Annoyance Level One - Week Three

As usual class Monday night started off with all of us up and jumping right into a series of completely open “warm-up” scenes. Two people, no rules just right (the outback steak house scene method).

After we were sufficiently revved up from the scene work our instructor had two people step out and face each other. He then asked the two players to simply begin a back and forth stream of consciousness (word association between the two of them). Anyone of the two could start it – only caveat was to treat it like a game of ping pong – you serve up a word/short phrase your partner then needs to return a new word and so on – keeping it short and trying to just be inspired by what was said last.
I was in the first pair up and we began associating – it started with me saying the word “eyes” and ended up with a slew of drug references toward the end (after a few interchanges of course). On the word “Bong” the instructor yelled freeze and asked us to immediately jump into a scene. – We only got a few lines in before it was cut – but the moment he called for a scene we both snapped into a character (both stoners – laid back types) with dialog reminiscent of the entire journey we’d just taken verbally.
The key to this exercise (as quickly became apparent as other went up – and more and more scenes were started as such) was to instantly start a scene/doing something when the instructor called for it. The only times that scene floundered were when one or more of the players hesitated after the word association ended – instead of just going off whatever was the last thing said.
When we discussed it afterwards some people in the class mentioned that they froze for a second because they felt the last word/words said were so uninteresting compared to other stuff they discovered in the association.

Nest we leapt into more open scenes though this time we were asked to try and really focus on getting that sort of back and forth give and take we found doing the word association in our scenes – really focusing and being inspired by each line of dialog and/or action presented by our scene partner. These scenes plus the above exercise really hammered home how key listening is to any improvised work – and not just hearing what your partner is saying so you don’t mess up a name, or mistake the object he hands you for a grenade when it’s a puppy – but the idea that: listening is a willingness to change.
Now it doesn’t mean you have to change – it just means you willing to – be it action, emotion, whatever. Honestly the only part of improvising where you really have to “work” (not really the right word but it will do) is the first instant of a scene – you have to make yourself step out there and make a choice (can be what you say/don’t say, how you stand/sit/walk, attitude, reaching for an object, how you look at your scene partner, and a million other possibilities) after that it’s all about reacting to and building off of what your scene partner says – again like a game of ping pong, you have the serve and then you’re off (sure there are some crazy moves you can pull, put some spin on the ball, lob it, power slam it, whatever – depending on how you want to play – though you’re still just returning that ball).

Now during one of the above scene there came one of those rare instances of basically flat out reality denial. It started off with one of the girls in the class beginning a scene using a metaphor to explain her relationship with the guy on stage – it went something like this: “Have you ever scene the movie Cube where all the people are trapped inside a moving box of death and every time they think they are getting out of the box and moving on they find themselves in just another damn box with a brand new mechanism trying to end their lives – that’s kind of how I see our relationship right now and I want out of it” (note it was more eloquent and described the movie better than this)
To which her scene partner responded:
“Uh… lady you’re crazy I don’t know you and you’re not in any sort of box. You’re in a hospital and I’m your doctor.”
The scene kind of ground to halt after that – though afterwards we got into a very interesting discussion about what happened. Our instructor brought up the idea that even with those exact same two lines as the opening the scene could’ve worked – or almost any sort of seeming flat out denial situation like that: as long as both players are committed to their choices. For example what if she was a crazy woman who thought she had a relationship with her doctor – she would keep insisting they were long time lovers that weren’t working out –while he continued to add to the not knowing her aspect - as long as they were committed the audience would eventually catch on. It’s obviously not an ideal situation of course – but it brings up a great point – there are no wrong moves in improv as long as you commit to them.

We ended the class by running a series of two person scenes where each player was given a specific challenge about the types of inspiration they should try on: We were given. Some of the ones were: Coquettish, Airy, Rock star, Bombastic, dictator subservient, etc. All with the caveat that we take it and make it our won – so whatever the inspiration means to you (and also that instead of making your character a Rocker/Rockstar in every scene take some characteristics you associate with a rock star and play them - or what do you first think of when you hear rock star, dictator, etc then use that).

Things we took away from class:
Listening is a willingness to change
Commit, commit, commit to everything you do on stage
A Character/attitude can fit anywhere an entire scenario can’t
Play outside your comfort zone – follow your fear