Play at the top of your intelligence.
A lot of people don’t understand what I mean when I say this. The first day of class we play a CD by a sketch called “Improv Dogs” by a sketch group out of Portland. It’s a bit about an improv troupe that tries to sell hot dogs in an “improvisational style”. The improvisers are the worst group if improvisers in the world. I play this CD to tell people here what we are NOT about and to serve as an example of NOT playing at the top of your intelligence.
This CD in day one, class one helps establish the rules of our theater. When you are performing we don’t want obscenities, bodily fluids, pre-planning, drug humor, guns, misogyny (or any other hate humor against a group of people), going for a laugh below the belt, impersonations, claiming of ideas, to be unprofessional, and lastly, energy over content.
There are good reasons for all of these rules, and no it’s not a ‘moral’ choice or because we have a lot of middle school and high school kids come to our theater. It is a professional choice. It is a choice that supports and enhances the art of improvisation.
Obscenities, bodily fluids and going for a laugh below the belt. These are all quick ways to get a laugh from the audience. The problem is that these are gimmicks and not improv.
- Sometimes a character will swear, that’s not great, but understandable once in a while. The trouble is that once a laugh is received a new improviser will take that positive reinforcement and do it again. The trouble is that after the first swear the next swear has to be bigger and more aggressive to get the laugh.
- So as soon as there is a dick joke you have to go further next time to get the laugh.
- After you puke on stage, everyone has to puke on stage. The other problem is that these laughs from the audience are from feeling awkward.
Once you heighten the awkwardness that the audience is feeling you stand the good chance of crossing the line and offending them. The big problem I have with this group of crutches is that they are gimmicks. They play the audience, instead of discovering something in the moment with the other characters in the moment. They have no regard for the scene and they focus on the audience reaction as opposed to the improvisation going on, on stage. It’s a selfish way to play instead of focusing on creating group mind.
Pre-planning, guns and claiming of ideas. All three of these things have the same problem at different times in the process.
- Pre-planing is when someone says something like “You be the mom, I’ll be the dad and you are the son who comes home drunk.” What is happening is that discovery is out and one person is defining the scene for everyone. They have eliminated some of the choices that the other players can make on stage, thereby diminishing them as players.
- A gun in the scene does the same thing in the moment. “I have the gun, I am in control!”
- Claiming ideas afterward is the admission that you were creating and not improvising on stage. You were planning and plotting. Not in the moment and letting yourself and your character be surprised by the others on stage.
Once again, this is a group art that is a shared discovery of the moment. If you are planning, controlling or trying to figure out where it should go, you are not playing and improvising you are plotting and thinking. Everyone in the scene helps define it.
Drug humor, hate humor and impersonations.
- Drug humor dismisses the characters behavior and will get some knowing laughs and some awkward laughs. But it diminishes the character and what they can do on stage. The worst part of this is all too often they become a caricature, a two dimensional character on stage. Someone who will never be changed or affected by anything happening on stage to them.
- Hate humor appeals to the lowest common denominators fear, hate and ignorance. Making fun of a people on stage because they are not us so they must be ridiculed only encourages stereotypes and propagates hate. When you play an African-American, or a Jew, or a Lesbians or Gays if you play it as a stereotype you are not playing from the heart, but from your head.
- Impersonations are somebody else’s character. They are not from you and your experiences, but from someone else’s life. This makes it an intellectual choice and not an improvisational choice.
A character that comes from your life is a character that you can relate to and play honestly. You find something about the character to love and they can surprise you. Playing a stereotype is keeping your character at an arm’s distance. Calling the character a name or “crazy” writes them off in the scene saying that they are of no importance to what is happening on stage.
Unprofessional and energy over content.
Because our art is play it is easy to develop and unprofessional attitude about it. “As long as we are having fun, that is all that matters.” I noted above that playing to the audience removes you from the scene, but playing with no regard for the audience removes them from the scene. When improvisers get together it should be fun and playful, but a show too. Puppies in a pet store are fun and playful and make me laugh too, but I am not willing to pay for it and sit down for an hour and a half to watch them.
- Professionals and great improvisers rehearse and create group mind and try to transcend being a group of good players to being a talented group. To just get together and put on a set without regard for the audience is akin to group masturbation. People who consider improv an art form and more importantly, their art form, must think about the show. What is the effect for the audience. This is the only way they will come back.
- Energy over content is the hallmark of bad improv groups and unrehearsed improv groups. “I’m yelling, so it must be good” is a flawed axiom
Not having a commitment to the art form through practice, rehearsal and focus on what is our show “about” are all forms of disrespect. Disrespecting your art form, disrespecting yourself as an artist and disrespecting your audience. This is setting yourself up for a fall.
That’s what I get out of that four minute sketch in Day one, Class one. It says a lot about what we can be as players and what we shouldn’t be as players. I want the Bovine to be a place where individuals can be part of a group that wants to transcend the negative stereotypes of our art. I set the bar in the first day of class and hope that the lesson sticks all the time they are performing here. You need to get past yourself and be part of the group and include the audience in on the discoveries on stage. In order to do this you must play at the top of your intelligence.