed, that would consume all joy and subtlety and fun. Our improv freedom sacrificed to it on the altar of logical storytelling.
I continued to dislike narrative improv whilst simultaneously performing in a very popular narrative improv show for about 5 years. One day, I realised I was really enjoying myself. The stories we told were brilliant, the characters felt alive and connected to each other … and we hadn’t had to do one of those terrible improv admin scenes for months.
We had learned a new way to tell an improvised story, hard won through trial and error, a modicum of group chemistry and sheer bloody-minded relentless repetition of the form.
I would now like share to share those learnings with you, please.
There are a lot of popular story structures out there.
Dan Harmon’s Adapted Hero’s Journey
These are all great. You should read about them and discuss them in your group and you should absolutely do exercises in rehearsal that allow you to improvise along with them. What you should not do, I now realise, is created a show structure that clings slavishly to these strictures. I’m pretty sure such practices are the genesis of the terrible improv admin scene. If you’re ever going on stage thinking…
“Oh dear, I have to do a Dark Night of the Soul scene now.”
… then your structure has got in the way of your improv joy. I love the idea that any structure you have should be a climbing frame, not a cage. They’re both fundamentally edifices of interlocking metal bars but one traps you in place and the other allows you to reach new heights.
Study structure, be inquisitive and playful with the tools it gives you, but ultimately telling a story can’t be a wholly intellectual exercise. It has to be in your bones. You need to feel it like a heart beat, a deep breath before you jump, a change of pressure on your skin.