Annoyance Level Three - Week Three

This week class was all about Heightening: a term that I've seen confound numerous improvisers and improv teacher a like when asked to define it. It's almost gotten to the point in some improv classes of becoming a buzz word that people throw out with out fully understanding what it means.
So to call myself out I suppose - what is heightening exactly? First I will relate a direct quote from my teacher Susan: "There are a million different ways to Heighten."
Now to take the easy way out and borrow from the improv encyclopedia:

Heightening is adding information, to build upon what was built before and by others, to deepen character and emotion, to raise the stakes...

Now what the hell does all that actually mean? Good question - well the first part is easy: adding information - seems simple enough right, but what information exactly? Does adding any information to a scene heighten it?
Well the short answer is: kind of. as Susan said - there are millions of ways to do this out there - and technically just adding more information to a scene is one of them.

However, I feel probably eight times out of ten when talking about heightening in improv it refers to the latter half of the text book definition: deepen character/emotion and/or raise the stakes. And this is definitely what we focused on in class today - and so I'm going to throw my opinion on heightening out there.
When it comes to heightening character of emotions - the simplest explanation of what that means (at least as far as I'm concerned) is to realize what you are doing & do more of it. Sounds almost too simple right? Well the key is to realize what you are doing - emotion wise, that's fairly simple: you're angry, find thing to make you angrier - you're depressed, end up suicidal.
Character wise it can be a different story especially when you think about heightening your behavior (this isn;t the only aspect you can heighten of course - though for me at least I find working with behavior more satisfying, and often more practical in scenes).

The real trick with this of course is to make sure you don't just end up heightening you're behavior laterally (what the fuck does that mean?). Well for example say you start a scene by putting Purell (that hand sanitizer crap) on your hands and then before you open your breif case you put some Purell on it to clean it. Heightening this pattern of behavior laterally would just see you covering more and more things throughout the scene with Purell - going to kiss a baby, Purell it - about to get in a car, Purell it - etc. All well and good, except eventually you're going to run out of things to Purell and then there's no where you can really go with that. Instead if you recognize Why you might have put Purell on your hands and then brieffcase at the top of the scene - you might have decided that you're OCD, or that you're just terrified of germs and suddenly you have opened up options to yourself that don't directly involve Purell yet still heighten that original behavior. Also it's far more fun to play an OCD character, or a character terrified of germs than "guy who puts hand sanitizer on things" - especially if you end up in a long form piece where that character might come back again and again.

The Class:
We started off with and exercise I have dubbed: Holiday Dinner.
Four players hop up and sit in chairs as though they are around a table. Susan let them know that they were to be eating a holiday dinner together. The group must begin eating in silence and after a while are allowed to talk and slowly discover who they are to each other.

During this exercise Susan would often side coach people to revisit the choices they gave themselves at the top: if a player started off very happy and agreeable, no reason not to stick to that (and heighten it) even if the topic of conversation turns dark or negative.

After this exercise we moved on to a two person one which I am calling 1st Date:
Two players up on stage - they are told that they are on a first date with each other and to start in silence and naturally find out who they are.
Again the focus is on heightening the choices that the players make organically at the top of this scene.

From this class we took these ideas:
Be careful of falling into the trap of just heightening laterally
Specificity is so important
Once a character transforms in some way - the scene is over
If you can ask Why after something you do - answer it
If you as an actor are feeling a certain way - you can use it
We love what you are doing & hate when you suddenly stop/change it
There is no better idea than your idea