iO Level Four - Week One

The other day was the first class of level four over at iO for me. This is the level where the great inner secrets of the theater finally begin to be revealed and we tackle the mythical beast known as "Harold."
What is the Harold you dare ask - well it was a show format created by the late Del Close which, in it's original form, was basically a compromise between the often chaotic open improvised scenes Del liked doing and a collection of short form games which his partner was familiar with (and helped pay the bills). Honestly entire books have been written on the subject and while I've read most of them (and can give a pretty nice history of the Harold) I'm not going to try and transcribe them here so suffice it to say it is the signature form of iO and for more information check out the improv encyclopedia article on: Harold.

The Class:
Class started off today with us talking about what makes a good Harold. We as a class decided on the following:

Good Harolds:

• Transcend the form
• Are clear and specific
• Have strong characters
• Are filled with performers that are having fun

Now trust me there are many teachers and performers who would scoff at this definition of a good Harold (especially the first item) and want to add lots more to the mix, but realistically at the end of the day this is all you need in my honest opinion (funny how these are actually the qualities of a good show, and don't comment on the structure at all - except to basically say not worry about it). Realistically in a lot of ways the Harold basically came about because people found it damn hard to teach people how to improvise by getting a group up on stage and saying do something (at least it's hard to get that to be consistent). Now don't get me wrong as a teaching tool is amazing and I love performing them - but in the improv world there are a lot of people who get a little too hung up on the form itself to the point where the structure starts to limit discovery and exploration instead of fostering it (which it was meant to do).
End Rant.

Anyway on to the class itself - today we focused on second beats of scenes, which is a huge part of the Harold - and something I love working on.
Quickly a second beat of a scene is basically just a fancy way of saying a new scene directly inspired from a previous scene. There are all kinds of ways to find inspiration for second beats - from the very literal to the very tangential.
An example of an incredibly literal second beat would be to see the exact same two characters return from the previous scene just at a different period of time (days later, months before, etc). An example of a very tangential second beat would be to see a scene inspired by a phrase someone said in the previous scene (or involving an object that was in the previous scene, or creating a character in the second scene based on the body posture of one in the first, etc) - basically anything is fair game.

Personally I usually prefer finding inspiration that falls somewhere in the middle (although I love skewing toward the tangential side from time to time). I just feel that if you end up with all very literal second beats of scenes (especially where both characters come back) you are not only limiting who can explore those scenes but also limiting the number of points of view you can bring to bear - for me at least I've always liked when the second beats try to move as far away from the first scenes as possible so that in the final act you are given more to work with (and more opportunities for connections). Though I've been in and seen shows where the characters came back again and again - and I loved them (but that was because the characters were so strong and interesting themselves).

We started with simply having a third of the class up on stage. Then two players were asked to step out and start a simple scene - inspired by a suggestion.
After this scene was over the players were asked to burn through as many possible second beats to that scene as possible (really as time allowed, as there were two more groups to go). Doing this we got to run the gambit of literal and tangential possibilities (hammering home the idea that almost anything can serve as inspiration).

After everyone had a turn at this - Bill again had a third of us hop us and this time we were to have two initial scenes. So two scenes inspired from the same suggestion but otherwise unrelated to each other back to back.
After they were done the players were then asked to perform as many second beats as possible for the scenes - but alternating back and forth (meaning the first second beat would be from scene A .. then a second beat to scene B ... the a second beat from scene A ... then another from scene B.. etc).
This was done to more closely resemble how it would work in an actual Harold as you do three initial scenes back to back and then only get to do a second beat to them after a group game - so you have to be able to remember and hold on to your inspiration.

This was a really fun class session as we were finally able to just run with a fair number of scenes and the tendency to think about what you wanted to do (that always comes up for me in exercises ... especially when your fifth in line and there's no suggestion) was eliminated.

We took these ideas away form class:
Second beats can be either very literal or very tangential - if the characters in the initial scene were very strong/interesting it'll probably skew more literal
Second Beats are the Entire team's responsibility - not just the two players who were in the corresponding initial scene
Second Beats should be able to live on their own - if a person walked in just as a second beat scene was starting they should still be able to watch and enjoy it
Characters are more important than premise
Don't worry about trying to make a scene fit into the show - just take inspiration from something that already happened and have fun with it.
If you actively try to have a message or a deeper meaning in your piece you'll come across as condescending
If you relax and have fun, while keeping your mind open connections will happen naturally
"If the whole is to be art, the parts must not try to be"