Spontaneity including Man with the Clipboard Metaphor!

These are some notes from the Monday workshop at The Rag Factory a couple of weeks ago. 

Spontaneity pops up as one of the overall points in impro with everything else we do, but it's good to do a workshop solely on it every now and again. 

In 'real life' not being spontaneous is quite often a good strategy. It keeps us safe, it stops us getting into trouble, it stops us from saying the wrong thing. We learn to look before we leap, think first then act, and make the best decisions. Keith Johnstone tends to write about this as if it's an awful thing, but I don't think you have to change how you live your 'real life' just to make up some stuff in 'stage life'. When on stage improvising, being spontaneous becomes a very good idea. When negotiating a mortgage with your bank, being spontaneous is not such a good idea. You can have control over both types of behaviour, it's you afterall.

With improvisers on stage we seem to appreciate people who don't worry about danger (of the scene, we don't want to see actual physical danger), who get into trouble, who say the wrong thing, who look before they leap, who act first and think later (if at all), who just go with the first decision not the best decision. You can always go back to another way of behaving in real life, or be free to choose how you want to behave, but on stage it's fun to drop defences, open up and be spontaneous. 

When getting people to be spontaneous in a workshop, or if you're directing a show, the first thing to do is create the right environment. An environment of safety, trust and support without judgement where people can feel secure and happy with being whoever they want to be without fear of retribution. John Cremer writes loads about this in is awesome book. Any threat to this environment and people will tend to snap back to the 'real world' method of behaviour where they are forced to defend themselves, judge themselves, edit themselves. The stage has to be a safe place.

I could spend 2 hours teaching people how to be spontaneous, or spend 2 minutes setting the right environment and they will just be spontaneous automatically. 

Man With The Clipboard

This extended metaphor came out of  workshop ages ago but it keeps coming back to me, so here it is in its full madness: 


There's a massive party going on on a beach in the Caribbean. There are hundreds of gorgeous of people in swimsuits splashing around, flirting, drinking cocktails and playing steel drums. There's music playing, the sea is warm, the sun is out, everything is good. But there's a little man with a clipboard running around saying things like "it's 2:30pm, time for a game to Twister everybody! Stop doing that it's Twister time now. We're playing Twister now!!!!" The general consensus at the beach party is why doesn't this little man chill the fuck out and stop trying to control everything. 

Your man with a clipboard (inner judge/editor/ whatever you want to call it, I'm not a psychologist) seems to be very good at organising things and getting you places, making to do lists and getting things done BUT this man with a clipboard is fucking rubbish at making up comedy on the spot. But the trouble is this man with the clipboard thinks he's bloody amazing at making up comedy on the spot! So at the exact moment a party on a beach starts to happen he pops up and starts to try and control everything. 


He pops up to protect you, to save you, to help you. The second you feel any pressure, unsafe, or unsure, there he is. But he's rubbish at being funny. There's already a party on a beach going on, he just needs to get out of the way. 


The good news is that he's really easy to distract. He likes small repeatable logical tasks and seems to think they are really important. Everyone else on the beach let's him think they are really important, so they can get on with having a party on a beach. 


Give him a Rubik's cube and he's set. He'll happily play with that and suddenly everyone on the beach will start humping and he'll be all like "whatever man, I've got a Rubik's cube here, this is clearly the most important thing on the beach." Vikings will invade, dragons go water-skiing, Mr. Blobby makes cocktails, and he won't try and stop them because he's got all his attention on a Rubik's cube. 


More good news is that a load of impro exercises seem to work by giving your man with the clipboard something to concentrate on, so that he stops trying to be funny and organise stuff and stop stuff and your beach party can come out. You've got all you need in your subconscious, there's so much in there waiting to come out. There's even the collective subconscious, which is a whole world of cool stuff. When you're improvising it can feel like at first that the Rubik's cube is important, and at first it is as it's that which let's you get out of the way. But eventually you realise there is a world of stuff going on. Basically, everything. 

Bad news is that sometimes the man with the clipboard gets bored of the Rubik's Cube. Maybe he finishes it, or it becomes too easy, or too difficult. He looks up and sees a dragon and a Viking on his beach playing volleyball with three nuns and a camel and he suddenly stands bolt upright and shouts "STOPPPP! It's time to play Twister! NO! NO! NO! NO!"

Improvisers can be using the same performance techniques for months/years and then suddenly BLAM they are stuck on stage stuck in their heads thinking "she's said something now, everyone is looking at me, so I should say something". Their man with the clipboard has caught up with their techniques and taking over again. 

The good news again though is that there is no end of different techniques and exercises to get through this. There is no right or wrong one, it's whatever one works for you in that time. It's a constantly changing fluid thing. 

Sometimes it's just going line by line, adding a detail to what's just been said, or trying to name everything in the environment, or just saying the first thing that comes to your head, or going from character, or throwing yourself into a physical action before you know why, or having an emotional sound and response to everything that's said, or only talking when you touch, or being as serious as possible, or limiting your own words, or doing an A-Z game, or listing a load of random words, or doing great object work, opening your hand and seeing what's there, throwing yourself into the unknown.

They all help to make great scenes and stories, and they all can help distract the man (or woman) with the clipboard.


My own person man with a clipboard story was before I got into impro. I wasn't really going anywhere with jobs/career/life and then one week I started to learn to windsurf. I didn't want to be a windsurfer as such, but the opportunity had popped up to do it for free. So for seven hours a day seven days a week my man with a clipboard was completely engrossed in learning about windsurfing, and making me climb back on and pull the sail out the water every time I fell off. At the end of the week I suddenly walked back onto the beach and declared to everyone there "I know who I am and what I'm doing" and then fell onto the sand in a fit of giggles. There had clearly been something else going on all week I wasn't even conscious of. Everyone cheered, even though they didn't even really know me. 

I should probably go windsurfing again.





 

Very Random Genre Notes

There is an earlier blog post that covers our Saturday workshops in more detail, so these are very random additional notes. 

Yet again Genre workshops never fail to amaze me. People totally new to impro end up improvising entire stories very rapidly when doing a genre. It's like a decent genre supplies some ready made lego blocks to play with in impro, and gets a group mind and understanding activated. 

So here are the random notes, based on asking the workshop crowd what they would want to see in each genre, what the obvious thing to put in was, and what seemed to work well in the scenes (as always, turn up the volume on what's going well when directing!)

Sci-Fi

The Folly of Mankind
Taking something that exists now - a social situation, class, politics, technology, human nature, evolution and extrapolating it out over time and exagerating it
Aliens
Advanced technology (they had some fun making up lots of new technology and gizmos)
Time Travel
Abduction
Future
Mind Control
Space Travel
Buttons Levers Lights
Alien Things
Radiation
Scottish Engineers
Parallel Universe
Universe not dissimilar to ours
Aliens
Live long and prosper

I know a lot of that stuff sounds really obvious, but that's the point. If an audience ask for Sci Fi and they don't end up with things like Space, Aliens, Time Travel etc they will be disappointed. Putting on the additional bit that good Sci-Fi tends to reflect something in our own society seemed to go down well too. A couple of them pointed out that Sci-Fi is sometimes not seen as a genre at all, which I agree. Starship Troopers is actually a War Film that happens to be set in space, Star Wars (the original) is more like a Western in places (Han Solo is even dressed almost exactly like a cowboy),  Star Trek quite often goes political, Alien is a Horror etc etc. 


Little known fact about me by the way is that I totally believe in aliens, and think that they are widespread across the Universe. There's even increasing evidence and theory for alien microbes existing on Mars, the atmosphere of Venue, and some moons around Jupiter and Saturn. They are all writing blogs as we speak about their alien impro workshops.


Shakespeare

I got in trouble do doing this! Ooops! For some reason we could tuck into any other genre but Shakespeare seemed to be more sacred. I'm not an expert on Shakespeare so I just do my interpretation of it. 

Kings/Servants
Status
Castles
Verse
Aspirations
Fool
Language
Morals
Soliloquies
Girls dressed as Boys
Mistaken Identity
Taking down the upper classes

I've got a theory that the use of rhythm and verse in Shakespeare actually helps to write it, as it can actually stop you thinking too much eventually and stuff pours out of you. I also love the way Shakespeare was so current, it used to really target the people at the top of society right there and then and investigate them and take them down. Nobody seems to do that so bravely now, apart from maybe Charlie Brooker in Black Mirror. 

French New Wave

This was a fascinating one, as most of the class had no idea what it was including me so we kept playing and playing with it and eventually seemed to create a style of its own. It also served to highlight the hugely different styles within impro. Impro is a catch all term but actually there can be so many different things going on within it - clowning, dance, naturalism, panto, buffoon, melodrama. Sometimes I feel the gaps between impro groups/theories/workshops is just a lack of understanding that all people are trying to do is produce a different style, and naming the style can help people work together. 


Emotional Genre - predominantly exploring patterns within various relationships
Limited and simple locations - giving focus to relationships
Tension between generations and class
Discussions of logic, philosophy
Motives
Themes
Cocky Young Man archetype
Older wiser man archetype
Lovers
Strangers meet
Realism
Metaphors
Believable


Farce

This is notoriously difficult as a genre but they nailed it. Many thanks to Matt Andrews for some awesome ideas on this one. One thing that popped up was that it was entirely game of the scene based. When a game stopped working another one had to be set up. Games had to be mercilessly escalated and escalated. 

Multiple Rooms
Set in one stately home
Mistaken identity
People walking in and out
Raise the stakes
Spot the game, play it
Gradually more frantic
Timing timing timing


Matt mentioned that Kelsey Grammer wanted to write a Farce, it was notoriously difficult so they put it off, but eventually he convinced TV bosses and the result was Frasier. 


I make it look really simple/2-D above but seeing it on stage it became apparent that the actors had to be really 'on it' and pick up on everything. Also the importance of timing. 


1930s Gangster Films

Nicknames
Mobsters vs Mobsters
Italian Mother serving lasagne
Tragedy
Honour
The Hit
Shoot Out
Double Crossing/Squeal/Grass
Trying to get out the mob

Another classic case of being obvious. One scene ended up with the characters finding a balance and resolution, which would often be great in impro but this time the audience seemed disappointed. We asked them what they wanted and it turned out that with this genre they wanted blood. We repeated the ending with a big shoot out instead where everyone died, and the audience cheered. 


Silent Movie

Repetition
Slapstick
Comedy Violence
Prat Falls
Duo
Bullying
Two low status people having a high status battle with each other, one bossing around the other
Face the audience
Commedia Dell Arte
React to the audience
Be confused 


This was a great example of how different genres are. At firs the scene was getting a reaction from the audience as the actors were still acting within the limits of naturalism. Once they fully embraced the ridiculousness of slapstick they were funny, and we were all in hysterics. Similar to Farce I didn't realise how much this demanded of the actors - they had to fully commit to every move, reaction and play it big. 


Buddy Cop Movie

Good Cop/Bad Cop
Buddies/Partners
Little in common
Hint to the home life of Good Cop
They have a history together
One is a maverick
Following the rules vs No Rules
Love/Hate relationship
Everything you believe it, I don't 
Bonding together working on a case they have to


B-Movie

Teenagers in a relationship going on a prom
Normal everyday life in American town
A thing/monster comes and threatens it
What is it??


If the thing/monster is a metaphor for a problem born out of their relationship, or reflecting a problem in the town or society in general, then this quite often cross into 'Sci Fi'. When it's just a random thing, it's a B-Movie. 


There were some more we did like Horror, Western, Mafia Film and more but I've lost the notes for them dammit. 


So there go, random genre notes.


Lots of love,


Hoopla


Improv classes Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays in London
Different classes around the UK on Sundays
www.HooplaImpro.com


 

Exercises on focus and scenes with lots of people in

These workshop notes are from a Thursday a few weeks ago, some interesting exercises on improvising with loads of people on stage. 

Quite often multiple person scenes can descend into chaos, so I thought we'd do a whole workshop on them. Some of the important points that came out were:

1. Listen.
2. Be aware that you are part of the overall picture/scene/story, it's not just about you. 
3. Increase, compliment or contrast what's already on stage. 
4. Be aware where the focus is, are you receiving or giving focus. 
5. You don't all have to have different points of view on stage, having only a couple points of view keeps things simpler. 
6. Feel what the group wants. 

Here are some exercises we did:

Simultaneous Jump/Walk

The entire group walks around the space at random. At any point anyone can jump, and the entire group jumps simultaneously. The idea is that eventually from the outside you couldn't tell who had lead the jump, it's a group decision. 

At first this lead to people using all manner of tactics to signal to the group that they were about to jump - breathing in, raising their arms, jumping slowly, making a stomping sound first. So I pointed out that there actually didn't have to be a leader, the group should just spontaneously jump. If people are aware of the group they'll know whether it's in jumping or not jumping mode. 

Eventually this lead to some spontaneous jumps, where the whole group left the floor at exactly the same time without anyone leading. 

We then added in walking or not walking. The whole group could also now stop, and then walk again, as one. 

We then added in that sometimes just one person could be walking, and if they stopped one person took over walking. 

So now the group had a concept of focus and group mind with the physical, next step was the verbal. 

Restaurant

This is a great game for teaching verbal focus. 

The actors are scattered around sat in pairs at tables as if at a restaurant, maybe throw in a couple of waiters or waitresses too. They pre-decide who they are, get them to pick big characters and topics. 

Only one of the couples talks at a time. Any other couple can then take over by repeating the last line they heard and using it in their different conversation. Also if a couple stop talking then another couple have to take over immediately, repeating the last thing they said. 

Sometimes focus is given by a couple being quiet suddenly. Sometimes focus is taken by a couple just starting to talk. 

Some conversations last a couple a lines, some longer. Sometimes there is a rapid change in focus, sometimes it's a more leisurely pace.

Encourage the actors to be bold - either they are in focus or they aren't, there must be an immediate change so don't hesitate. The worse that can happen is that there is a little bit of hub bub with a couple of people talking at once, which is fine. 

As it goes on you might find patterns form in the conversations, even though they are talking about different topics. 

Machines

Keith Johnstone mentions these in Impro for Storytellers as if they aren't that important, but I find they are great for teaching people how to improvise objects and props, and also how to improvise for the greater whole rather than as an individual.

The group improvise various machines of repeated sound and movement, where each person plays a small part of that machine. 

Building a Multi-Person Location

We then put this all together with the group building an entire picture of a location and building a whole scene. 

We gave a location and then two people came up and started something without words in that location. Then two by two improvisers came up and built upon that location, adding to the stage picture.

The stage picture became really important, I think that gets forgotten in impro sometimes. What does this look like on stage? Symmetry, balance, height, depth all became important. 

Also it really became apparent how easy it was to accidentally steal focus. In the first one (a beach scene) there was so much movement on stage that it became a blur, and in fact the focus landed on one person in the middle who happened to just be laying down and having a sun bathe. 

We also reminded people that you didn't have to add something new when coming on stage, you could increase and back up what's already there and this can sometimes look more beautiful. 

Eventually really beautiful stage pictures were built using multiple people. 

For instance when given spaceship as a location:

- Two people come on and sit at control panels driving the spaceship, either side of the stage. 
- Captain comes on and sits between them and slightly back in commanding role. 
- Robot comes on a twiddles nobs. 
- Bored soldier comes on and sits at back. 
- 5 more bored soldiers come on and sit at back. 
- 1 improviser lays down on floor. 
- 3 more lay down on floor. 
- 1 monitors their breathing, establishing them as being in sleep mode. 

They were then able to play a scene across the whole spaceship, aware when they were giving, receiving and taking focus both verbally and physically. With group awareness of focus every move meant something, and every line was heard. 

At first this has to be directed a bit, with a director and audience pointing every now and again at where the focus is, or stopping it if it's become confusing. Full face masks are also very good at teaching focus. 

We then played with this some more, with people becoming objects and basically supporting each other in various ways. This lead to some beautiful scenes like a hamster in a hamster wheel in a class room, and someone buying a hot dog where the entire stand, condiments, umbrella and hot dog was built by various improvisers. 

Lots of love,

Hoopla

Improv classes every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London
Additional improv workshops around the UK
www.HooplaImpro.com