March 2, 2009
-
Proof of Performance
Today was my second live improvisational long-form performance. It was in the same format as my first, the Triptych (three stories, told in three acts, performed consecutively). Our genres this time were Period Piece (think Jane Austen or E.M.Forster), a Western, and a Romantic Comedy.
The overall opinion was that this show was even better than the last one (yay). It seemed that way to me as well. There were some surprisingly grounded scenes, good audience reaction, and some honestly-won laughter. Was I still scared? You bet. Nervous as hell, but less debilitatingly. Dave Dennison, my teacher for over a year now, talks about a sort of "zen space" (more of a satori, but you get the point) that you reach when you're listening to everything that's going on, and paying attention to everything that's happening onstage -- a crucial skill you need if you have any hope of improvising. I need to get better at it, but once you're "there," you know it, and it's a calm place.
I was "there" a lot (though not as much as I could've been), and there's no room for fear or nerves there. Beause fear is a loud voice. Its "voice" is too loud to pay attention to while improv is happening; you can't listen to it while things are happening, because you'll miss them if you do. Nonetheless, I think I held back more than last time. At least at first. Oddly, I felt most disconnected to the Period Piece, the one genre that I feel I had the most connection to during practice, and most connected to the Western, which I'd had more problems with during practice. But: that's improv. You never know what's going to work or not until you do it. Failure is an option, and we live in terror of it.
But on balance, I think our final show blew away every rehearsal we did prior. This was a great group of actors; their enthusiasm was elevated and sustained for the whole course. I'm genuinely happy to have worked with them, and I think I learned a lot.
I've got a brief video that Z-Man, bless him, took. It's taken from his camera, so it's not high quality, but you can get the gist. It's the final scene of the Western, titled "Six Feet Under." You might not be able to hear the words so well either, so let me set the whole thing up (and cross your fingers that I can post it and embed it into the blog).
The Western genre has a simple outline (at least, for our purposes; they can be much more complex, but we're telling this story in 25 minutes): a protagonist is introduced, along with his loved ones; an antagonist does something to the protagonist's loved ones, up to and including murder. The protagonist has to claw his way out from whatever fallout from the violence resulted and exact justice and/or vengeance on the perpetrator, usually resulting in the death of the antagonist, and, sometimes, the protagonist.
Tonight's western involved a family on a wagon trail, heading to Oregon. The father is away from the wagon, fetching water for his ill wife, son, and two daughters, who remain at the wagon. The wagon is waylaid by the notorious Black Bart, a stereotypical Western villain: amoral, violent, out for personal gain. The son (me) runs away in terror, leaving the womenfolk at the mercy of Black Bart and his sidekick. They are kidnapped and put into a box elsewhere.
In the next act, the father finds the empty wagon, and the distraught son finds the father. The son is terrified and guilt-ridden for abandoning his family. Meanwhile, Black Bart confronts his sidekick, who wants out. Black Bart shoots his sidekick to prove a point. The mother and daughters are terrified. The mother begs and pleads for the life of her daughters. Black Bart releases the children to hunt down the father, from whom he demands ransom. Meanwhile, father and son acquire arms, preparing to find and rescue their family; the son's romantic notions of gunslinging have evaporated in the face of both the terror of the kidnapping, and his first attempts to fire a shotgun, which hurt like hell.
In the third act, the escaped daughters find the father and tell him their mother is being held at the Columbia river. Father and son track down where the wife/mother is being held. What follows is the scene Z-man caught on video. Approximate dialogue follows the video ('cause it's hard to hear). In the scene are me, the son (in brown, on left), the father (Rizh, in blue), the mother (Heather, in gray), and Black Bart (Danny, on right in light green).
JAY (THE SON):
I see him, Pa! (inaudible)BENJAMIN (FATHER):
Be quiet, now.JAY:
Better draw ahead of time, Pa.BENJAMIN:
Good idea.JAY (follows nervously)
BLACK BART:
Well, well. So, you finally come for her, huh?MOTHER:
(inaudible)BLACK BART:
Took long enough.MOTHER:
Listen, be careful! He already killed his sidekick, Billy! We'll all be six feet under!BLACK BART:
That's right. You will be six feet under, unless you got a heap o' money with ya. So you can take her away and I can get my money.BENJAMIN:
Boy, you sure talk a lot for someone who's got two guns pointed at'cha.JAY (knees knocking, he tries to stiffen his nerve)
MOTHER:
Don't be scared now, Jay.JAY (straightens up, terrified)
BLACK BART:
You mean one and a half guns (inaudible). I wouldn't put him up to anybody.BENJAMIN:
Now listen, mister, all I want is my wife, and my kids, and my life back.BLACK BART:
All I want is my money!JAY:
YOU NO GOOD GOD DAMNED SON OF A BITCH (fires shotgun) (inaudible) WHY DID YOU DO THIS? (fires shotgun) WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE? (fires shotgun, inaudible, fires shotgun, inaudible, you get the point)As you can perhaps tell, it was not planned at all. I just snapped. The audience was as surprised as I was. And, scene!!
Comments (6)
Matthew in a western....will wonders never cease! This from a man who thinks his mother buys some of her paperbacks for the cover "art"work. Loved it, wish it was clearer but thanks to Z-man anyway! Would love to see you in period piece, costume and all!
No costumes in improv! Especially since we're going from genre to genre. It's one of the things we actually work on and practice in class: imagining ourselves in different period costumes or uniforms, and holding our bodies as if we were dressed in them. Are you wearing a tight corset? How would you stand? Do you have a big hat on? Are you in a space suit? Are you in a tux? With tails? Since it's improv, all of these things have to be pantomimed.
But thinking about what you wear in this way serves a few purposes. It can say something about your character or give your character some kind of trait or job. And, when you make it "real," it helps the audience fill in the scene with their imagination. Unlike a regular play, with costumes and sets, the audience has to do some of the work, and the actor has to help them fill in the gaps. Because, if the stage can be anything and you can be anyone, you have to communicate what it is you're trying to be and where you are. Little details like this enrich the experience for the viewer and help the improviser make strong choices about who they are/what they want/where they're going.
Hee! Bootleg improv video!
I think Black Bart forgot the first rule of standoffs with guns. The moment anyone opens their mouth, shoot them. "YOU NO- *BANG*...gurgle, hack, gurgle...". Most characters in standoffs make it really easy to spot when they're about to snap; they open their mouths. It's like they're compelled by the gods of storytelling to express why there is about to be a gunshot.
Yup, he was actually taken by surprise (as was I -- I honestly did not know how it was going to go down until it did; might've been my dad first, we might both have died, we might all three of us have died -- we didn't know), but it was his second mistake and crime against narrative causality.
Kill the plucky-yet-terrified youngster first, preferably at a safe distance. Otherwise, save yourself the trouble and just shoot yourself in the head at the outset.
So I was wondering; what you seem to be doing is improv acting, while what I had been exposed to before with Jenn D. was improv standup comedy. Is there much crossover between these two, or are they pretty much two different beasts?
Short answer: "improv" has come to mean both stand-up comedy that may or may not be extemporaneous (or may even be both), and improvisational theater, in which a "play" is "written" as it is being performed.
There used to be a show on T.V. called "A Night at the Improv," on which known and unknown comedians would get up and do a routine, usually a set one they've practiced, but sometimes one they are revising, or polishing, or trying out new material. Insofar as a comedian has to be fast on his feet and quick of wit, and insofar as they can match their act to the room, and insofar as they can ad lib when they have to, that really is improvisational. But usually, stand-up comedy is the opposite of improvisational theater. They've worked on their act before doing it in front of a paying crowd.
Improvisational theater is the kind that I'm doing where everything is made up on the spot, based on audience suggestions. There's long form, short form, and "games." Long form is what I've been doing lately, and the idea is to tell a complete story over the course of the night. Short form builds small skits which also tell a story, but in a much smaller frame of time, say on the scale of a scene rather than an act. "Games" are both a means and an end for improv. They can be entertaining as hell for an audience (Whose Line Is It Anyway? comes to mind as a good example of this), but they also build on improv skills that help with the other formats. Here's where I start to use jargon like "justification" (explain why that just happened) and "endowment" ("You're blue!" "I've got three legs!"), but I'll spare you.
Wikipedia has a good write-up on it, and cites the BATS improv "guru," Keith Johnstone. He usually come by once a year for a workshop with the main troupe. He wrote the book on Theatersports performances.
Comments are closed.