Not Emotions

For a lot of us, the word emotion when it comes to improv is a scary one with a lot of panicking connotations. Most of the modern improviser are logical, right brained ones, a product, most likely, on an emphasis on game play. Game play is by it's very nature analytical requiring the ability to identify and amplify “unusual things”. Even game heightening, though necessitating a finesse best exemplified in ways that math cannot quantitate, can be broken down into a series of moves – that the UCB improv handbook reads like a science textbook is no accident. Combine this with the fact that most “comedy nerds” are comedy historians raised typically on static, witty comedy programming and you have a recipe for the typical improviser – smart, word-based, unphysical.

As a result, improv spends a lot of time on workshops about “emotions”. We're trying to remove improv from being a purely intellectual exercise into one that respects that it is a performative, acting experience. For new improvisers, the idea of emotions feels absolutely terrifying – I know that I feel a knee jerk response to avoid emotion workshops when I see them offered. Our western society frowns on the idea of “emoting”. Emotions are seen as being volatile, unpredicatable, and mercurial, which are not viewed as valuable in a society that likes consistent, objective, and reliable. Emotion also carries with it the “actor” connotation – which is to say big, theatrical emotions. This baggage presupposes that all “emotions” must operatic or at least soap operatic. We assume that to “emote” is to be melodramatic, which is the other incorrect assumption about emotions – namely that they must be maudlin or depressing.

Other synonyms also fall short; “feelings” for instance, conjur up ideas of either new-age frufruism or being on the psychiatrist's couch. Terms that equally do not achieve what we want: “sensitiveness”, “vibes”, “sentiment”, “sensation”, and “inspiration” all either fail to fully describe what is happening when we “act”, or go to far. This inaccuracy in terms makes it difficult to describe and to teach people how to do them.

If you've watched a really good improv show (or TV or movies), you've seen people playing humans, which is what makes them interesting and engaging entertainment. If you've taken enough improv workshops, you've probably also noticed an identical-ness in the way we teach two “separate” ideas. Namely, that we teach people that playing characters and emotions are distinct, discrete concepts, but in reality they are nearly the same thing. Both concepts talk about commitment to ideas, point-of-view, and being affected. This gut-reaction stuff is about being more human, playing more than just ourselves, occupying fictional spaces on stage as though they were actually happening is: (drum roll) acting. (Another scary word.)

I think we can roll all of this stuff up into a single unifying concept. These are all just “states of being”. You, as yourself, is a state, where you as a cowboy is a different state. Angry is another state, and angry cowboy is another different state. States make you reactive (and sometimes even proactive) rather than “bulletproof” as a state. If you've followed me so far, let's evolve this into chemistry. All elements are constantly in search of making complete electron shells, 8 being the ideal number for those of you keeping count at home. Those elements on the far right are called the noble gases because they don't react with anything, because they have completed outer electron shells. The entirety of the rest of chemistry in pursuit of completing those shells, either by gaining, losing, or sharing outer electrons with other atoms to get to the magic 8 number.

What I'm preferring to think of emotions as now are “valences” - valence states being the difference in atoms to make molecules. Valence, in operative improv terms, being the difference in self to achieve something else – either something lost to another, gained from anther, or shared with another. How much valence dictates how different from ourselves the state is. This doens't really change how we do things, and doesn't change the necessity for being human and reactive but hopefully may give some solace of a new term to people wh oneed something that feels less terrifying and more analytical.

The Right Way or the Highway

“If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it isn't.” - Crimes and Misdemeanors

I was asked a question recently that quite dramatically shone a light on strange dichotomy in improv that I had (until that moment) never noticed, but now seem to see everywhere. Here are the two dicta of improv that are at the root of all the trouble:

1. Play the reality. If you want to leave a room, do it. If someone is acting crazy, say it.

2. Raise the stakes. Increase the tension, the consequences, and the frustration with every move.

The way I see it (to back up a few steps), goes all the way to back to basics. Now, full disclosure, I am a hardliner populist when it comes to improv, which means that I think anyone can improvise, because, well, really anyone can. The absolute definition of improvisation is to “do without prior preparation” - which means every single person on the planet improvises everyday; when you walk out of house in the morning, you encounter a dynamic world, one that would be impossible to accurately predict every last encounter of to make a complete plan. In effect, we improvise every action we do that is not pre-rehearsed, from driving your car (because the traffic patterns will have to be adapted to) to talking on the phone (because we have no idea what Becky said about Amber, but we'll need to figure out how we feel about it in the moment) – though these are, arguably, fairly simple tasks that some presets to them (we know how to drive the car, and we know whatever is going on with Becky and Amber based on past experience). But in terms of theater, whenever anyone steps on stage on does something that is not pre-written, rehearsed, or practiced – it is improvised. As a result, literally anyone can improvise by the mere act of going on stage and doing/saying something.

Now, that's an awesomely populist framework, but anyone who's ever seen or done improv knows that there is a difference between good and bad, and enjoyable and un-enjoyable improv (much as there is for really any human endeavor). There's no questioning that a talented and experienced improviser can create something more interesting and watchable than someone who is not those things. The difference here is simple – anyone can improvise, but not everyone can improvise well.

The context of the question I was asked was during a scene in class; I was lecturing how one player just seemed to kind of take the punishment of another character without really reacting to it, and the student's response was simple – he didn't understand how to play the scene truthfully (he said that with the character acting as he was, he just wanted to leave) and also how to have a good scene. In real life, when someone acts strangely, it's true that most people would just leave (or maybe try to see what was wrong with them), but this makes for boring scenes. We go watch theater because we want to see people doing the things we can't do in our lives (because of the consequences, often), but still acting human (because not reacting to a crazy person is, well, crazy). It's the difference between just improvising, and improvising well. A good improviser knows how to carefully play with the balance between adding the strange or ridiculous, while at the same time keeping the reality alive (often in the form of emotional reactions).

Just as any improviser can improvise and doing it well requires striking that balance, it should be though of this way:

1. There is no wrong way to improvise.

2. There are, however, some ways that work better, and make the work more interesting.

(Writ another way: there are strong choices, and there are weak choices.)

Ultimately, this is the long-term goal of teaching improvisation (and comedy, in general): to learn the very distinct line between playing the reality and playing the dramatic scene. And there is a very fine division between knowing when to deploy “playing it real” and “upping the drama”. Learning the fine points, and the often very subtle intricacies of a scene, and when to deploy which one is what distinguishes a good improviser from a great improviser. There are few, if any hard rules, but being an artist is knowing when to follow the preexisting rules, and when to break them; when to leave the room, and when to stay.