Buy bewilderment!
“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” Rumi
So often I see improvisers trying to be cleaver or define the scene before it has had time to take root and blossom. They are not comfortable unless everything is labeled on stage or made fun of. That is not fun, that is safe.
When I see good improv I know the players have no idea where they are going. What is thrilling about it to me is that, even as an audience member, I am on that journey with them. I don’t know what is going to happen next. We will all find out together. That’s what makes improv the most magical of theatrical performances.
Once you label or define something on stage you diminish it. You make it smaller (and unfortunately easier to control) for you and the audience. If you say, ‘It’s a husband and wife scene and I have done thousands of them’ you have really missed the boat. Have you ever played this wife with this husband in this place with this issue? Who knows where it could go. Don’t diminish the wave, ride it!
It’s an old axiom that “being cleaver kills a scene” so does defining it.
Bewilderment is a great word, in it’s archaic form it meant ‘amazed’. Onstage you should always be awake to what might happen. Be open to the moment, it matters.
The other thing I like about bewilderment is the sentiment that you are lost and its good. Getting lost is sometimes fun. I used to have a girlfriend right out of High School whose favorite thing was for us to drive into a strange place and try to get lost. We would drive and try to find our way home not know for sure where we were. It was exciting. It was just me and her trying to figure it out, much like improv. And much like improv, when we did figure out how to get home, the adventure was over.