To Err is Improv Part 1

From the very first time we start improv, we are taught that one of the basic rules is that there are no mistakes (or at least I hope you were). The very nature of the craft is that nothing you can possibly do is wrong because, since there is no script, technically nothing can be a mistake. By definition, a mistake is a wrong action, and how can anything necessarily be wrong when there is no “right”? After all, improv is in the interpretive, and what is right to you is correct – there isn't a test proctor who can grade you against what the right answers were. On the flip side however, everyone who's ever gotten notes after a show or class knows that it is possible to make mistakes, but how is this possible? A quick check of scenes that are “right” and ones that are “wrong” shows where the rubric lies: it's not in the individual answers, but in the piece as a whole, and from that perspective, we want something that is entertaining for an audience. But that still doesn't satisfy the dichotomy in mistake making.

“The Buddha said each mistake is a rebirth ... don't you want to get reborn?” - Charlie Crews, Life

Improv is, in a strictly technical sense, a practice that is built for failure. When systems or tools are designed to maximize success and minimize failure, they are built with what are known as constraints – devices meant to block failure. A Phillip's head screwdriver has the familiar plus sign shape that locks into a Phillip's head screw, and as a result it is difficult to use incorrectly because the system doesn't allow for many configurations. This may explain why some people prefer multiple choice tests over essay ones; multiple choice answers effectively constrain the possible answers. Improv has no such constraints – anything is possible, which means there are an infinite number of ways to make mistakes. There are also an infinite number of ways to be correct, and a lot of improv games and forms are actually just a system of constraints meant to block the capacity for making errors, and drive you down a road of success. Because there are no errors in improv, we build the constraint that as information is added to a scene it becomes fact. (The first “Kitchen Rule” - don't deny the established reality.)

Then how is it possible that mistakes can drive a scene off the rails? First, it may be helpful to indicate a few common types of errors: errors of commission and omission and errors of wimping and waffling. An error of commission is one where someone intentionally goes against the scene, for example: calling someone “Dad” when they previously established as “Mom” simply because you didn't like the original decision. Errors of omission are ones where something is forgotten, not seen, or not heard – there is no malicious intent here, just human nature (more on this later). Errors of wimping are ones where a player prefers to keep things vague instead of concrete, for example, compare “Hand me that over there” with “Hand me that rifle next to the zombie head”. This is because when we are going to make a mistake, we would rather make that mistake by failing to do something as opposed to doing the wrong thing. Errors of waffling could also be thought of as errors of committing, where ideas are tossed away because we either don't feel like keeping it in the air or because we want to try another idea. It's also important to look at errors in terms of their significance: minor all the way up to major.

American Pie versus Technology, Part 3

(This is part 3 in a series - part one can be found in the archives over there (->) in November of 2010, and part 2 in January 2011.)

Kevin deserves special mention, largely due to the contributions made to the anti-tech argument made by his girlfriend Vicky. Kevin manages to win his girlfriend over with sexual techniques learned in the “Book of Love”, and there can seldom be a more non-modern tool than a paper book. Vicky on the other hand, has the hardest time losing her virginity – she is the only character who must be “talked into it” - and no surprise here, she is the one seen using the most technology. She is the only person in the first film seen driving (though early in “Pie”, Finch attempts a dramatic exit on a yellow Vespa, saying “Gentlemen, destiny awaits”, only to have his vehicle sputter underneath him. Clearly, he will travel to destiny on motorized transportation), and minutes later is seen using a vending machine, and a few scenes later again, is discussing manual stimulation with Jessica referring to it as “double clicking the mouse” - a direct reference to what is arguably the most powerful piece of technology today. Jessica even refers to Vicky's statement that her first time must be “the right time, the right place, the right moment”, by telling her it's just sex, and not a “space shuttle launch” - real modern rocket science! And her eventual realization that she wants to lose her virginity comes while she is doing homework with Jessica in a library, again paying homage to the power of the written academic word (and also possibly tying into the place where Kevin found the Book of Love, perhaps representing the purity of their previous physical interaction). Kevin does however benefit slightly from a modern staple – a phone call connects him with his brother in both “Pie” and “2”, and receives useful advice: the Book of Love in the former, and the idea to get a summer house in the latter. Why then does these phone calls actually result in success? Well the answer is that, while the phone calls do provide Kevin with useful information, it is incomplete. The Book does not get him laid, that honor falls to his being able to tell Vicky he loves her, and the lake house does not settle his concerns about his fading friendships, it is only a third act revelation about the friendship he has. Even at its best and most helpful, it would seem technology is still incomplete – it can only open the door, it is up to us to walk through it.

It would seem that technology is out to get anybody anywhere – Stifler's hotel reservation in Wedding is canceled by phone (in actuality at the hands of Finch off-screen, but only made possible by the lack of personal, face to face communication that a phone call provides). Additionally, his decimation of the flowers for Jim and Michelle's wedding in the same film is as a result of his incompetence in using technology as simple as a light switch (his flipping of random switches accidentally switches off the cooler keeping the flowers fresh). Stifler would seem to deserve special attention, however – he is three times embarrassed, none of which seem to have an underlying tech behind them: by drinking a cup of beer that Kevin has ejaculated into following fellatio with Vicky in the first film, by being peed on while wooing a freshman in the second film, and by being caught covered in cake and being licked in the crotch by dogs in the third film. This continual humiliation which does not come as a result of tech would seem to fly against my theory of the trilogy. But Stifler, if you will recall, is always presented as an outsider. He is popular, in that he hosts parties that are seemingly very popular, is capable of getting laid, however, he is always presented as being outside the primary group of friends of Jim, Kevin, Oz, and Finch (indeed at the end of the second act in “Pie”, Finch asks: “We were friends with Stifler?” Even these four do not see themselves as his friends, merely acquaintances.). Instead, Stifler has a number of people who watch his antics – he is seen entertaining the lacrosse team about Heather's possible sexual noises, gathering a crowd to make fun of Finch as he leaves the girl's restroom after putting laxative in his coffee, and uniting his football team in “Wedding” to make fun of Jim, but all of his bluster with these large groups of friends are largely one way – him telling jokes and other people watching and laughing. In this respect, Stifler is more like a blogger, tweeter, or message boarder. He has no real friends, only “followers”, in today's parlance. He is punished because he actually is technology, in a metaphorical sense. He chases after the kind of instant, self-gratification that has become so common in our interconnected society, and he is punished for it, until he begins to make real friends in “2”, and finally a worthy mate in “Wedding”. The first two films both feature a tracking shot following Stifler from room to room as he says hello to the respective party-goers, but he has no meaningful conversations with anyone he talks to, instead just resorting to witty, snippy, and snide comments – a sort of wiki-walk/commment hybrid.

If anything, the films make the statement that modern technology stands in the way of real intimacy and real relationships – though at the time the internet was limited, today it is possible to have an entire life on-line with seldom having to venture into the real world. “Pie” seems to take the stance that real life is better – for example, even though Jim is a stammering idiot around Nadia, she still has a thing for him. The films tell us one simple thing – people who use technology are made the worse for it, and those that choose a simpler, more social experience are made the better for it. In order to grow up, you gotta unplug, go out, and live a little.