If we take the presumption that I have made and assume that small groups are capable of self organization, but also that each person will divine their own place, then what do these groups look like? Nobody tells these groups how to organize or what jobs they each will hold, but invariably each person will eventually find their own niche. Successful group dynamics do not arrive where everyone is doing the same job and eschewing other jobs. Somebody has to dig the ditch just as someone has to wear the suit. Even ant hills have workers, guards, caretakers, builders, etc. I did some research and have found what I believe are the classic group dynamics. Its important to remember that there is no dynamic hierarchy or status in these groups – they transcend status (or rather they have to, otherwise its not a lateral communication). So even though someone may play “leader” they're not actually a “boss”.
Two people.
Undoubtedly the simplest group structure. This is the bare minimum required to achieve a group mind, but each person has a lot to do in order for the group to function. At this level groups self organize into opposites: straight and absurd, extrovert and introvert, etc.. This basic “versus” interplay of two different points of view is central to the entire group organization from this point on, but it this level it is its most bare. Classically you've got Laurel & Hardy, Abbot & Costello, but more recently I point to Sheldon and Leonard from the “Big Bang Theory” or Michael & Michael from the web series “Black 20”. The straight man never points out the absurdity; they understand they can't change their friend, they just try to put the fires out.
Three people.
This level has the greatest difficulty in self organization, because the tendency is for it to devolve into a two on one situation – that is to say a pair and an other. The pair teams up and attacks the other, who has no chance, because he's outnumbered. This is an unestablished swarm. A group at this size now actually has options, but at minimum will organize into emotive, reason, and mediator figures. The driving figure is typically represented by the mediator; their role is to act as an inbetween for the two opposing view points in the rest of the trio (this is usually portrayed in fiction as an actual leader role, but it doesn't have to be). Think Alvin from the Chipmunks, Athos from the Three Musketeers, Moe from the Three Stooges. Reason is still playing the straight man, roughly, and is responsible for being the voice of reason, they look at the world in hard, clinical terms – objective and absolute. Reason is typically represented by an individual with high intelligence or unique skills, think Simon, Aramis, and Larry. Emotive is lead by his heart, easily swayed, gullible, and outgoing; think Theodore, Curly, and Porthos, respectively. The emotive is the humanist one – subjective, thinking about the moment at hand. Together, you have emotion, reason, and practical or in Freudian terms: id, superego, and ego, respectively.
Four people.
Logic would dictate that at this point any disagreements would result in stalemate, but in a 2006 study done by the University of Michigan, both three and four person groups reached unanimous decisions roughly the same amount of the time (about 75%). This means that four person hierarchy must develop so that all input is arranged in a way that the correct choice is the only logical one. Self organization yields the following roles: head, hands, heart, and feet. Hands is now the driving force: the leader, ambitious, passionate. Feet is now the voice of reason, he keeps the group grounded, and is calm, rational, and reliable. Heart is the group's cheerleader, responsible for being optimistic, extroverted, and enthusiastic. Head is kind, thoughtful, and creative – the think it through first and look at the angles kind of person. The Ghostbusters are undoubtedly the group to beat; Peter is the hand, Ray the heart (Peter even says “Ray Stanz, the heart of the Ghostbusters”), Egon the head, and Winston the feet. In American Pie, Kevin, Finch, Oz, and Jim are the hand, feet, heart, and head, respectively.
Five People and Up.
Five person dynamics are difficult, and from this point a definite focal point of leadership is almost required if only to act as a funnel for the group's energy to run through. Typically it's a leader, his right hand (who usually serves as an opposite to the leader, but is his friend, so notice again that we have the basic two man dynamic again), the strong, silent one, the smart one, and the heart. Best example is “The Goonies” - Mikey the leader, Mouth as his guy Friday, Brand as the strong big guy, Data as the smart one, and two people pulling the roll of the heart – Andy and Stef. Even better, “Star Wars”: Luke is the leader, Han his right hand (Luke is honorable to the cause, Han to the money – opposites), Chewie as the big guy, two robots as the smart ones, and Leia as the heart. Often the female – especially if there's only one – will be the heart of the group.
From this point on, jobs get more complex – generally the larger the group, the more complicated the dynamic, and the more doubling up of roles.
Special thanks to TVTropes.org for invaluable research and also for providing yet another avenue to burn hours upon hours of time that should have been spent actually writing this thing.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Swarm versus Eigen
So we've now made the presumption that improv groups need at least a degree of group mind in order to function, the question is how do we describe that organization? And more importantly, as I mentioned last week, true group mind is a sort of telepathic communication where all members think the same thing, all the time, and most definitely improv groups are not filled with cookie-cutter automatons, but individuals; each doing their own thing for the group. So what gives?
That concept of group mind that tends to get people all antsy is described by what is known as swarm theory. Swarm theory is based around a group of separate individuals that make up a decentralized, self-organized unit. Essentially, what would normally be a hot mess (say, a group of improvisers all trying to be funny), turns a single force, all bound under a common goal. One person doesn't pull the entire work on their own – responsibility is split evenly among all members, because there is no functional difference between different members of a group. Imagine an ant hill – individually, members are generally incapable of doing significant work, but together they can do all sorts of things. For the survival of the collective, each member must work together. (Alternatively, imagine “Ex Machina” from the end of “Matrix: Revolutions”: a bunch of little machines coming together to make the whole creature.) Each tiny piece plays a part in the entire machine that results in a singularly focused force. One of the keys to swarm function is that all communication is lateral, egalitarian – no single person is in charge. This basically describes the seed of what most people seem to think of as group mind in improv: a group of people working together for a common goal (ants build hives, we build scenes). In essence, this is what group mind all boils down to, in that we don't have a script and we need to be able to achieve a common goal in an efficient way.
My theory regarding group mind is a lot less swarm theory, and a lot more of hive dynamism.
The problem with using a paradigm of only swarm theory to describe an improv group is that we are not selfless, non-unique members of a hive, mostly due to the stochastic sampling effects of group size. Groups are limited by time (show length) and space (stage size) constraints, so for the group mind to emerge in your typically sized group, each member must understand what role they play in the big picture. (The corollary to my theory is that if it were theoretically possible to have a large enough improv group with most of the players on stage at once, swarm function would start to emerge again.) Part of why group mind still works is that everyone has a different role, but the group figures out what each person succeeds at, and everyone works together in a way that utilizes everybody's unique talents. Because we can't disperse the responsibility in a singular piece over a million improvisers, each member has to specialize in order to fill in the gaps. This explains the gap that allows group mind to form in typical organizations; the dynamism approach is a shorthand for reaching unification that isn't possible otherwise, and also not only uses, but takes advantage of, the differences between each other. Groups full of cookie-cutter improvisers aren't interesting to watch for the same reason that a tapestry of only one color isn't interesting to look at: you need the different colored threads - otherwise it's just a carpet.
One of my instructors said that of one of his teams that he always knew who would start each scene, and with what, because everyone kind of settled in the knowledge that, e.g. “John always initiates the first scene with a strong character”. His revelation was that one of his jobs was to find everybody's job, and break them out of it, which encourages the other members to fill in. I had a writing class one time, and in story-telling, you can't just eliminate an archetype from a story, they have to be replaced by someone. For example, in Star Wars, Obi-Wan is the mentor, but even though he is struck down, he hangs around making Luke feel like a schizophrenic, and then is replaced by Yoda. Essentially, you take one element out of the motif, and the motif changes to meet the new criteria. My point here is that you definitely don't want to get so settled into ruts within your group that people quit growing.
At the same time, there is a fair amount of joy to be found in a group where everybody knows their job, and does it. (The point of breaking people out their jobs is to ideally get them to improvise on a wholly different level – not just improvising dialogue, but literally improvising the art of improv every time, as in, let's improvise what our group jobs are. Just because a swarm member has a job doesn't mean that they have to do the same job all the time, just so long as someone does that job.) These roles we have (which also change from group too, pay attention between how you are from one group of friends to the next – you may find, as I have, that I'm essentially the same person, but a slightly different version, then again, maybe it's all relative) are essential to the group dynamic; how each person fits into the group. Groups are flexible to additions as well – you just have to figure out how your threads fit into the tapestry.
That concept of group mind that tends to get people all antsy is described by what is known as swarm theory. Swarm theory is based around a group of separate individuals that make up a decentralized, self-organized unit. Essentially, what would normally be a hot mess (say, a group of improvisers all trying to be funny), turns a single force, all bound under a common goal. One person doesn't pull the entire work on their own – responsibility is split evenly among all members, because there is no functional difference between different members of a group. Imagine an ant hill – individually, members are generally incapable of doing significant work, but together they can do all sorts of things. For the survival of the collective, each member must work together. (Alternatively, imagine “Ex Machina” from the end of “Matrix: Revolutions”: a bunch of little machines coming together to make the whole creature.) Each tiny piece plays a part in the entire machine that results in a singularly focused force. One of the keys to swarm function is that all communication is lateral, egalitarian – no single person is in charge. This basically describes the seed of what most people seem to think of as group mind in improv: a group of people working together for a common goal (ants build hives, we build scenes). In essence, this is what group mind all boils down to, in that we don't have a script and we need to be able to achieve a common goal in an efficient way.
My theory regarding group mind is a lot less swarm theory, and a lot more of hive dynamism.
The problem with using a paradigm of only swarm theory to describe an improv group is that we are not selfless, non-unique members of a hive, mostly due to the stochastic sampling effects of group size. Groups are limited by time (show length) and space (stage size) constraints, so for the group mind to emerge in your typically sized group, each member must understand what role they play in the big picture. (The corollary to my theory is that if it were theoretically possible to have a large enough improv group with most of the players on stage at once, swarm function would start to emerge again.) Part of why group mind still works is that everyone has a different role, but the group figures out what each person succeeds at, and everyone works together in a way that utilizes everybody's unique talents. Because we can't disperse the responsibility in a singular piece over a million improvisers, each member has to specialize in order to fill in the gaps. This explains the gap that allows group mind to form in typical organizations; the dynamism approach is a shorthand for reaching unification that isn't possible otherwise, and also not only uses, but takes advantage of, the differences between each other. Groups full of cookie-cutter improvisers aren't interesting to watch for the same reason that a tapestry of only one color isn't interesting to look at: you need the different colored threads - otherwise it's just a carpet.
One of my instructors said that of one of his teams that he always knew who would start each scene, and with what, because everyone kind of settled in the knowledge that, e.g. “John always initiates the first scene with a strong character”. His revelation was that one of his jobs was to find everybody's job, and break them out of it, which encourages the other members to fill in. I had a writing class one time, and in story-telling, you can't just eliminate an archetype from a story, they have to be replaced by someone. For example, in Star Wars, Obi-Wan is the mentor, but even though he is struck down, he hangs around making Luke feel like a schizophrenic, and then is replaced by Yoda. Essentially, you take one element out of the motif, and the motif changes to meet the new criteria. My point here is that you definitely don't want to get so settled into ruts within your group that people quit growing.
At the same time, there is a fair amount of joy to be found in a group where everybody knows their job, and does it. (The point of breaking people out their jobs is to ideally get them to improvise on a wholly different level – not just improvising dialogue, but literally improvising the art of improv every time, as in, let's improvise what our group jobs are. Just because a swarm member has a job doesn't mean that they have to do the same job all the time, just so long as someone does that job.) These roles we have (which also change from group too, pay attention between how you are from one group of friends to the next – you may find, as I have, that I'm essentially the same person, but a slightly different version, then again, maybe it's all relative) are essential to the group dynamic; how each person fits into the group. Groups are flexible to additions as well – you just have to figure out how your threads fit into the tapestry.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The X-Men Factor Part II
How groups fit together is a weird thing, and often the difference between an “OK” group and an “Awesome!” group comes down to how the members play together. The group I assembled keeps beaming about the fact that the team just kind of gelled perfectly, and that everyone gets along real well. (I have also been commended for my ability to pick a group that right out of the gate worked out, but I'm not one to brag. As a better improviser than I once said, “Don’t pick the funniest or the cutest or the coolest...pick the people you wouldn’t mind getting stuck in an elevator with.”)
The title of this essay (and the last one, for those of you paying attention) pays homage to the X-Men, and for good reason, the most important of which is that when discussing team dynamics, you can't invoke any member of the DC universe. When you have Superman, who is essentially a god on this planet, fighting next to the Green Lantern, who once destroyed and remade the universe, standing next to the Flash who can run through matter and time, all being glowered over by the Batman, who can defeat all of them, you're not really looking at people who really need to fight side by side as a team. The DCU probably better describes stand-up comedians, as that's an art form that really shows off how awesome a person is by themselves, whereas improv is all about teamwork.
The X-Men, even though Nightcrawler could take on an entire battalion, Iceman I once saw get a hole blown through his stomach, and Wolverine can, apparently, do anything, is much more about teamwork. They're not invincible (except Wolverine), they're not all powerful (except Wolverine), and they do appear to actually need each other (except Wolverine). Because they each can't do everything all alone, they rely on each other to work together to see their way around obstacles. They figure out ways that their powers complement each other to solve problems. But you see these kind of dynamics in all aspects of story-telling, across all mediums and times where a group of people work together: members of a team aren't all about being cookie-cutter carbon copies with no discerning features. (A great example of this is “Porky's”, which has about a dozen friends, but only three of them really stand out from each other.) A good improv group has group mind, and the power of five minds working in concert is way stronger than any of them as individuals – a much better match to the X-Men.
The concept of “group mind” gets thrown around a lot, and its the idea that the members of a group are all plugged in to some common consciousness that informs their individual decisions. If everyone is trying to do their own thing to get from “A” to “B”, the group as a whole will never get there. The zero sum effect of everyone pulling in their own direction results in nothing getting accomplished. Imagine a Viking Ship where all the oarsmen could row their oars in any direction. Without a big Viking to come in and command them to all row in time and direction with each other, that poor knarr would never go anywhere and some little English hamlets would go unplundered. Of course in improv, the idea of someone coming in and taking control is against the concept. Instead an improv group is supposed to work like a headless swarm. The big Viking in this case is group mind, a voice followed by all the members of the team that keeps the ship on course. The idea of group mind is usually met by either fear or skepticism for seeming a little new agey. The big reason in my mind as to why group mind terrifies people is the same reason that “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” terrifies people: the idea of an army with no discernable features or individuality is the exact opposite to the celebration of the individual that is so common in western cultures. Drones strip away free thought, making the individuals unimportant compared to the group, but more importantly, they dissolve love and sorrow, which we feel makes us human.
(As a particularly interesting demonstration of some kind of group mind in the real world, my research into this topic coincided with an article by Bill Arnett on the subject and the concept coming up in a recent “Dollhouse” episode I watched.)
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Winner is...
Well, there was only one person playing, but the winner of SMSD's "Guess the Archtype" game is Jessica in Chicago! Over here (->) is me presenting you with your prize: a free SMSD t-shirt (we'll work on getting it to you later)!
Generally very close all around: Andy is very leading man, but not Hispanic. Maddy and Marc were spot on (in my opinion). Alex never plays gay characters - very much the typical straight man (meant in both definitions). Jason I don't think has ever made a joke about Batman.
New essay to be posted later this week, but until then, feel free to comment or ask questions below.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The X-Men Factor
Last month, I was in Bloomington, IN for an alcohol toxicology course, and shortly after I arrived, the program director gave a brief orientation, where it was revealed that the local college, Indiana University (A campus I would describe as “Harry Potter” meets Gap commercial – old, very English castle-like buildings, and not an ugly person on campus. I seriously believe you have to submit a head shot when you apply.) was home to over 50,000 students. As I realized that colleges are one of the biggest breeding grounds for improv groups, a quick search yielded IU's premier improv group: Awkward Silences. I was pretty excited about getting to see a new group that quite frankly I would probably never get to see ever again, but my second discovery was that it was the week before finals, so sadly no show the week I was there.
I did check out their website though, and I found a cast page where I discovered what I believe is an exciting new improv game: Guess the Archetype. An archetype is a system in writing where characters are essentially filled in by generalizations. For example, in “Star Wars”, Luke is the hero, the Emperor the villain, Obi-Wan the mentor, etc. An archetype is essentially a job in a story: someone may be a unique character, but when it comes down to it, he is the “comic relief” (or whatever) to the story. One of my theories regarding improv groups is that each member is a unique element, a specialized cog even, in the greater machine. Each one, though they may play different characters on stage – from goofy to heart-wrenching – in the tapestry of the group they each have a different role. Think about your group of friends (or maybe even the cast of a TV show or movie that is an ensemble piece) and you can figure out which one is the horn dog, the jester, the wallflower, etc. My point is that once an improv group hits its stride, that blessed Group Mind running in full, six-cylindered harmony – you can figure out what each person brings to the group, i.e. what role they play. This often carries over into scenes, where you can usually guess what each person is going to do for a scene or piece. Part of it is just the shorthand way we deal with the world – our own personal comfort zone.
So I found myself looking at the cast page, and tried to figure out, based just on a minimal amount of bio information and a head shot, what each person was in the group machine. (I encourage you to check it out too: http://www.awkwardsilencecomedy.com/) Here's my guesses, and if anyone from IU, or better yet the Awkward Silences ever reads this, tell me how I did:
Sean Liston – Leading man. Probably plays bosses, cops, presidents, teachers a lot. Classic straight man/hero.
Anthony Smith – The smart one. High reference level, puns, big words. Dry, yet goofy sense of humor.
Ben Gagnon – The horn dog. Lots of dirty humor, sex jokes, curse words. Every character he plays is normal, just dirty.
Layne Dixon – Leading lady. Plays a lot of sweet, nice characters; wives, girlfriends, mothers. Very cute.
Ryan Brown – Party animal. Plays his scenes the most physical of the male members.
Dan Haddad – The lovable oaf. Funny, easy-going sense of humor, sprinkled with a fair amount of nerdy, probably superhero, references.
Blair Dietrick – The quirky girl. Plays a lot of strange, quirky characters with accents and physicality – the whole works.
As an added bonus, I'm providing Guess the Archetype: Home Edition. Recently added to the Stage Monkeys San Diego Facebook page are five head shots of the current members, so to everyone reading, I want you to go on, take a look, and see if you can guess what each person brings to the group (what their archetype is), and leave it in the comments section here. Winner is the person I feel has correctly identified the most correct roles. Check back here in two weeks to see who the winner is, and thanks for playing!
I did check out their website though, and I found a cast page where I discovered what I believe is an exciting new improv game: Guess the Archetype. An archetype is a system in writing where characters are essentially filled in by generalizations. For example, in “Star Wars”, Luke is the hero, the Emperor the villain, Obi-Wan the mentor, etc. An archetype is essentially a job in a story: someone may be a unique character, but when it comes down to it, he is the “comic relief” (or whatever) to the story. One of my theories regarding improv groups is that each member is a unique element, a specialized cog even, in the greater machine. Each one, though they may play different characters on stage – from goofy to heart-wrenching – in the tapestry of the group they each have a different role. Think about your group of friends (or maybe even the cast of a TV show or movie that is an ensemble piece) and you can figure out which one is the horn dog, the jester, the wallflower, etc. My point is that once an improv group hits its stride, that blessed Group Mind running in full, six-cylindered harmony – you can figure out what each person brings to the group, i.e. what role they play. This often carries over into scenes, where you can usually guess what each person is going to do for a scene or piece. Part of it is just the shorthand way we deal with the world – our own personal comfort zone.
So I found myself looking at the cast page, and tried to figure out, based just on a minimal amount of bio information and a head shot, what each person was in the group machine. (I encourage you to check it out too: http://www.awkwardsilencecomedy.com/) Here's my guesses, and if anyone from IU, or better yet the Awkward Silences ever reads this, tell me how I did:
Sean Liston – Leading man. Probably plays bosses, cops, presidents, teachers a lot. Classic straight man/hero.
Anthony Smith – The smart one. High reference level, puns, big words. Dry, yet goofy sense of humor.
Ben Gagnon – The horn dog. Lots of dirty humor, sex jokes, curse words. Every character he plays is normal, just dirty.
Layne Dixon – Leading lady. Plays a lot of sweet, nice characters; wives, girlfriends, mothers. Very cute.
Ryan Brown – Party animal. Plays his scenes the most physical of the male members.
Dan Haddad – The lovable oaf. Funny, easy-going sense of humor, sprinkled with a fair amount of nerdy, probably superhero, references.
Blair Dietrick – The quirky girl. Plays a lot of strange, quirky characters with accents and physicality – the whole works.
As an added bonus, I'm providing Guess the Archetype: Home Edition. Recently added to the Stage Monkeys San Diego Facebook page are five head shots of the current members, so to everyone reading, I want you to go on, take a look, and see if you can guess what each person brings to the group (what their archetype is), and leave it in the comments section here. Winner is the person I feel has correctly identified the most correct roles. Check back here in two weeks to see who the winner is, and thanks for playing!
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Harold
This week's post is in response to the Matt Krell from Alabama (I think. That's where he was the last time I checked, about two years ago, so I guess he's still there. Holla back Krell.) Matt wants to know just what is the Harold, and while I could link to it and save myself the time, this gives me chance to prep my notes in advance of teaching it to my group out here in the SD.
The Harold is the de facto longform; longform being the kind of improv that lasts longer than 3 minutes, and usually involves weaving multiple scenes together into a single, contiguous piece, but can also just be improvising a single scene for long periods of time without gimmicks – just straight-up long distance running of scenework. (A more in depth of longform would be an essay in and of itself. Stay tuned.) The Harold was originally developed by Del Close in the sixties while he was with The Committee in San Francisco. The piece was actually visualized as what it was going to do well before anyone figured out how to do it. (The name was attached to it this point, and was apparently a point of contention for Close; selected by the theater's pianist as reference to a Beatles' quote. Close considered renaming it later but decided not to to avoid confusion.) The Harold was envisioned as a platform for improvising scenes, games, songs, etc. as a full on non-stop performance piece, with the various parts seamlessly working together “like the members of a jazz band.” Essentially, everything is tied around some central theme, and everyone just riffs on that – a means of exploring and elevating common eccentricities and finding that they are grandiose and connected to epic ideas.
The Harold toiled like this for quite a while, as Close did know what it should be, he just didn't know how to make the whole thing work. The breakthrough was while watching a shortform game called “Time Dash” that involved a scene jumping forward and backward in time to see how relationships changed. The design of the Harold then became built around the idea of starting several scenes and then jumping around so that concepts from the other scenes could play into each other – essentially starting with disparate story lines and then watching them slowly weave together until they were all talking about the same thing. The formal Harold has three beats, and each beat has three scenes (for a total of 9 scenes throughout the entire piece). The first scenes in each beat are connected, as are the second scenes, etc. Each beat is separated by a “group game”, which is just an everybody out on stage and let's goof around a bit so that we can kind of reset for the next beat kind of thing. Cap it with an opening and a conclusion, and the end result is, in order:
OPENING/SCENES 1A, 2A, 3A/GAME/SCENES 1B, 2B, 3B/GAME/SCENES 1C, 2C, 3C/ENDING
(Apologies for the lack of graphic representation; I couldn't even find a good one through Google, but there are bound to be some good ones out there.) Often times, the third beat (“C” in my display) will be a merging of all the scenes, but not necessarily. The important thing here is that the Harold is meant to be a platform for the exploration of ideas because it's repetitive nature encourages exploring similar ideas rather than spiraling away. You can think of this as a road map – and one that you will be infinitely grateful for when you realize you go for thirty minutes without stopping. The Harold is significant in my mind for a few reasons: a) nearly every improviser on the planet has started doing longform with the Harold and b) understand the Harold, and most of the next level of difficulty of forms comes easy, because they are all built on the Harold's blueprint. But one of the greatest things about the Harold is that it really is actually simple once you've done a few of them, which means it's quite open to improvise on the structure of the Harold itself. So, fellow Harolders – happy hunting in the great exploratory world of the Harold.
Further reading: definitely "Truth in Comedy", or just Google "Harold". Got improv questions? Leave them in the comments section below or email stagemonkeyssandiego@gmail.com.
The Harold is the de facto longform; longform being the kind of improv that lasts longer than 3 minutes, and usually involves weaving multiple scenes together into a single, contiguous piece, but can also just be improvising a single scene for long periods of time without gimmicks – just straight-up long distance running of scenework. (A more in depth of longform would be an essay in and of itself. Stay tuned.) The Harold was originally developed by Del Close in the sixties while he was with The Committee in San Francisco. The piece was actually visualized as what it was going to do well before anyone figured out how to do it. (The name was attached to it this point, and was apparently a point of contention for Close; selected by the theater's pianist as reference to a Beatles' quote. Close considered renaming it later but decided not to to avoid confusion.) The Harold was envisioned as a platform for improvising scenes, games, songs, etc. as a full on non-stop performance piece, with the various parts seamlessly working together “like the members of a jazz band.” Essentially, everything is tied around some central theme, and everyone just riffs on that – a means of exploring and elevating common eccentricities and finding that they are grandiose and connected to epic ideas.
The Harold toiled like this for quite a while, as Close did know what it should be, he just didn't know how to make the whole thing work. The breakthrough was while watching a shortform game called “Time Dash” that involved a scene jumping forward and backward in time to see how relationships changed. The design of the Harold then became built around the idea of starting several scenes and then jumping around so that concepts from the other scenes could play into each other – essentially starting with disparate story lines and then watching them slowly weave together until they were all talking about the same thing. The formal Harold has three beats, and each beat has three scenes (for a total of 9 scenes throughout the entire piece). The first scenes in each beat are connected, as are the second scenes, etc. Each beat is separated by a “group game”, which is just an everybody out on stage and let's goof around a bit so that we can kind of reset for the next beat kind of thing. Cap it with an opening and a conclusion, and the end result is, in order:
OPENING/SCENES 1A, 2A, 3A/GAME/SCENES 1B, 2B, 3B/GAME/SCENES 1C, 2C, 3C/ENDING
(Apologies for the lack of graphic representation; I couldn't even find a good one through Google, but there are bound to be some good ones out there.) Often times, the third beat (“C” in my display) will be a merging of all the scenes, but not necessarily. The important thing here is that the Harold is meant to be a platform for the exploration of ideas because it's repetitive nature encourages exploring similar ideas rather than spiraling away. You can think of this as a road map – and one that you will be infinitely grateful for when you realize you go for thirty minutes without stopping. The Harold is significant in my mind for a few reasons: a) nearly every improviser on the planet has started doing longform with the Harold and b) understand the Harold, and most of the next level of difficulty of forms comes easy, because they are all built on the Harold's blueprint. But one of the greatest things about the Harold is that it really is actually simple once you've done a few of them, which means it's quite open to improvise on the structure of the Harold itself. So, fellow Harolders – happy hunting in the great exploratory world of the Harold.
Further reading: definitely "Truth in Comedy", or just Google "Harold". Got improv questions? Leave them in the comments section below or email stagemonkeyssandiego@gmail.com.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Harold Sacrifice
I've been trying to book my group's first show for the last few weeks, and in the SD, there are very few places to choose from, and most of them want way too much for a group with a fan base you can count on one hand and a show budget of $0. One of the places I called was run by a very nice guy, who when I said “improv group”, instantly perked up, and wanted to know all about what kind of improv we do, what kind I've studied, etc. (Some people like this kind of questioning as interest, but for some reason I feel that some improvisers around here treat it more like an interrogation so that they feel like they know more about improv than you do.) He also wanted to make sure that we wouldn't go blue, which I assured him in a very diplomatic way that we don't go blue without actually saying “I hate cursing”. He also tried to pitch me on the San Francisco improv workshops as a great way to learn linear, narrative improv, and said that it was better than Chicago. I bit my lip, because after all I want this guy to let us have shows there; sorry man, but I'm an iO Chicago guy all the way, so that kind of talk is like insulting my Alma Mater (and I don't even have that strong of an opinion about my real Alma Mater). I also tried to repress the fact that I have been taught linear, narrative improv at the iO; they're no slouches. But he did have reasoning: their in house improv team has tried doing Harold's and the like in the past and has found that the audiences respond better to improvised plays than they do the more “artistic” forms.
About a week later, I met up with some longform improvisers from Lafayette, LA at an improv meet-up, and they seemed to echo the other guy's sentiment. When they do Harolds back home, they explain the entire structure of the Harold to the audience before performing it like they would a shortform game, to which I said, “You're doing too much explaining.” They claimed the same issue – if they just did the form, then the audience seemed confused, but apparently by giving a sort of map at the start of the show then they could follow it. Both different parties claimed that probably in Chicago, someone could do a Harold and not explain the improv particulars to the audience and it still work because the Chicago improv watching crowd was just more savvy when it came to improv. (Congratulations Chicago people – other parts of the country think you're infinitely smarter when it comes to improv than audiences anywhere else!) Now I find it hard to believe that people in SD or Lafayette just “don't get it”. I invited my whole master's program to see one of my shows, and while they are all very smart people when it comes to science, none of them know theater that well, much less improv, and none of them came up later and asked me to explain anything (and we were doing forms that my class had invented – they should have been more confused!) In fact, they only came up and quoted me from the show (in fact they still do – I'll get a Facebook wall post from time to time with my line in it.) The typical iO intro will only say that each group is going to go for about thirty minutes and will improvise scenes, games, or songs based on a suggestion from the audience, and while I would agree that on some nights there was a lot of improvising students in the audience, I can't believe that the entire audience was only getting it because they were students of the art of improv (or perhaps because they came and watched improv shows all the time).
Del Close said that we can't blame the audience for a bad show – especially for “not getting it”, because audiences are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Often times, he said, they get it before the players do. So do we really have to sacrifice the Harold? Granted, it is the first form that most improvisers do, so as a result it's often the first one to go as they become more experienced, but if we eschew the Harold, won't we just start to get rid of the other ones too? Sure improvised narratives are fun (and they probably are, I admit, more accessible), but when we limit ourselves, we're sort of being anti-improv, and I think the audience is smart enough that we don't have to hold their hand.
About a week later, I met up with some longform improvisers from Lafayette, LA at an improv meet-up, and they seemed to echo the other guy's sentiment. When they do Harolds back home, they explain the entire structure of the Harold to the audience before performing it like they would a shortform game, to which I said, “You're doing too much explaining.” They claimed the same issue – if they just did the form, then the audience seemed confused, but apparently by giving a sort of map at the start of the show then they could follow it. Both different parties claimed that probably in Chicago, someone could do a Harold and not explain the improv particulars to the audience and it still work because the Chicago improv watching crowd was just more savvy when it came to improv. (Congratulations Chicago people – other parts of the country think you're infinitely smarter when it comes to improv than audiences anywhere else!) Now I find it hard to believe that people in SD or Lafayette just “don't get it”. I invited my whole master's program to see one of my shows, and while they are all very smart people when it comes to science, none of them know theater that well, much less improv, and none of them came up later and asked me to explain anything (and we were doing forms that my class had invented – they should have been more confused!) In fact, they only came up and quoted me from the show (in fact they still do – I'll get a Facebook wall post from time to time with my line in it.) The typical iO intro will only say that each group is going to go for about thirty minutes and will improvise scenes, games, or songs based on a suggestion from the audience, and while I would agree that on some nights there was a lot of improvising students in the audience, I can't believe that the entire audience was only getting it because they were students of the art of improv (or perhaps because they came and watched improv shows all the time).
Del Close said that we can't blame the audience for a bad show – especially for “not getting it”, because audiences are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Often times, he said, they get it before the players do. So do we really have to sacrifice the Harold? Granted, it is the first form that most improvisers do, so as a result it's often the first one to go as they become more experienced, but if we eschew the Harold, won't we just start to get rid of the other ones too? Sure improvised narratives are fun (and they probably are, I admit, more accessible), but when we limit ourselves, we're sort of being anti-improv, and I think the audience is smart enough that we don't have to hold their hand.
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