Pieces of the Whole

I overheard one of the local improv teachers here give the following advice to a student: “shortform is for the audience, longform is for the improvisers”, which is a very distressing argument for a teacher to make and is, while very ignorant, one that comes up time and time again as an occasionally legitimate argument against longform improvisations: longform is a artistic device where nothing happens.

The AV Club published a very interesting article that explored the modern style of storytelling in some of the more “acclaimed” programming (e.g. Breaking Bad, Luck, The Sopranos). The way seasons, and in some cases, entire shows are divined now to reward sustained and completist viewing of seasons – the emphasis has shifted the emphasis to how an episode fits into the greater picture of the show. This is very similar to the way we think longform should work: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A great longform piece is enriched by the order and placement of the pieces therein, elevating it in meaning and purpose. But this means that we may sacrifice making those parts worthwhile in name of focusing on the “bigger message”. This precocious, and dare I say pretentious approach to creating is what threatens to drag any unit of art down.

Shortform's strength is also it's greatest weakness: a slavish amount of attention heaped on a single game, that comes at the expense of fitting it into the fabric of the larger piece. Shortform is as guilty of being shortsighted as longform is of being farsighted in this respect. We spend an inordinate amount of attention in a Harold trying to say “the something” that we can potentially hobble the entire production. This slavish devotion to perfection in the piece is an admirable and lofty goal, but the focus must always be on the present. The great improv questions of 1) if this is true, what else is true, and 2) if this is true, why is it true suddenly become more about the entire act of improvising, rather than just tools to play good scenes. (Del even said that the end is in the beginning.)

An over-attention to detail, one that is meticulous, even compulsive and obsessive, can derail attempts to be experimentative and explorative, stagnating innovation. The entire piece should be reflective, not the scenes. The scenes should be concrete, and something should happen in each and every one of them. These concrete blocks build on each other to create something meaningful – hollow, empty bricks build nothing of significance.

So how did we get here? Well, I have to agree with the AV Club's conclusion that “creating a lengthy, layered narrative is really fucking hard.” People like that teacher up there have no doubt seen some improv group that got in their own way of having fun in the moment and got caught up in being profound, which groups will do as they learn to master the craft. You see those kinds of shows in an audience mostly full of improvisers, because improvisers are far more forgiving of an ambitious move that completely fails than a typical non-improviser audience would be. But you don't get to the point of being able to tell deeper stories by refusing to take the risk.

A Writer's World

In An Evening with Kevin Smith, Smith said something along the lines of “the writer creates his ideal world when he writes.” For him then, he said that apparently in his ideal world, people have endless conversations about pop culture and relationships. By that same token, in Tarantino’s world, violent criminals wax philosophic and then maim each other, and in Scorsese’s criminals try desperately to keep a clear conscience in the face of doing bad things for family. Pretty cool actually. The writer allows us a brief peek into not how he sees the world, but how he wishes the world could be.

I’ve read and heard a number of times, from countless sources, that the improviser is more than just an actor in a play. The improviser is the actor, director, editor, stuntman, costume designer, set designer, and writer all in one, doing every conceivable action simultaneously. Well, if we’re technically writing our play, in the moment, then by extension of the previous corollary, then we are also showing the audience our ideal world (albeit a mutually agreed upon and group derived ideal world). This is one of the things that propels improv from just jokey stuff into a much more meaningful experience. Or as Jason Chin once said, “You have to have an opinion about what you’re talking about.” It’s not enough to merely explore mousetraps (very basic scenes; I mean, how many scenes can we have about mousetraps?) we need to explore what mousetraps are symbolic of (I don’t know, stifled domestic life?) but also to have an opinion about it. The audience doesn’t necessarily have to agree with it, but that’s okay, because stuff that you’re opinionated and passionate about makes for great improv.

Now, what I’ve said is no big revelation. I haven’t exposed any great mysteries about improv, or art, or life (not the least of which because I don’t presuppose to have any). But here’s what is important; the first rule of writing is “write what you know”, so the improv corollary is “improvise what you know”. It’s not really a big surprise that most improv pieces revolve around relationships and superheroes; look who is improvising them. When I was playing with my college group, we invented and modified a number of games to make them more superhero-esque. Why? Because were a bunch of comic book nerds. That’s what interested us. My San Diego group, the Ugly Truth, struggled for a little bit when we tried to experiment with more slow, dramatic improvised scene work. Obviously, things weren’t going well because we weren’t improvising what we liked. Show me an improv group that is struggling with a new form or technique, and I’ll guarantee that they’re doing something they don’t enjoy.

Without a doubt, I’m a big advocate of fun first when it comes to improv. A group that is enjoying what they’re doing will be immensely more watchable than a team that is doing something meaningful and hating every minute of it. Or rather, we’re not all Scorsese or Tarantino, some of us are just Smith. Find, as a group, what you enjoy, are passionate about, and interested in, and the rest will follow suit.