I was speaking with the director of one
of my short form groups a few weeks ago, and we started talking about
how much we both want to see and do more longform in San Diego, and I
confessed my love of longform; namely all the different kinds of
forms and how they’re all useful, and how I want to see more groups
capable of improvising beyond form. I didn’t realize it, but I was
actually being interviewed, in a way. He asked me about different
forms that I knew, how long it would take to do them, etc. Then, he
asked me to teach his group some longform. He didn’t know anything
about longform, and I said I would love to teach some workshops on
longform. When I asked which one he wanted me to teach, he replied
with the words it seems everyone would love to hear, but no one
really wants to hear, “Whatever one you think is best.”
I’m certainly not an expert by any
means on longform. I’ve seen a bunch of it, taken a bunch of
classes, and asked as many questions of performers as possible, but
that doesn’t mean I know everything about it. (I asked one of the
Cook County Social Club members what their form was after a show, to
which he replied “It’s not so much a form as it is a style.”
Good luck to any other group trying to replicate their show, but no
improviser should ever get their hopes up for cloning success.) Now,
I do have a real love for longform – I love the things that it’s
capable of doing, by being free to really run, and I love the
philosophy associated with it that improvisers can actually be
artists and make something on-the-spot and meaningful. But I was
suddenly saddled with representing longform to a longform-naïve
group, and hopefully making it interesting enough to make them want
to do it again. Essentially, I was given two hours to introduce
longform, conceptually and functionally. The one thing I can applaud
the iO with teaching me that was more important than just how to
improvise was how to yearn for expression, but heck, it took me a
year of being there and almost a whole other year to begin to
comprehend that concept. How do you convey that kind of mindset and
teach a group how to longform in two hours? I feel that the two are
intertwined: you can’t really do a Harold until you appreciate the
“Theatre of the Heart”, and you can’t full comprehend formic
creation until you’ve done a few by the book Harolds.
Now, that crisis avoided (by sheer
virtue of probably being unable to convey it), now I have to decide
which form to teach. Which form sums up the entire longform
experience? Which one is the ultimate in inspiring creativity and
play? Which one has the most room for artistic expression? Which
one is easy? (I do only have two hours here, people.) Not to
mention I want one that will allow everyone the chance to experiment
around with it a bit (so Shotgun! and Dinner for Six are out) but
also won’t require any special new skills (so long Armando,
Orlando, and Eavesdropping). One that isn’t too complicated (sorry
Close Quarters and JTS Brown), but that also fits the style of this
particular group (Living Room, Deconstruction; gone, gone). Of
course, there’s always the mainstay of the Harold, but I always
feel like people who haven’t seen a few already seem a little
daunted by the Harold.
These two crises now in full place, I
thought about it in this way: if a group of aliens from another
galaxy descended on to earth after hearing about longform but only
having done shortform and only had two hours to learn before they had
to return home, what would you teach them? What single longform
structure and philosophy could you give them that they could take
back to their home planet so that they could start exploring longform
on their own? I spent a year studying in Chicago, and I only now
just feel like I could go to some completely unknown place and inject
new thought about improv.
Of course, I know that this will
probably not be my only chance to teach improv to this group, but I
can’t shake the feeling that this is my one chance to really get
this group started off down the right track. This single ideological
shift can change everything, if I can just get the points across
right. After all, I really could teach any form (that is to say,
there’s nothing stopping me), but I don’t want to teach just form
– I want to teach the mysterious force about long form in general
that I am so enamored with.
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