Drink the Electric Kool Aid

I’m currently reading a book called “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test”, by Tom Wolfe, and I feel it’s a happy coincidence that I’m reading it on the tail end of reading “Lamb or The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal”. (It should probably be noted at this point that I am, in fact, a heathen.) I say happy coincidence, because the two texts echo each other in the search for a certain divine thread that holds the whole of life in the universe together. “Electric” is all about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, who, during the sixties were at the forefront of the psychotropic movement. They lived in a little communal in La Honda, CA and spent their time doing extraordinary amounts of LSD, DMT (DMT is extreme psychotropic by anyone’s standards. To reference the book, LSD is like “taking a long journey”, whereas DMT is like “being shot out of a cannon), amphetamines, weed, and any other pharmaceutical they could get their hands on and chanting, meditating, and being their way to some sort of consciousness. “Lamb” on the other hand, is a comical telling of the 18 years in Christ’s life that are left out of the Bible, as seen by his best friend, Biff. Christ makes his way through Afghanistan, China, and India, talking to various holy and spiritual men trying to understand the nature of being. Whereas the Pranksters would have probably just taken some acid spiked O.J., Christ explores it through meditation.

Now, I say again happy coincidence because both books are concerned with the concept of breaking through our own mental, physical, and metaphysical barriers that limit our view of the world and make us petty, spiteful, greedy creatures and trying to push beyond into a grand consciousness. Certainly Christ wasn’t interested in improv games, but the Merry Pranksters constantly pushed each other over the limits, trying to achieve in-the-moment-ness and group mind. They would even play “ball games” (as in passing focus by passing a ball and trying to keep the game constantly going so that everyone was always on their toes) and free associations. It should be pointed out that Del Close was known to be a heavy experimenter with drugs (notably Heroin and Amphetamines), but that probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with his philosophy towards improv (and art in general, I suppose).

He was interested in psychotropics as a road towards opening the mind – unlock that brain with some drugs, and watch the grand splendor of the doors of perception being whipped open with the force of unimpeded imagination flowing forth like a typhoon (think about that metaphor, drug heads). It’s worth noting too, that around the same time the Merry Pranksters were gliding around the forests in Nor Cal drugged out of their gourds humming to each other, Del was less than an hour away in San Francisco formulating the basis of his entire approach to improv. (That most of the acting “elders” at the time resisted his arguably new approach exactly mirrors the same thing Kesey et al were going through should also come as no surprise.) I’m now not sure who developed the ideas first, because they expounded the same basic philosophy: group mind, treat your fellows with respect, honor their ideas, live in the moment, be emotionally open, and don’t apologize for a character being who he is. (Can’t find any mention of Kesey ever knowing Close, so I’m forced to draw this radical new thread on my own.)

(I do want to point out that I don’t propose drug use as a method to unlock your improv potential; quite the contrary – other than some sporadic (though occasionally heavy and sporadic) pot use, I find that the majority of improvisers are quite clean cut.)

One of the sections I liked quite a lot has to do with what the improvisers all call “living in the moment”. This is important because this concept echoes through Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and what athletes call “the Zone”. Kesey explains that the fastest someone can hope to react is 1/30 of a second, and even then only if they are running at their utmost potential. Even with someone reacting as fast as possible, we’re still reacting to a movie of what went on in front of us 1/30 of a second ago. I list this as important because since leaving Chicago, I can’t recall a single person talking about living in the moment, and not planning ahead; something that was drilled into us constantly. (I also haven’t heard anyone use the idea of “group mind”, but this may be just because I’m out in the hinterlands now.)

And here, dear intrepid explorers of the mind, is where I bring it back to improvisation. We’re working on a game right now called Good Advice, Bad Advice (some Monkeys may recognize it better as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, with the primary difference being the addition of a characterization to each seat). Game works like this: people from the audience ask questions, a panel of experts in turn gives them back good, bad, and worst advice to the question. I say working on this game, because I have yet to see it consistently work. Even a small, decidedly unscientific poll among my improv friends have turned up but 3 recallable instances of even one seat working. The problem, I feel, is in the moment. This game suffers from affording players too much time to think. This game (especially with the addition of characters) slugs along, with each seat trying to come up with something funny to say. When it’s played, these people are way behind the 1/30 of second mark. They’re, like, living in yesterday (man). I feel like most of the scenes I watch that don’t function right is because the scene isn’t moving along fast enough to keep the improvisers engrossed (or maybe their drug addled brains are wandering off), so they start thinking. And thinking. And planning ahead. And reacting slower, and slower.

Now I can’t quite get completely behind the Pranksters in everything they were expounding (their commune sounds like living in a gulag, only with fewer functioning toilets), but I’ve got to feel like they were on to something. (It may also hurt improv that most improvisers are of the “analytical” type, nearly the exact opposite of the Pranksters.) But like fictional Christ learning Kung-Fu, I’ve got to feel like that mysterious improv current is out there, and you just have to tap into it and let it make you move at the speed of life (man).

And if you want, I know a guy.

No "Riding"?

Greetings, fellow improviser. Apologies for having no new posts this week (and a generally inconsistent schedule over the last month), I know all none of you have been holding your breath in anticipation. There will be a new post next Friday - life has been getting in the way, and will continue, but progress must be made.

In the mean time, want to help me write new essays? Post your questions down in the comments section below, or send an email to stagemonkeyssandiego@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading,
Chris George

Graduation Shows

Ah, the graduation showcase: the time honored final send-off for the recent graduates of an improvisation training program. It’s kind of like prom for improvisers; everyone gets dressed up, really nervous, some people kind of don’t even want to do it, but in the end, you’re glad you went. Afterward, everyone shakes hands, high fives, takes pictures, and then hits the bar. These showcases offer a unique opportunity for an improviser’s friends and family to finally get to see what their junior improviser has been up to every week for a year. It also affords a special chance for the senior improvisers to see the new crop and start picking who will get picked to go on to the main stage.
It’s this last purpose that can make the graduation show one of the most emotionally wrenching times for the members of that class. Let’s face it: if you are even remotely interested in doing improv, then you are heavily invested in getting a spot on the main stage. Main stage means more practice time, stage time, prestige, and presumably the chance to hobnob with the experienced folks in hopes of teaming up with them. It’s usually seen as more than just a stepping stone: it can easily be the big “break” that leads to all sorts of stuff. And for this reason, your fellow classmates will gladly slit your throat if it means they get picked over you. (For a bunch of comedians, improvisers take this stuff very seriously.)
The iO (formerly Improv Olympic) shows have a big leg up on the local program in that there are multiple shows, instead of the one (Duhn, duhn, duhn). What’s strange is the kind of overnight kind of switch that occurs with your classmates; these are people you joked with after class, grabbed a beer with, saw improv shows with, but just as soon as the specter of getting picked for a team settles in, all bets are off. Suddenly everyone is only interested in performing the best show (which is often interpreted as “the kind of show that gets you noticed”). Suddenly this one show becomes the end all be all. I have provided the following time line to get you familiar with the insanity, which is primarily applicable to those who have eight weeks of shows:

1. Two weeks before your first show – there is a flurry of emails between the members of a group. Everyone is heatedly arguing for a coach, practice time, etc. and everyone just generally seems to have their panties in a bunch. Also, a group of people will want to go see the current round of graduation shows (“To see what to expect.”), and another will adamantly oppose seeing the show (“I don’t want to get distracted/nervous.”) You also discover that Gmail can actually keep an email string with 300 replies active. Those guys are amazing.
2. First two shows – people are exceedingly nervous about performing, mostly because they want to impress the people who will ultimately pick them for teams. After they get off stage, they realize that none of the people who are picking are even there. Strangely, no one seems nervous about performing in front of family and friends.
3. Third and fourth shows – these will be the worst two shows you will perform. The early excitement over performing has passed; everyone gets a little sloppy when they realized how good that other team is. Everyone seems to say “Why should we even bother? That whole other group is going to get picked!”
4. Fifth, sixth, and seventh shows – these are progressively the best shows you will ever do, as everyone is slowly finding their respective grooves, figuring out the games/forms, and actually starts to have a good time.
5. Eighth show – this will, contrary to logic, not be your best show. It will be sort of like your third best show. At this point, everyone has just kind of given up worrying about the whole damn thing, and is really just having a good time. Plus, everyone realizes this is the last time you will ever perform together (Expect lots of hugging, picture taking, and making plans to get together and practice). (Improvisers love making empty promises like these. It says something about our mindset that we do an art form that necessitates a non-planned, free-wheeling attitude. That is, we’re as a whole unmotivated.) Also, this is the show the recruiters are watching.
6. A Week-ish after your last show – you find out who gets picked, and who didn’t. Generally there are no surprises. You also discover that you still talk to the people you actually enjoyed improvising with, who may or may not have been the “best” ones in class.

Now, that all having been said, I did go to graduation show this week (and did see the recruiters sitting in the time-honored recruiter spot: the back row, with a clip board). The graduation show serves as an interesting case, though: it is a show after all, but then again it kind of isn’t. There are some people who will never make a team, some will move afterward to some other city, others may drop out entirely; but the real purpose of the graduation show is to give your friends and family an opportunity to come see what you’ve been doing – to watch you be funny, and put on a good show. The graduation show isn’t supposed to be groundbreaking; it’s supposed to be polished enough to feel good about and for all your friends to see just how freaking funny you are. A graduation show should be simple, because it’s easier to show off your talent that way. I make this last point because improvisers tend to overplay things when they’re trying to show off; they want to do the hardest form, the craziest games, and play everything hard core because they feel like they need to blow people away. (The lesson here: that never works.)
So, to my fellow graduates (and soon to be graduates): Enjoy yourself, ignore the man in the back row, play with abandon so your friends can laugh at you, and for god’s sake, give the emails a rest.

Improv Birthdays

I celebrated my birthday last week – now a semi-proud member of the late twenties crowd, I feel that my life has perhaps finally started taking off (or maybe that’s all the cake talking). Birthdays are fun because we place so much value on age; someone who is 50 is considered to be refined, whereas a 30 year old is considered to be struggling in adolescence, and a teenager is still seen as having “his whole life ahead of him”. Some of it is societal, you must be 16 to drive, 18 to vote, 21 to drink, but after 21 the years all kind of blend together – just a mesh of experiences with no real markers other than the ten divisible years. One of my coworkers has even taken to calling me “old Chris”, because I’m now 3 years older than her (for the next two weeks, anyway). Even she is bemoaning turning 24 (heaven forbid) because she sees 23 as the last year when nothing is really expected of you (this coming from a Master’s graduate with a husband, a three-year-old (ages again!), and a mortgage).

But what’s great about birthdays is everyone celebrating not only reaching that next mile marker (level sounds a little too D&D), but also celebrating what you have accomplished, and what you will accomplish. I have noticed however, that improv is quite the opposite. As improvisers we tend to be a little myopic about our own accomplishments. We only see how far we still have to go, instead of how far we have come. (On the other hand, improvisers tend to gladly celebrate the accomplishments of others. I guess that makes us the most complimentary group on the planet, right?)

Bill Arnett has already written a fantastic essay which I will only link to here (http://blogs.iochicago.net/bill/wordpress/p?=38), where he talks about how we mature as improvisers. (I feel I must link over to Bill’s stuff every once in a while, a) for being one of the largest influences on my improv philosophy, b) for being so damn smart, and c) for putting up with my constant pestering in what has rapidly become a J.D./Coxian a la “Scrubs” dynamic.) But what I think is important is that Bill even has to smooth some feathers over, because as students and performers of improv, we lose sight of what we’re doing and get bogged down in the tedium of mastering the craft.

I never hear anyone talk about how much they’ve improved, only what could have been done better. And while I am a big proponent of pushing yourselves, it’s also important to step back every once in a while and remember just how good you’re doing things. And this is why, this September, I plan on celebrating my improv birthday. I want to celebrate just how much better I am than when I started back in 2003, I want to celebrate the good scenes I’ve had, and every single good friend I have made while doing improv. I choose to celebrate because I want to proud of the work I’ve done up to this point. Were there bad scenes? Sure. But I had a lot of fun, and I really hope that if you’re improvising that you’re having fun too. The only unfortunate part is, I can’t remember the exact day that started doing improv (it was sometime in early September, this much I know for sure), but I want everyone else to think back to the first time they stepped on stage and became the Pillsbury Doughboy (my first scene ever; a game of “Party Quirks”).

So my experiment for everyone is this: figure out what your improv birthday is, and celebrate the shit out of it. I will be six improv years old this year, and by god I want to see what I’ll be like when I can finally take the car out of the driveway.

The "Perfect" Improviser

I rode with a fellow improviser to L.A. a few weeks ago, and we bided our time talking about T.V., movies, and of course, improv. (Put two improvisers in a semi-enclosed space for five minutes, and I guarantee all they’ll talk about is improv after just three of it. Doesn’t help we were also going to see improv.) My friend hasn’t been improvising all that long and we were talking mostly about basics, but I revealed to him my ultimate improv secret: even after doing improv for the better part of a decade, I still feel like I suck.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want people think I’m overly down on myself, pressuring myself unduly (which I do) and being a perfectionist about my own work (which I am). I even know that I am infinitely better than I was just two years ago. What I mean is that even after doing improv this long, every time I step off stage I wish I could have been a little better. (At this point he asked “What have you gotten me into, Chris George?”)

Personally, I feel that this quality makes me a better improviser, by sheer virtue of having it. I’m not happy with what I do at all, and want to be better. I go watch teams like Beer Shark Mice, 3033, or Deep Schwa and hold myself up against that kind of ideal not because I’m a glutton for punishment, but because I see that as a goal that is, in fact, quite reachable. Because whether we want to admit it, we are artists, and we have to take pride in our art. We need to be unsatisfied with everything we do. It is only through our unyielding desire to be better that we improve at all. It is when we get complacent and lazy that what we do starts to suffer.

Now that I’ve successfully terrified a few people into never wanting to improvise again for fear of failure, allow me to share the other quality that makes a good improviser. “Truth in Comedy” has a chapter simply titled “Face the Fear”. At the same time that I’m not happy with what I do (ever), I also respect myself and anyone else willing to step on stage with the absolute potential of falling flat on our faces. The name of the game is improv, which by its very definition means that we don’t know what will happen. The corollary of course, is that while we have the potential to blow people away, we also have the potential to come crashing down just as hard (and boy is it easier to fall). But what makes a good improviser is someone willing to hop right back up there and try again with no hesitation.

These two elements are not entirely disparate, either; it is the fear that continually focuses us to be uncompromising. Give in to the fear, and you are unwilling to take chances. Allow the fear to control you, and you will compromise to almost anything if it means you get some modicum of success.

Be fearless and uncompromising? Sounds like good advice for life. And that’s what I’ve gotten you into.

The Four Teachers

Last week, I started directing my very own group for the first time. I have taught a few (read: two) workshops in the past, and even refer to myself as a Co-Director of a troupe for a period of time, but I don’t feel that I have given a single improviser any advice that has actually helped them improvise better. I was nervous and excited about my first ever class, with a bunch of relatively inexperienced improvisers, all looking to me for advice. Would I give good, insightful advice, like I had seen so many people that I admire capable of doing? And more importantly, what kind of teacher would I be? As my fellow Monkeys in Hattiesburg can attest, I was a bit of a taskmaster when it came to practices. (Hell, I’m being polite. I was a downright dick when it came to tardiness.)

It was about then that I started trying to think about all the teachers and coaches I have had through the years and tried to figure out what they do that I like. And me being the kind of guy who loves to analyze and define, I started categorizing them. Thus, I created my methodology of the Four Faces of Improv (Teaching). I imagine it being laid out in a box, with a type at each corner, and cross lines inside the square. These aren’t hard and fast rules by any means, and in fact a number of teachers sort of straddled two corners, and I assume that varying degrees of hybridization between each corner gives us all the different kinds of teachers we have.

Artistic: This is the kind of teacher (and nay, improviser) that believes that Meisner and Stanislavski make the cornerstone of any improviser. To them, improv is but an extension of acting that all of improv must be approached treating it like, well, art. They hold high regard to the great craft (and will often go out of their way to call it a “craft”). Generally, most scenes done under their tutelage are not necessarily funny, but they are real. Artistics favor things like depth and meaning over entertaining. Required reading: “Impro” by Johnstone, or any book that when you read the word “actor”, you imagine the writer pronouncing it with very round vowel sounds.

Shamanistic: This is the kind of improviser that insists that everyone stretch for twenty minutes prior to practice in the dark, with shoes off and soothing music playing. This improviser is very insistent on things being organic, and that everyone strive for deep levels of interpersonal communication, usually by improvisers “connecting” by staring into each others eyes for long periods before starting scenes. Required reading: Hard to say. The particularly deft ones in this category have read “The Inner Game of Tennis” and the “Zen of Archery” (which, I must admit, I have read both), but all of them usually talk of Buddhist philosophy, emotional openness, etc.

Analytical: After fifty years of improv, we understand the mechanics of what’s going on fairly well now (at least well enough for a search of “improv” on Amazon.com to turn up just shy of 500 results), and the analytical is the master of breaking down improv into the gears and springs that make it up. These are the minds that came up with The Rules that are now quoted nearly everywhere, under the belief that under enough torture, a scene with confess to almost anything. That’s not to say that’s bad, because the analyticals are the ones critically thinking and writing about improv. Required reading: “Improvise” by Napier for sure, but the analyticals are the ones who own every improv book they can get their hands on.

Fun: These people don’t really want to worry about anything in an improv scene (and really, aren’t they better off that way?), and instead are really only concerned about entertaining the other people in the group. They value teamwork, creativity, spontaneity, and having a good time. These improvisers almost always come from a short-form background (or no previous experience), and just like doing this because it’s interesting and entertaining, and they like making people laugh. Basically, a “funnie” leaps headfirst into the melee, and doesn’t look back until everyone’s at the bar having a beer after the show. Required reading: “Truth in Comedy” by Close, Halpern, and Johnson, and usually nothing else.

Sure, I may have categorized the whole thing, but half the fun is finding out what particular combination of these four elements you have. What kind of teacher am I? It’s perhaps too early to tell, but you may as well just go ahead and ask my Monkeys; they probably have a better idea than I do.

Oh, and I note to Hattiesburg improvisers: I was late for the first practice.