It's not you, it's not even me. It's more "us".

There are new people in two of my improv groups, so it's got me thinking about basics again. There is so much “basic” stuff that we want to get across to new improvisers so that they'll have a good foundation, and while at the same time we like blank slates to draw on so we don't have to fight against any preconceived notions and habits (good or bad); it is however, certainly an easier climb when they already know some of the “stuff”. I was talking with one of the new peeps who was telling me that she had never done improv previously, but was really enjoying learning all the keystone elements, yes, anding, listening, and building the relationship. It was this last one that really stuck out to me, mostly because it was probably two years into my improv training before I heard of this concept, yet I have heard probably every teacher and coach I've had since then try to pound that concept home. It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, but it's also one of the worst understood basic concepts in all of improv, and if there is but one thing I could do to right any listing on the part of a new improviser, it would be on this one.

I say it is poorly understood with the full knowledge that I didn't understand it for quite some time. If you were to believe most improv teachers and coaches, “finding the relationship” is as simple as just naming the relationship between two people. In other words, just look across at your scene partner(s) and just name a relationship. In a shitty scene? Apparently all you have to do is say “Gosh, I don't know dad/mom/sis/bro/boss/co-worker/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/friend” and your scene has just been saved. Tied into this poorly understood concept is that idea that every relationship has to have been previously established for X amount of time (the length of time appearing to vary depending on what books your teacher has read or who taught them). The problem with this is that if just naming a relationship was all that was needed to rescue a flailing scene, why doesn't everyone do such a simple thing? (And more importantly – how could a scene ever fail with such a simple lifesaver?) The answer is that just naming the relationship means absolutely nothing. Not a single frickin' thing. I've been in a number of classes where this exchange took place:

Teacher: Pause. What's the relationship here? Continue.

Player A: [Pausing a moment] I'm tired of this, mom!

Rest of class: [Laughter]

The reason they laugh is because there has been such an obvious correction at the prodding of the teacher, but really, we all know deep down that just naming the relationship is worthless. The relationship I have with my mother is unique (because I'm a special boy) and is completely different from the relationship you have with your mother. Even the relationship I had with a girlfriend is unique from the relationship you would have with the exact same girl, despite the fact that in either case we would still refer to her as The Girlfriend. What the teacher is looking for, but often can't articulate is that we were looking for how you relate to this person. Do you care for this person? Put up with their bullshit, regardless of how strange it is? Treat them like shit? There's a game I've played before where you get four people, and each person is tasked with silently choosing another person that they will always treat as smart, funny, or beautiful. That's what's interesting. Any teacher's misguided prods are often just trying to get you to treat your scene partner like a real person, or as Gellman would succinctly say: “do you like or not like this person?”, which is the most basic level for relating to another person, but serves as a nice jumping off point for the infinite levels of subtle ways we treat everyone around us. Asaf Ronen uses a good vocabulary for this by calling the relationship the logistical circumstance, and the emotional one a dynamic – a term that I like a lot.

The second problem is in the “you must know this person for X amount of time” corollary to the Relationship Rule. I want you to right now think of any movie, T.V. Show, or play where there was not a major relationship that started with the two characters not knowing each other. Did you come up with even one? (Following this rule would mean we could never do scenes of job interviews or even worse, first dates – a scene whose humor lives on the awkwardness of meeting someone for the first time. Part of how I can prove this one as being misleading is that there is no established minimum length – I've heard everything from 3 months to 3 years.) In everyday life we regularly encounter people we have never previously met, and have absolutely no previously established relationship, and it would serve well to remember the Arnett Axiom: if you can say it in real life, you can say it in a scene. This relationship corollary likely spawned itself from the reverse logic we have for looking at scenes (as Napier described in his book, only looking for the problems in bad scenes, and not looking at the successes in good scenes). It's true that doing scenes with characters who are just meeting for the first time is difficult, but not impossible. The same with the first half of this conundrum is that what's important isn't that you get to put a name on it as soon as possible, it's that you treat the other character like a real person – listen and react to them, form opinions about them, like them or hate them. These were guidelines that were created because they do make scenework a lot easier, especially in the beginning; the problem is that somewhere along the way they became gospel, and often get taught in concept as such, because people didn't think to analyze and digest what was being taught.

This concept is unfortunately rarely analyzed, so we get a lot scenes like:

Player A: Mom, I had a hard time at school today.

Player B: That's okay, son. School will get better.

Rest of class: [Quietly checking their cell phones]

Which is not necessarily a bad scene, and following the “name the relationship” rule is technically perfect. It is however, a tad boring. Nobody cares if you're parent/child or boss/employee or lonely housewife/pool boy; we care that you understand interpersonal relationships well enough to make those exchanges more than just a name or a time limit.