These notes come from the Being Altered and Emotions workshops I ran a couple of Mondays ago at The Rag Factory. This Monday's workshop is on Presence.
Sometimes you can watch people improvise and everything seems to be going 'right' - they are listening, saying yes to each other, building platforms, taking on characters, but for some reason the impro just doesn't look alive.
Other times we can watch impro where all manner of offers are being dropped and missed, yet we find the performers and the show engaging and fun.
In my opinion this is all about the reactions and the connections between the performers. We really want to see improvisers who are alive, and more importantly alive to each other.
Just listening can make people too passive (Mick Napier writes some cool stuff about this) as they stare blankly at the other performers in a zen like trance. We're sometimes taught to make the other performer look good, but this shouldn't be misinterpreted as 'make them look good by doing nothing yourself'.
Instead I prefer active listening, where people react to what's being said by the other performer. Preferably with a reaction that the audience can hear and feel. This is when impro becomes alive, and a constant flow and connection forms between the performers. This is also what makes the other performer look good.
For instance if your scene partner is stuck on stage, can't come up with anything, and comes on and says "Where are we?" and the other performer mirrors that energy and just stares blankly at them passively listening then we've just made them look like someone who can't create a platform.
However if they say "where are we?" and we let out a loud scream and shout "trapped!" we've made their offer look deliberate, and more importantly it's affected us emotionally and suddenly looks like a bit of something going on. In fact any audible reaction to the offer would sell it better than just passively listening.
Audible emotional reactions sell the other person's offers, and make things matter.
When these reactions really become alive though is when they are happening all the time, not just at the end of the offer. In real life, especially in dramatic moment, we don't have a feeling about a person at the end of the thing they were saying, we feel things all the time. People actually make all manner of strange emotional sounds when we listen out for them.
For instance imagine someone in real life being told this:
"Hello Mrs. Jones. I'm from five doors down the street. Look, I'm really, sorry, but I've got some bad news. I was driving home this evening, and your cat ran out in front of me. I'm afraid I hit it. I just didn't see it in time, I feel awful. I've rushed it to the vets, but I'm afraid it's died."
In that short passage there are probably all manner of emotions for Mrs. Jones. There's probably the friendly acknowledgement of who this person is, surprise at their visit, shock and curiosity at what the news is, sadness at mention of cat but maybe relief it isn't a child, empathy with the honesty and guilt of the neighbour, sadness at loss.
Don't just react at the end of the offer, react during it, react all the time
Each emotional reaction has a corresponding expression, breathe, and barely audible sound, that in real life we can't but subconsciously release. Mrs. Jones wouldn't stand there and then decide to show some emotions, she'd be subtly showing them all the time as her view of this reality changed word by word. The person delivering the news would also be altered by Mrs. Jones and her reactions, perhaps they'd even be more overcome than her.
The above story is made up by the way, no cats were harmed in the writing of this blog.
This is what we need to create on stage if we're going to bring impro to life. A constant connection where there is a constant flow of people being altered.
And these emotional reactions aren't an addition or distraction to the scene, they are the scene. We need to follow them and go with them and explore them.
We need to go do down the emotional rabbit hole of the scene, the emotional reactions are your guide to the scene not a distraction to it.
Here are some exercises that can teach this:
Emotional Sound Ball
First teach normal sound ball. All actors in a circle. They throw an imaginary ball to each other, giving it a sound as they throw. When they receive the ball they copy the sound exactly and then throw it out with a new sound. The ball is rapidly passed around the circle. Encourage them to remove the gaps between the sounds, less thinking space, so that one sound morphs from one to another.
Then repeat using emotional sounds - oh, ah, ooooh, mmmm, grrr, yeah, uh, errr etc. Although actually any sound a human can make can be interrupted as being emotional.
Now rather than firing out a sound they sound a line of dialogue, and when the person catches it they make an emotional sound and then fire out another line of dialogue. Lines of dialogue don't have to be connected and the words don't matter. For instance:
Actor A: I've got a pen.
Actor B: Ooohhh well aren't you clever
Actor C: Ahhhhhh I'm going to Bournemouth
Actor A: Grrrrr men can all go fuck off
Actor C: Ah, I love you so much more than cheese
Encourage them to still keep the ball throwing. Making a reaction sound as they catch it and then throwing out a line.
Encourage an audible reaction first. The first thing that happens is the reaction to the line.
Encourage a constant flow around the circle. It's not line-stop-reaction-stop/think-line, it's got to be a constant flow.
Encourage them to be already reacting as the line is said.
Encourage them to increase the reaction as they say the line, the reaction inspires and grows throw the line, it's not just a random sound beforehand.
Using In Scenes
We then started some scenes, with people starting obviously. We played them out and then repeated them, this time adding emotional reactions to certain lines so they were sold more to the audience and the scene had more depth and color.
For instance the suggestion of a space ship was given, with a commander, 2nd lieutenant and work experience person. At firs the scene started like this:
Commander: Comms check.
2nd Lieutenant: Comms check affirmative. Work experience?
Work Experience: Comms cleared.
2nd Lieutenant: Comms cleared Commander.
Commander: Good. Taking off in 3 seconds.
Scene continues with them them taking off.
Next we repeated the scene except this time they were directed to have emotional reactions to the offer 'Taking off in 3 seconds'. This time the 2nd Lieutenant suddenly started jumping for joy and laughing and saying 'Yeah! We're going into Space' while the Work Experience screamed and started crying. An offer that at first appeared routine and almost meaningless was now totally sold to the audience by the other two performers, and the scene had emotional depth and real characters on stage. The commander might have had plans for what would happen in space, but the scene took the human direction of why his crew were behaving like this.
Hoopla
Impro workshops every Monday, Thursday and Saturday in London
www.HooplaImpro.com
Monday, 23 April 2012
Friday, 30 March 2012
The Secret Of Improv: Be in a Good Mood
OK! I admit it! For the past two weeks/months/years I've been taking improv way to seriously.
I've also been spending way too much on facebook and twitter, reading about improv. In fact sometimes it feels like improv these days lives on facebook rather that on a stage.
For a while I've even been turning up to teach workshops in a bad mood, which is an impro sin for which I should be locked in a room that is slowly filling up with custard.
It's not a very serious endeavour, it's just for fun.
However this week has been a turning point and I'm now in a really good mood about impro, and everything.
Music Box were back rehearsing together this week with some really exciting new cast members. This cheered me up no end. We had a piano, drums, an accordian, bassist, guitar and more. Many thanks to Maria for being an impro ray of light. Also getting to play with Andrew Gentilli again on a regular basis is going to be highly amusing.
Then on Thursday I ran on workshop with one objective - for everyone to have as much fun as possible. Watching Edgar and Rhys together doing a really stoopid pair of characters was the funniest thing ever.
When you're just having fun and playing with it most of the stuff happens naturally. I can't believe I was taking it seriously at all. It's like watching a dog 'trying' to be a dog - just be a dog dammit! So new objective, having as much fun with impro as possible, wooooo!
Impro in London has gone from no improv comedy clubs to lots, and there are now shows almost every day of the week. That's awesome. Impro in the UK is about to go into mega drive. Like that bit in Spaceballs with Rik Moranis.
So the new Hoopla rules of impro:
Be in a good mood
Have fun
Play
Don't take it too seriously
I'm also about to go on a full-time clown course with Mick Barnfather for two weeks, so that should help things along.
I'm also about to go on a full-time clown course with Mick Barnfather for two weeks, so that should help things along.
Fun times!
Hoopla
www.HooplaImpro.com
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Improvising believable relationships using stuff from real life
These notes came out of last Monday's Hoopla workshop on Relationships.
Characters on stage go from two separate people in separate worlds to a relationship when they have emotional connection, history, feelings, status between each other, knowledge of each other, behaviour, games when they are affected by each other. 'Brothers' is just a word on stage, it's everything else that makes it a relationship.
I was lucky enough to be taught by John Cremer when I started impro (my favourite ever teacher of anything) and he used to stop scenes sometimes and say something like:
"You've got two people on stage, an elephant, five nuclear weapons, a radar, a big red button and a gun. What's the most interesting thing on stage?"
The answer was always The Relationship between the two people. It's the only actual real thing on stage, all the other stuff is made up, but we can have a real emotional connection and relationship between the two people on stage.
At the start of the workshop we went around the group and everyone talked about a positive relationship they had in their life and what made it a relationship, what were they like together, what were the factors that made it a relationship.
In this exercise I was at first surprised by the lack of depth in my own answer and some others. I was presumably talking about someone I'd known for ages but couldn't think what to say.
Then I realised I'd blocked myself right from the start, as I was originally going to talk about Edgar (who I started Hoopla with) but blocked myself as it was 'too much'. We went to school together from when we were 4 years old, got drunk together for the first time when we were 14, pursued the same girls, went through every break up we've ever experienced, sat on walls at parties talking about what life is all about, got beaten up together, argued over a lack of water on a back packing trip in Australia.
It was impossible to explain in a couple of lines, because the relationship is part of who I am and has been there for my life. The same with any major relationship in my life. There is so much depth that I found it impossible to sum up.
When we meet someone new in life (like going out with someone) the major conversation for years can be the two of you talking about the relationships we have with Mothers, Fathers, Friends etc and over time the other person builds up an image and feeling of what each relationship is like. But the other people might have built up a different image of the relationships, as relationships aren't tangible set in stone things, they are entirely relative and depend on the perception of the viewer.
So the challenge of the workshop became could we have as much depth on stage, with an improviser we've just met, as we have with real people in our lives.
Scripted actors can spend days building up the back story of their character and their relationships, borrowing bits from their own life, changing the imaginary circumstances. But as improvisers we have a split second to define a relationship, we have to be instant method actors.
Relationship Presents
Similar to the well known impro exercise of giving presents to each other, except this time you give a relationship and build on it. Play it in pairs as an exercise. One improviser gives the other a relationship as a gift (they actually mime the gift) and they then pass it between them adding details to the relationship. At this point in the exercise they are talking about the relationship, rather than being in it as such. It's more fact based and history based than emotion based for now. For instance:
A: We're brothers
B: We've been going to the same school together for 12 years
A: We're twin brothers
B: We both like canoeing
A: You're better at canoeing than me
B: We're canoe rivals
Relationship Presents With Feelings
We then repeated the exercise except this time we added lines about how the offers made us feel, and how we felt about each other. For instance:
A: We're brothers
B: We're twin brothers
A: You're better at canoeing at me
B: That makes me feel smug
A: That makes me hate you
B: That makes me sad, but I can't help competing
A: I'm really competitive too, we've been seeing the same girl
B: We compete over everything
So now we have facts and history that we give, but also emotional connection and relationship. 'Twin Brothers' is a label. Behaviour and emotional connection is what gives the relationship.
Using Lines From Real Life
This came about when I realised I use of my own real life in impro shows but had never thought to actually teach that. I've found grabbing things from real life can suddenly make scenes matter more and give them greater depth. You're not planning the whole scene, as the circumstances will change pretty rapidly, but it can give you an emotional drive and reality right at the start.
For instance if I find myself in a scene where I have to split up with someone, then I'll often start by using something from a real splitting up that happened. If I have to do a scene where I meet my Grandmother, I might as well treat her at the start like my real Grandmother. It adds reality, and also adds emotional content without having to think it up. You never have to tell anyone where this stuff comes from, and after a few offers it will be far removed from the original reality anyway.
So we did some scenes where an obvious relationship name was given, and the actors then used lines from real life at the start of the scene to help generate a real relationship. We first did this in pairs as an exercise, then in scenes in front of the audience.
Scenarios included:
A teenage Grandson coming to visit his Grandfather
Husband and wife of 25 years having breakfast together
Older cousin coming to visit younger cousin
The relationships became real when they had status between each other, when the characters were affected by each other, when they had attitudes to each other, when they had history, when they had behaviour. With the behaviour particular breakthroughs came when a character behaved a certain way and the other one picked up on it as something they always did. For instance "Grandpa you're always nitpicking about everything, how long is the water boiled for, how long am I here for, what grades did I get" and "you're always trying to take away my power, our therapist spoke about this, making the tea is my job, don't take away my power!"
The last scenario in this exercise was a different - British division of NASA. This doesn't imply a relationship from our own lives, so the challenge for the actors was to still build a true relationship in an unusual situation. They came upon the relationship of boss and reluctant employee, and so were able to channel their own experiences of bosses and employees. It was awesome! We had a teenage Astronaut who didn't want to go into space because it was hard work, and a NASA boss who didn't want to send him but had to because they were understaffed.
Unusual Cirmcumstances
We then gave a series of scene challenges, using suggestions that are notoriously difficult to improvise in. I personally think they are difficult to improvise in because they have no implied relationship and quite often feature people who didn't previously know each other. It's quite hard to improvise scenes between two characters who don't know each other and have no connection or relationship. Unfortunately these are also the kind of suggestions that audiences are likely to give, as they think they are helping the actors by keeping them safe by giving them safe places where nothing happens. These kind of common suggestions include:
Bus stop
Train station
Supermarket
Garden Centre
Pet Shop
Underground
Beach
Post Office (notice you don't get bank suggested as much, because it implies bank robberies, which is exciting while Post Office implies queues and complaints)
So we now attacked each suggestion one by one but with the point of focus for each improviser on having a relationship with the other person. They weren't strangers in the supermarket, they knew each other, they had history. I found having improvisers going on with the aim of 'naming and building a relationship' brought about loads of awesome stuff automatically. Suddenly everything on stage actually mattered.
For instance in the tube train scene an improviser stood on stage and grabbed hold of the overhead bar, which is a great way to start. The train stopped at a station, the doors opened, and another improviser walked on. I've seen tube train scenes time and time again where they would have just stood there not looking at each other, and another improviser enters, and another, someone farts and blah blah blah blah.
This time though it was awesome.
The entering improviser pushed his way through an imaginary crowd (awesome mime) and then put himself right up in the armpit of the other improviser, looked him in the eye and said 'hello Ted'. He was then defined as Ted's stalker. But going deeper they had a relationship, he'd been stalking him for weeks, Ted had seen him on his road this morning, stood outside his house, and they worked together. "What do you want?" "A kiss".
At every single line of the tube train scene they were now trying to build the deepest connection and relationship they could, make things more important.
Lots of love,
Hoopla
Improv Classes and Shows
www.HooplaImpro.com
Characters on stage go from two separate people in separate worlds to a relationship when they have emotional connection, history, feelings, status between each other, knowledge of each other, behaviour, games when they are affected by each other. 'Brothers' is just a word on stage, it's everything else that makes it a relationship.
I was lucky enough to be taught by John Cremer when I started impro (my favourite ever teacher of anything) and he used to stop scenes sometimes and say something like:
"You've got two people on stage, an elephant, five nuclear weapons, a radar, a big red button and a gun. What's the most interesting thing on stage?"
The answer was always The Relationship between the two people. It's the only actual real thing on stage, all the other stuff is made up, but we can have a real emotional connection and relationship between the two people on stage.
At the start of the workshop we went around the group and everyone talked about a positive relationship they had in their life and what made it a relationship, what were they like together, what were the factors that made it a relationship.
In this exercise I was at first surprised by the lack of depth in my own answer and some others. I was presumably talking about someone I'd known for ages but couldn't think what to say.
Then I realised I'd blocked myself right from the start, as I was originally going to talk about Edgar (who I started Hoopla with) but blocked myself as it was 'too much'. We went to school together from when we were 4 years old, got drunk together for the first time when we were 14, pursued the same girls, went through every break up we've ever experienced, sat on walls at parties talking about what life is all about, got beaten up together, argued over a lack of water on a back packing trip in Australia.
It was impossible to explain in a couple of lines, because the relationship is part of who I am and has been there for my life. The same with any major relationship in my life. There is so much depth that I found it impossible to sum up.
When we meet someone new in life (like going out with someone) the major conversation for years can be the two of you talking about the relationships we have with Mothers, Fathers, Friends etc and over time the other person builds up an image and feeling of what each relationship is like. But the other people might have built up a different image of the relationships, as relationships aren't tangible set in stone things, they are entirely relative and depend on the perception of the viewer.
So the challenge of the workshop became could we have as much depth on stage, with an improviser we've just met, as we have with real people in our lives.
Scripted actors can spend days building up the back story of their character and their relationships, borrowing bits from their own life, changing the imaginary circumstances. But as improvisers we have a split second to define a relationship, we have to be instant method actors.
Relationship Presents
Similar to the well known impro exercise of giving presents to each other, except this time you give a relationship and build on it. Play it in pairs as an exercise. One improviser gives the other a relationship as a gift (they actually mime the gift) and they then pass it between them adding details to the relationship. At this point in the exercise they are talking about the relationship, rather than being in it as such. It's more fact based and history based than emotion based for now. For instance:
A: We're brothers
B: We've been going to the same school together for 12 years
A: We're twin brothers
B: We both like canoeing
A: You're better at canoeing than me
B: We're canoe rivals
Relationship Presents With Feelings
We then repeated the exercise except this time we added lines about how the offers made us feel, and how we felt about each other. For instance:
A: We're brothers
B: We're twin brothers
A: You're better at canoeing at me
B: That makes me feel smug
A: That makes me hate you
B: That makes me sad, but I can't help competing
A: I'm really competitive too, we've been seeing the same girl
B: We compete over everything
So now we have facts and history that we give, but also emotional connection and relationship. 'Twin Brothers' is a label. Behaviour and emotional connection is what gives the relationship.
Using Lines From Real Life
This came about when I realised I use of my own real life in impro shows but had never thought to actually teach that. I've found grabbing things from real life can suddenly make scenes matter more and give them greater depth. You're not planning the whole scene, as the circumstances will change pretty rapidly, but it can give you an emotional drive and reality right at the start.
For instance if I find myself in a scene where I have to split up with someone, then I'll often start by using something from a real splitting up that happened. If I have to do a scene where I meet my Grandmother, I might as well treat her at the start like my real Grandmother. It adds reality, and also adds emotional content without having to think it up. You never have to tell anyone where this stuff comes from, and after a few offers it will be far removed from the original reality anyway.
So we did some scenes where an obvious relationship name was given, and the actors then used lines from real life at the start of the scene to help generate a real relationship. We first did this in pairs as an exercise, then in scenes in front of the audience.
Scenarios included:
A teenage Grandson coming to visit his Grandfather
Husband and wife of 25 years having breakfast together
Older cousin coming to visit younger cousin
The relationships became real when they had status between each other, when the characters were affected by each other, when they had attitudes to each other, when they had history, when they had behaviour. With the behaviour particular breakthroughs came when a character behaved a certain way and the other one picked up on it as something they always did. For instance "Grandpa you're always nitpicking about everything, how long is the water boiled for, how long am I here for, what grades did I get" and "you're always trying to take away my power, our therapist spoke about this, making the tea is my job, don't take away my power!"
The last scenario in this exercise was a different - British division of NASA. This doesn't imply a relationship from our own lives, so the challenge for the actors was to still build a true relationship in an unusual situation. They came upon the relationship of boss and reluctant employee, and so were able to channel their own experiences of bosses and employees. It was awesome! We had a teenage Astronaut who didn't want to go into space because it was hard work, and a NASA boss who didn't want to send him but had to because they were understaffed.
Unusual Cirmcumstances
We then gave a series of scene challenges, using suggestions that are notoriously difficult to improvise in. I personally think they are difficult to improvise in because they have no implied relationship and quite often feature people who didn't previously know each other. It's quite hard to improvise scenes between two characters who don't know each other and have no connection or relationship. Unfortunately these are also the kind of suggestions that audiences are likely to give, as they think they are helping the actors by keeping them safe by giving them safe places where nothing happens. These kind of common suggestions include:
Bus stop
Train station
Supermarket
Garden Centre
Pet Shop
Underground
Beach
Post Office (notice you don't get bank suggested as much, because it implies bank robberies, which is exciting while Post Office implies queues and complaints)
So we now attacked each suggestion one by one but with the point of focus for each improviser on having a relationship with the other person. They weren't strangers in the supermarket, they knew each other, they had history. I found having improvisers going on with the aim of 'naming and building a relationship' brought about loads of awesome stuff automatically. Suddenly everything on stage actually mattered.
For instance in the tube train scene an improviser stood on stage and grabbed hold of the overhead bar, which is a great way to start. The train stopped at a station, the doors opened, and another improviser walked on. I've seen tube train scenes time and time again where they would have just stood there not looking at each other, and another improviser enters, and another, someone farts and blah blah blah blah.
This time though it was awesome.
The entering improviser pushed his way through an imaginary crowd (awesome mime) and then put himself right up in the armpit of the other improviser, looked him in the eye and said 'hello Ted'. He was then defined as Ted's stalker. But going deeper they had a relationship, he'd been stalking him for weeks, Ted had seen him on his road this morning, stood outside his house, and they worked together. "What do you want?" "A kiss".
At every single line of the tube train scene they were now trying to build the deepest connection and relationship they could, make things more important.
Lots of love,
Hoopla
Improv Classes and Shows
www.HooplaImpro.com
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