Five Things Revisited

I've talked previously about a “trademark” game and about how this game was sort of the pinnacle of why longformers hate shortform because this simple “three” minute (in actuality a 7-8 minute) game takes upwards of 15 minutes to get set up (seriously, time it next chance you get). I was perhaps a bit harsh on this game. All of the things I talked about previously still stand, and I do still think that it takes forever to get the funny, but this game is not entirely without its merits. In fact, by removing nearly every inch of room to actually improvise in by burying the performers in suggestions, the game is as bare-bones as an improv game can be, and as a result, it bears open the two basic tenets of fun, successful improv in a way no other game ever has.

So the game, for those who didn’t read/remember my previous piece, runs down like this. Get five activities from the audience, exchange out elements of each activity with wacky things (He’s snowboarding, but the snowboard is a car, and he’s wearing a porcupine. Hilarious, and wacky.) and the other players have to clue him into the activity through pantomime and gibberish. So the first concept that the game readily shows off is one of audience transposition. You see, when the audience gives a suggestion (especially in a shortform show) they already have a pretty good idea of what that suggestion means to them. (This may be the reason that longform struggles against shortform. On a deeper subconscious level, audiences recognize that they only get to say one thing for a thirty minute show, and their “one thing” may only show up tangentially, at best.)

The moment the suggestion is accepted, everyone is subconsciously forming their idea of what that will look like. Now audiences don’t perform, and most don’t even want to perform (Hence, an audience. It would be something else otherwise.) for whatever reasons. Afraid of being laughed at, making a fool of themselves, etc. But instead of them doing it, they live vicariously through the performers. They want to see their theories confirmed, which is as simple as just doing it.

The second part to this pillar is one of character consistency. One of the popular theories (ideas? philosophies?) that is being taught in workshops is one having to do with characters: basically, when a performer plays a character, people want to see that character continue being himself, regardless of the consequences. Or, “oh, that is so something blank would say/do”. Comedy, at least as far as the theory goes, comes from this character constantly confirming his identity to the audience. They laugh because they see him being open and honest about himself. They don’t laugh when the performer does something out of character and thus denies his identity. They are constantly forming an opinion of this character subconsciously, and they want to see him fit their mental image.

The second pillar is an even simpler one, and its one of performer effort. At the same time audiences recognize (generally speaking) that they don’t want to be on stage, they appreciate the fact that we are. They like rooting for us, sure, but they also love watching us struggle. They love seeing performers confronted with some outrageous situation struggling to get their arms around it. And they love to watch performers getting frustrated against the rules of the universe. There’s a game I see sometimes where reporters are interviewing someone, and they keep getting lost/confused/stuck on strange points, and the interviewer gets increasingly frustrated trying to correct them. Same principle.

Do you realize how awesome this is for us as performers? These two pillars basically say that audiences want to see us take the obvious choice and love to watch us work to get there. Performers take heart: confirm their suspicions and fight like hell, and there’s a terrific chance the audience will love it. Almost makes all that set up worthwhile. Almost.

Special Affects

One summer before college (probably 2002), my friends and I got together and hung out, and one of us (I think my friend Harrison) brought along a blue foam paddle. I don't know where he got it, or why he had it, but we discovered a wonderful game, of which the only rule was: hit each other with said paddle. While not a complicated game, it was a whole bunch of fun, and we set about boxing each other around with this thing, smacking each other wherever, with the other goal being to catch someone when they weren't expecting it. Now, I should point out, these paddle hits weren't painful – in actuality, they were little more than mildly irritating, but that didn't stop us from howling in (faux) pain every time we were socked with it. My friend Josh and I were both working at the movie theater, and this being a rare night when neither of us were working, and this also being one of those dog summer days when we actually had all night to do anything, and had planned on doing nothing, we ended up trucking down to the theater anyway to say hi to our fellow employees slaving away. We brought along the blue foam paddle, as this game was nary three hours old, and had nowhere near lost its luster. When we got there, we ran into Genghis (so named because he got a hold of the name tag maker and made himself a name tag that said as much), who seemed interested in our game, but upon being hit once with it, remarked that it didn't hurt. That poor blue paddle went into retirement that instant, and we never played that game again.

Our game had been deflated by someone who poked a hole in our logic – there was simply no point in playing a game that had so summarily had it's effects removed. And this point is a singularly destructive element that can cripple scenes: stimuli must affect change. Hitting each other with that blue paddle, we all now knew, would be fruitless, so what was the point? Similarly, two characters in a scene who are not affecting change are going through the motions (pointless, blue paddle motions). It's been called the “ABC's” by multiple writers and instructors: Always Be Changing. The bottom line though is that a cause has to create an effect – that's how the human brain works; we're always looking for causal relationships in the universe, but in an improv scene, there is actual opportunity for someone to break down a causality by not reacting (or, usually, reacting in a way that actor has deemed as “funny”, which is a hollow choice). For our blue paddle, the hit elicited howls from the target, and once we knew that it was just an act, it no longer seemed interesting – prior to that, with the veil still pulled, we could pretend that the affect was honest.

The so-called modern “existentialist” dilemma can be drawn back to a feeling that we are ineffectual in our worlds. (In “Something Wonderful Right Away”, Del even says that the improviser lives out the existential choices on stage.) In existentialism, we, as the individual, are ultimately responsible for providing our own lives with meaning, and living that life authentically – which is to say, passionately and sincerely, and for expressing ourselves. When we inhabit lives that are ultimately ineffectual, or feel meaningless or pointless, we are encountering those prevailing forces. I think of it this way: when you use a computer, you feel productive. You can type documents, surf the web, or listen to music, and we feel fulfilled in the use of the computer. However, when you click on a button and the computer freezes (I'm talking no hourglass/spinning pinwheel), what do we do? You click the button again a bunch of times. It doesn't make sense to our human brains that the clicking didn't produce an effect (because in all other cases, a click did produce an effect – maybe we missed?). So when you're in a scene and someone drops a bombshell like “I want a divorce” we expect to see some effect. It violates the audience's known existence for it not to.

When I see the dreaded transaction (salesman/customer or teacher/student) scene not working, I see ridiculous offers and ridiculous responses that don't seem to match, and I see two characters not reacting. That's it, bottom line – no mysteries here. Want to have scenes with life? Pick an offer and be changed by it; have a strong reaction to it. The more honest the better, but really any reaction is better than no reaction. When fire touches paper, we'd be bored if it didn't do anything, we're interested when it bursts in to flame and is reduced to ash. (If your a twelve year old boy, you then want to see other things be affected by flame). Our whole universe is built on reactions, A and B meet, and C happens. This is important, and should not be overwritten.