<aside> 💡 Hello. This article is part two of a series I’m doing defining the kind of improv I love (and by comparison the things I’m not so keen on).
You can check out part one here.
Onwards!
</aside>
Oh how we love a good argument. I wonder if it might be hardwired into our brains that conflict equals entertainment? Certainly, from a UK-centric point of view, many of our greatest comedic treasures revolve around at least one awful person being awful to everyone else - Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Bottom, I’m Alan Partridge, The League of Gentlemen, The Young Ones, Red Dwarf, Steptoe and Son, Black Books, anything with Ricky Gervais in it (although I freely admit this might just be my opinion of Ricky Gervais).
I’ve seen too many improv scenes start with the two characters immediately shouting at each other. And the problem there is - we don’t care. We don’t care about those two people at all. We don’t know them. We have zero stakes in their enmity.
In contrast, try to starting a scene with characters who agree with each other (agreement between performers should be a given). I want to be in scenes where characters know and like each other. Further, to see characters who are deeply involved in each others’ lives. Truly, we should aim for the audience to fall in love with our characters so that their decisions have real emotional weight. I want to start with agreement and reserve the right to break hearts later on when conflict organically emerges from the world of the show.
If there was one exercise that taught me this more eloquently than any other (and which I routinely credit with being a seminal moment in my improv education) it’s Craig Cackowski’s exercise - I know. I think this is an amazing improv drill and it’s unfailingly something I use with every new group I work with.
Have you ever seen an improv scene that starts multiple times as the performers try to negotiate what might be interesting about it? I’ve experienced that too many times to count.
When improvisers fall into negotiation they aren’t really listening to each other, they aren’t connecting. What they’re doing is desperately pulling random ideas out of their brain bag, holding them up for inspection and hoping for a laugh or gasp or sigh to let them know they’re on the right track. A dozen usable ideas are presented and summarily discarded in an instant.
Negotiation can also rear its head later in a scene in the form of improv admin. That’s where a big transformational moment needs to happen but the performers don’t want to address it for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s too real or would leave them vulnerable (we’ll get to this in a moment)? So instead they work out the logistics of the situation in fine detail.
Princess, you really need to go and slay the dragon in a dramatic and cathartic fashion but before you do that, what armour will you be wearing?
Perhaps the rose gold. And I’ll need my sword, my shield and my flail. Tie them all in oiled leather so that they don’t rust en route. I hear the foothills of the dragon’s lair can be intemperate this time of year.
Yes, the weather is indeed unseasonably gloomy. Perhaps you need the royal poncho?
I could indeed wear the royal poncho but don’t always like the way it sits over my armour. Perhaps a better idea would be for me to take an alternative route? Instead of turning south-east over the goblin bridge, I could instead forge south-west into the moors around the manticore’s lair, circumnavigating the…
END OF 25 MINUTE SHOW SLOT
And the dragon is never confronted.
Improv admin is a trap. It makes you look like you’re doing stuff even as you tread water and the show goes nowhere. Negotiation, in all its forms, is ultimately an excuse to not do the thing. The thing that the show is actually about. The best idea, in almost all cases, is to play what’s there. Play the scene in front of you. Connect with your partner and find what exists in the space between you.
Because there is always something there. You might think it’s too awkward or painful or even mundane to address but I assure you the audience have spotted it, as soon as you walked on stage, and if you try to negotiate a different outcome, an opportunity for connection will have been missed.