A Date With A Coyote

Short stories are for dorks.

As a rule, cooking can suck it. I’m a busy person, and I can’t be bothered with more ingredients than I can carry. Think the law of the desert. That being said, a deadly cocktail of shopping whilst hungry and being flush with a brand new paycheck created a perfect storm of purchasing power. That financial maelstrom drove me to buy a giant package of Kroger brand bacon strips. The thick kind. None of that hickory smokedness, neither. It was a heart attack wrapped in a medusa and coated in ambrosia. I couldn’t have resisted it if I had packed my mouth with peanut butter.

Cooking is tough. It requires concentration, stomach, and balls. Cooking is like being a parent a half dozen times per week. Not a good parent, mind you. The kind that eats the kid, but a parent nonetheless. Just like a parent, if you are cooking in the kitchen, everyone with something else to do goes and does it, and you’re stuck in the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll whip up some bangin’ spaghetti or some delectable stove-seared chicken, but it’s not exactly a complex recipe.

Tonight was no exception. Perhaps it was the bacon just begging to be eaten, or the knowledge that a mere 10 minutes of low-impact cooking was the only thing standing in the way of my innards and these innards, but the mood had fully entranced me. The bacon strips fell neatly onto the quickly warming pan. There was momentum. Molecular collisions were happening more frequently now. Soon, my delicious bacon. Smoke poured from the pan and a deftly applied finger soon told me that the exhaust fan was no longer in business. Having burned more than a few bags of popcorn and once even made pot brownies so potent that our house smelled of marijuana for a week, I was extra sensitive to being ‘that roommate’. I turned and opened the patio door as wide as it would go and cracked cold fusion to make that little metal around that piston thing keep the door open somehow. The rest of the cook went off without a hitch. The smoke went (mostly) out the door, and it was time to devour the spoils. I walked to the eating nook and sat in one of the directors chairs that allows the occupant a fair shot at  using the stilted table like a normal person. As I brought the fork down hard onto the plate of freshly cooked, soggy bacon, I saw a coyote. It had poked its head into the kitchen for reasons (in this writer’s opinion) likely related to the bacon smell. I wasn’t particularly afraid of the coyote because I wasn’t processing it on very intelligent level. I should have shouted, gotten big, anything, but I was just thinking about how crazy it was to see a coyote in the house, and that if he was someone’s pet, they should be more careful with the doors if they’re going to own a coyote. Eventually the coyote and I felt awkward from looking at each other, but instead of leaving, the coyote lept onto the other directors chair. There were two chairs there, and only one was being occupied. In the coyote’s defense, it probably looked to him like I had made bacon in hopes of making a coyote friend for whom I had set a seat out.

And really, what kind of human would I be if I didn’t give the coyote any bacon? Jesus Christ, it’s a coyote after all. When is he going to have another chance to eat freshly cooked bacon? Bacon? I don’t want this to turn into a Jim Gaffigan, but come on now son. Here I was, having just made far too much bacon for a normal person who wants to end the day with the same amount of functional arteries as he started it with, and I couldn’t give this coyote just ONE piece? No, at that moment I made my decision. I would treat this as a fully respectful date, and this coyote would get half. Call it a prenup, but I got up to get another plate.

The sudden move startled the coyote, as is consistent with the effect these types of moves have on wild animals. It did not jump ship and run away. I sensed that it wanted to, but maybe it felt that would be rude. Perhaps it had realized that since I had not set a plate out for the coyote, I was also not expecting a wild fucking toothed creature to come into my house. I half expected the coyote to cut his losses, hoover down the entirety of the bacon deposit, and high tail it onto the front page of the coyote newspaper. “Coyote Steals Best Human Food On Record.” That could have been the coyote. But when I got back to the table with the extra plate (a pretty nice one by the way), the coyote was sitting there as if it had been dead. It wasn’t. This isn’t that kind of story.

I used a pair of salad tongs to pass the coyote his plate. I’m a good host, but I’m not some kind of idiot. The tongs had a touch of bacon grease on them from when I used them to precision flip the strips, so the plate-table-slideoff was pretty well-lubricated. I have made 12 slices because I thought it was as good a night as any to have a heart attack, and splitting them in two actually made me feel respectable. I ate my bacon slowly and the coyote did the same, both of us savoring the impossible temporariness of this moment. We didn’t talk much. He wasn’t a sports fan, and I didn’t know any words in coyote language. I was considering howling, but I figured that would have been roughly the same as if I had asked a Native American person over for dinner and unleashed an Indian war chant a la the lone ranger at him. I bet he would have been offended heap big time. The same goes for the coyote. And pregnant women. If you’re not absolutely sure, don’t say anything. It’s a simple rule.

I wanted the meal to last longer. I wanted something more to happen. I was waiting for him to talk or spell a word out in the bacon like “HELP!” The ‘P’ would have been tough, but I probably would have gotten it by H-e-l, and we would have worked out some other way of communicating. I wanted to get attacked a little bit and then fight the coyote off. I wanted a baby coyote to come by and I would be its uncle or something. I wanted a female coyote to come by next and be a totally boss wingman for my coyote bro. I would give him some bacon to him to give to his lady and she would be down for whatever with him after that. I’d be the coyote version of Cyrano de Bergerac, but I wouldn’t be all ugly like he was. I got a little sad thinking of all the crazy things that should have happened that I barely noticed the coyote jump off the chair and land neatly in front of the open door. Without so much as a look back it bounded out into the night and I never saw him again. And he didn’t even pitch for the bacon. What a dick.

Getting Caught Red-Handed

Ivanhoe. Look that shit up.

I took a workshop from this guy named Greg Tuculescu, and amongst other beautifully well-phrased improv thoughts, he said one thing that hasn’t been as big a part of my improv as I should have made it. We were doing a scene where one character was obviously the Zodiac killer, and the other character wasn’t aware. Both the actors totally understood that character A was the Zodiac killer, but character B was saying things like, “we’d better lock and soundproof the doors and windows so the Zodiac killer can’t get in.” That kind of thing. It was a really funny scene, but Greg stopped it and said this: “Kill the coy game.”

“Kill the coy game.” What an interesting thought. The coy game, as far as I understand it, is where the improvisers on stage know what’s happening, the audience knows what’s happening, but the characters don’t seem to understand. It can feel fun to play, and the audience will sometimes come along with you on the ride, but every coy scene is basically the same one. The scene is about trying to misunderstand what’s going on or justifying why your character doesn’t get it. This will often feel okay, but if you build too much of the scene around not getting it, that becomes the height of the scene. You’ve set the upper limit of your scene before you even really get into it, and no amount of hilarious character acting or great one-liner-sizing is going to get you past this arbitrary bottleneck. You’ve added an element to your scene that collars your character.

I’ll buy a drink for the next person to do a scene where someone is trapped in a bottle.

So, what’s the solution? Get fucking caught. If you’re trying to pretend to be your twin brother, get caught! If you’re actually the Zodiac killer, get caught! If you never get caught, we’re left trying to heighten around the premise of never finding anything out. If, however, you get caught right away, you get to play in the beautiful pond of psychology and character discovery. You get to find out why one twin would try to be his other twin. You get to find out what that twin thinks of himself and his surroundings. Maybe he was always second place, second best, and not as loved by the parents. Then the scene becomes about something real but you can still play with the game of people mistaking one for the other. You’ve expanded your bottleneck. Now it’s a bottle ass, and you can give it a nice hard, open-handed slap. The Zodiac killer reveals himself and now we’ve got a nice scene about a person trapped in a room with the Zodiac killer. We get to learn so much and it’s so much fuller and more emotional now. Get caught, kill that coy game, and you’re on your way.

One more element of this: There’s a lot of ambiguity to the concept of ‘playing to the top of your intelligence.’ Some people think it means don’t do poop jokes, some people think it means always know about your surroundings, some people think it means if you’re playing a doctor, use as many real words as you can. These are all both right and wrong. According to Joe Bill, Del Close only used to say that to berate people who didn’t know enough things. Del Close, I have heard, read more books than any man alive, so I bet people were getting that a lot in Chicago. Playing to the top of your intelligence means being the most real you can be. As always, words end up being hollow shells of what they try to mean. The best way I’ve heard it described is that a word is like a sign post pointing at what it means. Okay, enough bullshit, I’ll say it again: Playing to the top of your intelligence means being the most real you can be. This makes all those other things different threads of the same sweater:

1. Don’t do poop jokes: Get real. People are paying for this show, if they wanted to hear poop jokes or otherwise lowest common denominator bullshit, they’d stay at home and watch Family Guy, or pick up some 7th graders and make them bare-knuckle box. Respect the audience’s intelligence. They are real people who wanna see something real.
2. Always know about your surroundings: Be real about this. You are acting. If you’re really trying to be a character, you’ll take the time to know what’s around you, because your character is REALLY where ever your dumbass is pretending to be.
3. If you’re playing a doctor, use as many real words as you can: Do your best to actually act. A doctor who doesn’t know shit is hard to react to, especially if the other character is being real (which they should be).
4. Know things: Take things you know in real life and apply them. That way you don’t have to invent a bunch of bullshit, and you’ve already got things people can react to.

Okay, I’m listening to Justin Timberlake’s new album and it’s pretty good. Go listen to it. Remember to be real on stage. The audience has the best seat in the house. An audience member who’s paying attention will pick up on more than the actors. If they’re bullshitting around and avoiding doing something, it becomes painfully obvious and painfully painful. Put real in, you’ll get real out.

If you wouldn’t bang this couple, we’re no longer friends.

The Secret To A Great Scene

The UCB Four who pioneered this jazz.

Pre. S.  I’m not going to proof read this, so if you find a grammar mistake either lemme know or don’t worry about it.

There are a lot of rules of improv, but there not so much ‘rules’ as they are consequences of a great scene. One rule is to agree (also known as yes, and, also known as don’t deny). This is a vitally important thing for a scene to have because telling someone they’re your daughter and then having them come back and say “no, I’m your husband! You’re my wife.” really hoses a scene. Good comedians can joke their way around it, but the damage is done. Another rule is sticking with your character. It’s a kind of denial I guess, but if you’ve got an accent up top and then it melts away into regular you (a thing that I do almost EVERY time I try an accent), it can take an audience out of the moment and you’ve lost the momentum. Hmm, in writing the words moment and momentum, I genuinely never realized one is just an unsure version of the other. Reacting honestly is another important tenet, and so is “show, don’t tell” and so is blah blah blah. They’re all indirect results of exactly one thing: Everybody being on the same page.

Now right off the bat that sounds stupid or trite or unhelpful, but it isn’t, and if you still think it is, you’re a damn fool.

What does everybody being on the same page mean? Well, it’s the mutual understanding of what the scene is about. Not what the scene is, but what the scene is about. If everyone fully understands what the scene you’re currently doing is about, you are in the money. The difference between what a scene is and what it’s about is simple.

What a scene is: A collection of factual statements that can be gleaned from the dialogue, movement, and body language of a given scene. If you ask a robot to tell you what a rose is, he could say it’s a carbon based perennial plant. People seem to like them. They are exchanged for sex or forgiveness.

What a scene is about: The 1-sentence, deeper meaning behind the scene that carries with it inherent elements that can be acted upon. Here’s an example:

Example: A boy gets in a taxi and asks to be driven to the countryside. The taxi driver asks him why. The boy responds that he can no longer take care of his tax accountant, and wants to let him run free in the hills and meadows. He then pulls his tax accountant out of his pocket and the tax accountant says he’s sad to have to leave the boy.
What the scene is: A boy who owns a tax accountant. The tax accountant can think and talk normally. The tax accountant fits into the boy’s pocket.
What the scene is about: This scene is about treating tax accountants like pets instead of people. The inherent elements that can be acted upon are almost unlimited.
Elements to act upon:
The boy: do pet things to the tax accountant (feed him kibble, discipline him, take his collar off, ect).
The tax accountant: do actions that are pet-like. (Always be looking out the window, spin in circles before you sit down, short attention span, ect).
The taxi driver: It would probably help is the taxi driver also acted as if tax accountants were normally pets, but it’s kinda ladies choice here.

If everyone on stage in that scene understood what the scene was about, they’d never go wrong. They all must be fervent about the reality of that universe where one (and only one) thing was different, and that one thing was that tax accountants are pets. The scene can evolve and change and grow as it needs to as long as that ONE element is always agreed upon by the actors. You could cut to the accountant in a field with a few other ferrel accountants, or a bunch of accountants could get into a big fight and have to be broken up by a farmer, or you could have Michael Vick come kidnap the accountant from the field and put him in an accountant-fighting ring. All of this is fine as long as it fits into what the scene is about (A.K.A. the universe of the scene).

This scene is about a snake and the guy with the biggest balls in the world.

WARNING! Being on the same page has deeper implications. When you all know what the scene is about, you can’t focus exclusively on it. Take what the scene is about, and filter it through your characters so you can make honest choices that are both true to who you are on stage, and the scene. If you discover what the scene is about and just do bullshit nods to the audience about the scene, you’re going to run out of steam quickly. You know what the scene is about, but your characters probably don’t. That means you’ve got to internalize what the scene is about and show it through what you’ve got on stage. If this seems really heady and difficult, that’s because it fucking is. Governor Jack has been working on this for over a year and I’d say we’re on the same page under 50% of the time in scenes. Basically, it’s a big balancing act.

I hate to burst my own bubble, but this is harder than I ever thought it would be 2 years ago.

I want to close with something Mike Malayar said on the Denver Improv Podcast (a podcast that will hopefully get going again soon once I stop being a whiny idiot and start being more productive). We were talking about those magical moments of crystal blue improv that we’ve all seen. He said those are born from a beautiful balance between the internal acting and the internal directing. Imagine yourself on stage in character. That’s the acting. Now imagine yourself watching from above deciding what the next move should be based on what the scene is about or what the scene needs. The balance is when all the people in the set live in that space in-between. Like the weirdo on 16th street spinning plates. Everything has momentum and direction, and you are just making sure nothing falls. And that no one comes up and steals your plastic bucket full of change.

You may be thinking, “Hey Rollie, that was an awesome blog post.” Is that what you were thinking? Thanks! I really appreciate that. But if you want to read an actually awesome blog post, check out literally anything from The House That Del Built written by Rachel Klein. The girl makes writing about improv an art. Okay, I’ve wasted enough of your time. Lemme know if you have any bones to pick or questions to bone.

Carpooling By Myself

This morning in my car on my drive to work where I work, I had a few ideas that I wanted to write down. I’m doing it here because there is a higher chance that they’ll actually come to fruition if I feel a little bad that I told people I was going to do something and then I didn’t do that thing. It’s not the best choice for everyone in the world, but I certainly need something more than just me to hold myself accountable for doing things.

• An album featuring 3 artists. The Aristocracker, DJected and DJ Murder Bullet.
• On the album: Mothafuckin’ Opposite Day, We Didn’t Have A Chorus, Rap Fact-Check, more

Aristocracker. Impeccably well-bred. Rather.

DJected. He’s a pretty sad sap. Born with an erection that never went away.

DJ Murder Bullet. Hardest mother fucker alive. Seriously.

Sleeping With The Fishes

 

No sleep ’til Brooklyn.

It seems like sleep is a waste of time. When my friend asked me how my day was, I responded with “Good. I got a lot of things accomplished.” What could be less fucking productive than laying in a dark room and doing nothing. Literally nothing. As a result I’ve developed an aversion to going to sleep that’s compounded by the fact that the Internet and a laptop allows any amount of curiosity to completely take over. As a point of reference, last night I learned that one Captain François Mingaud was the inventor of the leather cue tip, and that he was put in prison but was able to bribe an official to put a pool table in his cell. He then mastered – and I mean mastered – pool before he got out. Pretty interesting, right?

Right. Or at least it is to me. That’s the problem. If I let my mind dictate my sleeping schedule, chances are I’m not going to sleep enough. But isn’t that just a personal problem? Or is it even a problem at all? Every goddamn person I know is sleep deprived. It’s even a conversation starter for some. “Oh man, I got X hours of sleep last night. I am BLASTED today.” “I bet, dude. I got like Y hours of sleep and I feel awful.” It’s kind of a badge of honor. A subconscious reason to minimize the personal impact of mistakes and maximize triumphs. Much like that kid in class who didn’t study for a test. If he gets an F, of course he got an F. He didn’t study. I say ‘he’ in this instance because girls always study for tests. No exceptions. If, however, he aces the test, what a badass that dude becomes. I bet the egoic mind correlation is stronger with something that measures intelligence (such as a test) than something that represents an indirect force multiplier of analytical prowess, BUT I’m sure there’s some kind of connection.

What does that mean to the average person? 2 things. First, sleeping enough allows you to recharge and perform on a level that is more consistent with your potential. This isn’t always what everyone wants. A lot of people are afraid that their best isn’t good enough, and never having to perform at their best and so judge their own ability realistically, they can hang on to an ambiguous self image. To give yourself everything you’ve got is both dangerous to the ego and probably really good for you as a person. Second (and finally according to the ’2-things’ statement made above) going to bed when you know you should creates a habit of successful living. Everyone is capable of doing the easy thing immediately. It’s easy, and it’s a thing. Checkmate. The problem is, the human brain isn’t really built to properly react to delayed gratification. Seriously. You know how playing Halo 3 for one hour pales in comparison to being able to get into Colombia University? Well right before a test, for some reason the brain doesn’t quite get that. Why is that? I’m not sure. On some level it understands, but there is a level that actually decides your actions. And that level wants to play some fucking Halo 3.

What does this have to do with improv comedy? I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it has some applications with staying focused on stage during your set. Maybe not. I’m not really sure. The fact of the matter is, even as I write this at 11:13 p.m., I have plans to go on a run and maybe do some more writing after that. Even after WRITING AN ENTIRE POST ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SLEEPING, it’s not really on the agenda. Luckily I’m also writing this sentence. Where I realize that the Halo 3 part of my brain is trying to convince me to stay up and keep learning things. Now the Colombia University part of my brain is talking. It’s saying go to bed. I think I’ll just go on a short run.

This is your spread when you get sleep.

This is your spread when you don’t get sleep.

Black In The Saddle

 

I meant back in the saddle. After a long absence that I imagine no one at all noticed, I’m officially back to inundate the 7 people who read this with inane yet somehow loveable text. It’s late, and I promised myself I’d go to bed at a reasonable hour which I’ve now clearly not done, so I’m just going to write down the biggest things I learned about comedy in the last few months.

1. Full and unabashed commitment is the only way to go. If you’re half-assing a joke, a scene, a line, or a script, chances are whatever that is isn’t going to be your best work. There’s not really anything wrong with not-yo-best-work since pretty much 99% of everything done is not someone’s best work, but magic isn’t going to come from no where.
2. There are two places intelligence comes from. The most obvious place is the mind, the human’s on-board computer. This little genius gets you out of tight spots, and can typically be relied upon. The not-so-obvious place is your consciousness. I say not-so-obvious because up until January 3rd 2013, I didn’t really understand the distinction. Then I read a pretty awesome book and started experimenting with meditation and learning about Buddhism. Now I’m becoming aware of a new place to derive intelligence from, and I bet the two combined are gonna be pretty slick. If you have some free time, read that book and prepare for a mind fuck for life (mind herpes).
3. You get what you put in.
4. Take time to do the things that you really want to do. Otherwise you’ll end up doing things that you don’t really want to do.

The doctor has spoken.

It’s All In The Fist

 

I’ve been struggling with something recently and I’m not sure if it’s a real thing or just a sexy excuse: what if doing a bunch of shows isn’t exactly the right thing to do? I think improv application is mad important – and if you’re not doing shows you’re probably not really growing as fast as you could be – but I can’t help but think there’s a huge piece I’m missing: reps. 10,000 hours of something means you’ve got 2 things: 1) way too much time on your hands, and 2) mad skills at that thing. Look it up, it’s science. I guarantee you that if you do something for 10,000 hours you’re going to be an absolute baller at that thing.

Bottom-line: I need to practice more. I think practice (rehearsals both coached and uncoached) is a combination of application and learning that is really going to help. I heard this great story about an improv group from Chicago called J.T.S. Brown. They decided that instead of 3 hours/week they were going to spend 9 hours/week together. 3 hours of coached rehearsals, 3 hours of just doing improv, and 3 hours of some obscure other thing. Anyway, they’re almost all working comedians now. Obviously only a time-traveler could say for sure, but I imagine they wouldn’t have gotten quite as far (in aggregate) if they hadn’t spent all that time together.

Anyway, it’s something I’m going to try to do more often. I’ll keep you updated with the results. Yes, both of you.

Finding the Game in the Scene: Part 3 of 4

Step right up and see this netsuke-crushing monstrosity of luminosity.

So there’s been a lot of blathering on about the ‘definition’ of game, but what about when game didn’t really have a definition?  One of the best parts of getting into improv now is that it’s a relatively new art from.  Things are still being discovered, and YOU might be the one to figure out the next great thing.  Or YOU might be the one to accidentally do something so horrifyingly vulgar that no one ever does improv again (much like impressionist painting or gobstopping).  Now think of the improv climate when it was just getting started.  When game was still this abstract thought that made some scenes inexplicably hilarious and made other scenes feel like dropping a chandelier onto your netsuke (the autocorrect for ‘nutsack’).

There was a time and a place when long form improv teaching was mainly aimed at making short form improvisers do long form improv.  In short form improv, the focus is on trying to be funny and a lot of people got really really good at doing just that.  Crazy characters, hilarious one-liners, acknowledging the audience, scene reality destroying jokes, ect.

Whoa whoa whoa. Where you going in such a hurry? The DRUGstore?

Now when you try to make those people into long form improvisers, their instincts are all wrong.  They go for the joke, they have flat, 2-dimensional caricatures that are unsustainable, and their wheelhouse talent of thinking of clever things is practically useless.  They are being coached to slow down, make real choices, and let the comedy come to them instead of seeking it out, and for the most part this was very frustrating to recovering shortform comics.  But then the clouds of organically discovered character interaction parted and down came ‘game’.  Game was a breath of familiarity to the short form converts because it was like being able to be funny again.  Suddenly they could use their wit again, and their scenes could go in a direction that they chose.  And then game broke into a bunch of different pieces again, but I want to talk about the Matt Donnelly definition of game for this post.

Matt Donnelly is kind of a hybrid between organic improv and the UCB.  Game is important and well-defined to him, but the definition takes a bit of an organic turn.  According to Matt Donnelly, game is “the mutual exploitation of one player’s emotional vulnerability.”  What does that mean?

The thing I like best about this definition is the inherent dualism that the players must show: basically playing and thinking as a character while simultaneously thinking as a performer.  But this definition also holds sacred the idea that emotions drive the scene.  You and your partner are feeling each other out, and suddenly one of you shows vulnerability (I hate my job, I feel unattractive, I love you, ect.)  The way to play the game in the scene in this case, the partner could try to be there for the person but actually make things worse.

<A: I hate my job. B: Me too! The models wouldn’t stop taking their tops off>
<A: I feel unattractive. B: Nonsense!  Only 6 people I know think you’re ugly>
<A: I love you. B: Yeah, as a friend, right?>

But I simply MUST take my top off!

This all might seem very prescribed, but the idea isn’t to just say the thing that would most frustrate the other character.  The most important thing in this version of game is to find the character who isn’t good at understanding and honoring the emotional vulnerability.  Don’t just play yourself saying the wrong thing, play the person who thinks he is saying the right thing.  That way you’re still acting and improvising, but the scene has a definite direction.  If both of you are listening and working to pick up everything the other person is saying, this style will lead you down an avenue that will ALWAYS be interesting.  Maybe not immediately groundbreaking or hilarious, but always interesting. Instead of letting your impulses be guided exclusively by some subconscious thought, have your performer’s brain be a consultant in your scene.

Finding the Game in the Scene: Part 2 of 4

The coolest kids in the history of cool. May they rest in peace.
"Smokin' cigs til I die."
~Billy and Thomas Splampson

So check this out:  this post is the second in a series of 4 posts about ‘game’ or ‘the game of a scene’.  Last time we looked into Illinois’ Chicago’s Susan’s Messing definition that game was just anything that happened more than once in a set.  This cool-stuffs blog examines game from the perspective of Bovine Metropolis Artistic Director Eric Farone.  It turns out different improv philosophies can radically change the definition and importance of game.  It also turns out that I can eat two bags of skittles, but not three.  Eric trained in Chicago before moving to Denver, and has been improvising for over 20 years.  Check out the Denver Improv Podcast with Eric Farone for more tidbits, nacknicks, and whatsits.

THE ERIC FARONE DEFINITION:
Game is a reoccurring action intended to resonate with the audience.  A ‘game’ for Eric might be a catchphrase that a character says a lot or two guys who always excitedly high-five when they solve a mystery.

Mystery solved my dear watsssssssssuuuuppp!

A game can be a personal character game (a lady who insists on guessing everyone’s name when she meets them) or a cast game (any loud noise causes everyone to throw themselves on the floor).  Or a bunch of other stuff, what the hell do I know?  Game for Eric really seems to line up nicely with Susan Messing’s definition, and might very well be because they both studied improv in the same place around the same time period.  If you want a more detailed version of this style of game, go ahead and look at the previous post (1 of 4).  I think it applies to both Eric and Susan, and I don’t want to waste your valuable youtube-Asian-people-pranking-each-other-time.  There is a small difference between Eric’s definition and Susan’s definition, and I think that completely reformats EVERYTHING.  Great.  Now all my shit is reformatted.  Thanks a LOT.  But let’s look at the two and I’ll change a word here and there so as to make an already obvious point more obscure (and therefore heretofore look smarter in the afterfore).

Susan: Something done twice.

Eric: Something done twice for the audience.

But why would doing something for the audience be worth mentioning?  Of course the performance is for the audience.  Shows are canceled if there isn’t anyjuan there.

Yes, but the acknowledgement of the audience (even on a conscious level) isn’t something every improv school of thought is okay with.  A game is an improv tactic that requires the performers to have a basal understanding that this is a performance.  On some level, that performer is living a double life.  In one mind they are a character in a scene, but in order to do a game they must also be outside their character dwelling in what-should-I-do-now?  Eric isn’t cool with that.  When Eric and I were talking he brought up a distinction that I had never seriously considered before:  there is absolutely a difference between improvised comedy and improvised theater. 

WHAT A TWIST!

Improvised theater, or improv theater for short (or imp tht for rly shrt) lives in the re-action (or reactin for short).  Things are discovered as the scene progresses rather than being consciously created by the improvisers, and the direction is impossible — literally impossible — to reliably predict at any point in the scene.  Obviously on some neurochemical level everything is being created by the performers (where else could it possibly come from), but this is subconscious rather than strategic.

Remember this guy? HOW DID KNOW?!? Okay, this time don't say anything out loud. TRY IT YO' SELF

From the very start of the scene the players react.  They get a suggestion (mind-reader) and they react to it.  Maybe one of them thinks “mystical” and the other thinks “scientifically false” and they discover their characters from that initial reaction.  Then they begin to react to each other and their world slowly solidifies as they discover their environment and relationship.  The audience doesn’t really matter to them as they live in their discovered world, and the scene takes twists and turns based on the simple rule “yes (whatever the partner discovers is universal truth), and (add something that you’ve discovered based on a revelation from your scene partner).  Entrances from other players are reactionary because they are reacting to the information discovered in the scene and called for by the players on stage.  Although a funny scene is almost always what people want to see, the humor comes from the characters discovered in the scene and the truth in the interactions rather than someone ‘being funny’ or telling jokes.

Another way to think about it is that an improvised theater set isn’t trying to hide anything from the audience.  The discoveries are taking place as the scene is progressing, and the audience is on the same page as the players.

Improv comedy is about action, humor, and self-aware entertainment.  The scene itself is less the actual content and more a vehicle through which to be funny.  The majority of short form improv is a good example of improv comedy.  The set has been contrived in such a way as to put people in a position to blast out a great joke that they were able to create from the top of their head.  Game based improv is similarly more improv comedy than it is improv theater.  The actual scene isn’t the meat, but rather a structure to hold the game, allowing savvy improvisers to beat it senseless for the game’s lunch money.

Looks like the joke is on YOU, game. Now gimme that nice sweater.

Dastardly?  Perhaps, but it is certainly hilarious.  The humor often takes the form of moments and little bursts that don’t necessarily build on one another.  Rather than trying to react to something, a player’s job is to actively seek out what possible comedy and capitalize on it.  In improv comedy, clever is king.  The point is to use your wits to make comedy, wow the audience, and above all be entertaining.  Just as improvised theater is like watching a soccer game (the audience is of relatively little importance), improvised comedy is like watching a concert.  If the music was the only thing important to the musicians a live shows would be a sweatier, worse version of their album.  There is a deliberate entertainment factor in a concert.  You’re expecting to see some extra flair and the performance is aimed at wowing the audience.  Maybe there are fireworks or a sweet juggler or magician.  How clear is it that I’ve never been to a concert?

Another way to think about improvised comedy is self-aware and directional improvised theater.  With improv comedy you are sacrificing some of the freedom that you have in improv theater, but for that sacrifice you are getting a heightened entertainment factor and more connection to the audience.  This is not to say that no improv theater show will be as entertaining as an improv comedy show.  It’s all about the skill of the improvisers.  Here’s the takeaway though: I think that all other things being exactly equal, the audience will enjoy the improv comedy show more.  If you think I’m wrong let me know, and we can have a discussion about it.  *Spoiler alert, you’re wrong*.  That sounds douchey, but my delete key is brokem; so i can”t change itt.

 

“No apologies”
~Kanye West, Blind People, Rollie Williams

Finding the Game in the Scene: Part 1 of 4

So check this out:  this post is the first in a series of 4 posts about ‘game’ or ‘the game of a scene’.  What the hell is that?  That’s a shockingly good question, me.  Thank you very much me.  You’re so smart.  No you’re so smart.  Oh stop.  Seriously.

Game has a few different definitions according to how important the definer thinks game is to a scene.  The four posts I will be doing look at game from 4 different perspectives, and since I’m going to see a show right now, I’ll do the easiest one first.

Susan Messing. A legend of an improviser and an allegedly good maker-outer. If she is teaching a workshop on either, I humbly suggest you buy us both tickets.

THE SUSAN MESSING DEFINITION:
Game is anything that happens more than once in a set.  A ‘game’ for Susan Messing could be two people who try to drink a glass of water and then choke, or everyone on stage has to touch a specific person’s face, or everybody wang chung.  Under this definition a game might be as simple as saying god bless you twice after every sneeze or as complicated as everyone happens to have been everyone else’s roommate in college but they each know everyone else’s fears and those fears interlock so that the group that was seemingly stuck in a cave can now escape because their parents are all now president of the united states.  It’s important to note that game here is not plot, nor subtext, but the coincidental (though intentional) redoings of something already done.  Once again, Susan Messing’s definition of game is anything that happens more than once in a set. It seems pretty simple, and indicates that the game is not the center of the scene, but rather some aspect of it.

In order to repeat something it must have happened the first time.  In that first version, one of two things happened:

1. It got a response (either from the audience or the other character); or
2. It didn’t get a response.

The Spanish version of Air-Bud.

If the action or deed got a big response the first time (someone came to work in an office building riding a horse), the reincorporation of the horse a second time serves to solidify the first joke, but it also does something else:  it flavors the character.  What kinda kooky goofball would ride a horse to the office?  A wannabe cowboy maybe.  Or a guy who got swindled into buying a horse and wants to make the best of it.  Either way the horse becomes an important part of how the character interacts with the environment and the other people.  The horse can come back physically and become a game (maybe other office employees are complaining about the horse, or had a bunch of hay they were saving for lunch that the horse ate), or the concept of the horse can come back in a different way (someone also rides a horse to work and the two get into a duel or maybe the boss rides a llama and is Peruvian and no one has noticed).  All this comes from doing something more than once.  The game becomes a vehicle to gather characterization and humor.

The lead singer of death cab with the lead singer of Elf.

If the initial action didn’t get a response, but the players want to turn it into a game anyway, the result is a bit different.  Because the audience loves inside jokes, repeating the action will probably get a big response (eliciting an “I GET IT!” from the audience).  If the second time around fails, I guarantee some jackass will laugh the third time and it will feel okay. Forcing a game to happen despite not being all that funny is not really what Susan Messing had in mind when she talked about game.  If it didn’t work don’t abandon it either, you still have to justify.  Just remember for next time that being a character who only says the names of Death Cab for Cutie albums isn’t all that great of a plans.  Another reason for bringing back an action that didn’t get a big response the first time could be to highlight it or change the meaning of the action.  If someone comes in and hugs a secretary, that probably won’t get a big response, but if the next person kisses her, and the third person slaps her, we’ve got a game and a changed meaning.  The game wasn’t originally to showcase the weird ways the people interact with the secretary, but its meaning changed with the reincorporation of the game.

So there you have it, that’s the first and most basic definition of game.  Anything that happens more than once.  Susan Messing is a fucking genius improviser who happens to disagree with other fucking genius improvisers, so the topic is far from closed.  No one is necessarily right or wrong except almost everyone.

I took a workshop from Susan Messing a few months ago, so I am by no means an expert in what Susan Messing thinks.  If I am wrong, please tell me so that I may correct it.  I do promise that I was listening and taking copious notes during the workshop.

I stand somewhat farther on the ‘game-is-important’ scale of improv, but seriously what the fuck do I know?  I will, however, highlight my point of view with a quote from a bomb-ass hilarious improv comedian from New York.

“Anyone who says they like improv but don’t like game sounds as dumb to me as someone who says ‘I like cars but I don’t like engines’.”
-Chris Gethard

More parts still to come!