Exercises
Have you ever noticed that some people always seem to be at the centre of things while others are always looking to find the centre but never can? And the people at the centre are always at the centre, it doesn’t matter where they are or what they are doing. And then, wherever they are and whatever they are doing, they always draw other people into their world. And these other people who are looking to be part of someone else’s world immediately start worrying that somewhere else might be a better place to be. The grass could be greener, they think.
What is it that the centred people have that makes them content and yet excited by whatever world surrounds them? And why doesn’t everyone feel that way?
In 1979 Peter Sellers starred in a film version of a Jerzy Kosinski novel called Being There. The main character, Chance, is a gardener who has been isolated from the everyday world. He has not met many people and as a result lives in a world of his own: his garden. When eventually he is forced to leave his garden and go out into the real world, he trusts everyone he meets because he has never encountered sarcasm, metaphor, irony, hyperbole, or any of the other tricks of rhetoric that people use all the time without even thinking about it. Chance is not at all stupid, he just doesn’t recognise these rhetorical games. He takes everything that is said at face value. Even the advertisements on television which, up until he leaves his garden, are the only real contact he has had with the outside world. Similarly, he doesn’t use rhetoric himself. He is totally honest and direct when he speaks and because the rest of the world is so used to metaphor and simile, his directness is misinterpreted, and he is considered an enigmatic genius. When Chauncey Gardiner (as Chance the Gardener is mistakenly called) talks about the best way to grow roses, people take it as a metaphor for the way to run the country, and he becomes an adviser to the president.
PRESIDENT Do you think we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
CHANCE As long as the roots are not severed . . . all is well . . . There will be growth in the spring.
Jerzy Kosinski called his novel Being There because his main protagonist, Chance, is entirely in the centre of his own world. He is ‘in the moment’. And his is a world without deception. A rose is a rose is a rose, and that’s it.
If Chance is talking about roses then he is talking about roses, not people, not towns and cities, not the economy, not even flowers in general. Just roses. He is not trying to impress. He is not trying to entertain. He is just ‘being there’. He is centred and consequently he draws the people around him into his world.
Explorative Improvisation
IF I HAD TO ISOLATE ONE THING THAT IS VITAL FOR AN improviser to master, it would have to be the ability to ‘be there’. It’s the main skill. If you trust yourself, trust your partner and believe in the world you create together, you don’t have to ‘do’ anything, you just have to ‘be’.
The problem with ‘being there’ for an improviser is that someone is usually watching them improvise, and as soon as any performer feels they are being watched, they want to put on a show. And it’s that desire to ‘put on a show’ that promotes the desire to entertain. The trouble is that once an improviser starts to entertain an audience, even an audience of one, the ability to be ‘in the moment’ and behave truthfully becomes a problem, because part of the brain is focused on the audience reaction and how to manipulate it.
Of course, experienced actors continually juggle with the truth/entertainment paradox along with all the other mental and physical skills they employ during a performance, but when improvisation is used in rehearsals as an exploration tool, the desire to entertain the director or the other actors can only be a distraction.
For inexperienced improvisers it is even harder to ignore the observers. It’s very difficult to act normally when people are looking at you, because you feel you ought to ‘do’ something. Ask anyone who has had to walk through an auditorium to accept a diploma, or walk across a dance floor to ask someone for a dance. Even the simple, everyday act of walking becomes a problem when you feel you are being watched. It makes you self-conscious and awkward. Think about the way people behave when you want to take a photograph of them. They pull funny faces. They assume heroic poses. They jump around. The fact is that when people realise they are being observed and the pressure is on, they want to do something. And they want to be liked.
And the easiest way to be sure that people like you is to make them laugh. Laughter is a physical/aural manifestation that everything is alright. If the audience laugh, then they must like you. Consequently, inexperienced improvisers often want, above all, to make people laugh. Of course laughter is a fantastic reaction to an improvised performance. As are other reactions that are not so easy for the performer to hear, such as anxiety, fear, compassion, apprehension, and love, etc. etc. And a skilful improvised performance can take an audience on quite a complex emotional journey. But in explorative improvisation, audience laughter, audience tears, audience sighs are all a distraction. As is the desire to promote them. The improviser must strive to think and behave as if the ‘audience’ (the director and the other actors) were not there.
They must forget about trying to entertain. They must forget about being liked. And, above all, they must not be afraid of being boring. They must just ‘be there’.
For without that sense of unobserved ‘truth’, there can be no proper exploration of situation, character or relationships. And ultimately very little will be discovered that can be of use as a rehearsal tool. And the whole point of explorative improvisation is to experience and discover things outside the scripted life of a character or a play.
What Animal I’d Like to Be
Ask everyone to sit in a circle. One at a time each person tells the rest of the group what animal they would most like to be and why. They can talk for as long as they like, but they tend to keep it quite short. (i.e. ‘I’d like to be a lion because they are so proud.’ Or ‘I’d like to be an eagle and fly over the mountains looking at the world below.’)
RATIONALE This is simply to get people talking about things and using their imagination.
Who I’d Like to Meet
Ask everyone to sit in a circle. One at a time each person tells the rest of the group who they would most like to meet and why they would like to meet them. Tell them that each person has to talk for one minute. (In order to take the pressure off them, I will often divide the group in half and set up two circles, so that no one is ever the only person in the room talking.)
RATIONALE This exercise is to develop their ability to talk in front of a large group of people using their own words and expressing their own ideas. For some of them a minute is absolutely no problem at all, but for others it seems like an eternity and they run out of things to say. However, if you encourage them to choose someone to ‘meet’ that they know a lot about, that helps the more reticent members of the group.
The Lottery
With the whole group working at the same time, but with each person working on their own, talk them through a solo improvisation about winning the lottery. They should be trying to find the truth of the situation for themselves and although they are not being asked to ‘mime’ their reactions, they would obviously do most of this in silence because there is no one else to talk to. I usually say something like the following:
‘Imagine you are walking home at the end of the day. It is winter, so it is already dark, and it is drizzling rain. Don’t demonstrate, just walk. Just believe in it and try to think the thoughts you might think on an occasion like this. Imagine how you would feel. You are getting close to home. Imagine you are walking down your street and you arrive at your own front door. Let yourself in exactly the way you would really let yourself in, and then do the sort of thing you would do next. Imagine that you live on your own, or that there is no one else there, so you are completely unobserved. Where would you put your coat? Would you have to put on any heating? Would you make yourself a cup of tea? Imagine what you would do and then do it. But also, whatever else you are doing, put on the television so it’s playing in the background. You vaguely watch it. It’s showing a programme where ordinary people pretend to be stars. They get dressed up like a famous person and try to sing a song so they sound just like that person. Imagine someone is on television trying to sound and look like Britney Spears (or whoever is popular at the moment). You watch for a minute. Then you realise that it is a friend of yours! It’s someone you were at school with who is now pretending to be Britney Spears . . . How do you react? What do you do? Don’t feel you have to demonstrate your reaction, just do what you would do. Let your imagination take control and try to react truthfully.
‘After a while, flick channels and imagine that the lottery draw comes on. Imagine that you buy a lottery ticket each week so you are mildly interested. The first number that comes up is 19. Your mother’s birthday. Each week you always use that number for luck so there is a minor thrill of excitement and you wonder where you put the ticket. The next number comes up. ‘13.’ Yes. Unlucky for some so you chose it to be perverse. The thrill of excitement grows and you start to look for the ticket, but can’t find it. Is it in your coat pocket? Did you put it in the kitchen drawer? ‘24!’ Was it 24 or 26 you put down? You can’t remember. Where is that damn ticket? Is it in your wallet? ‘7.’ No idea. But here’s the ticket! You’ve found it, and yes, you did choose 24. And, and, and, and . . . YES! 7! That’s 19, 13, 24 and 7. You’ve got four out of six right. There’s bound to be money in that. ‘8.’ Before you have time to even think you get the fifth number right. How do you feel? What do you do? Don’t demonstrate, just feel it. Imagine it. There’s only one more number you need and it’s a 31. ‘Come on. Come on.’ You think to yourself, ‘Come on, 31. Come!’ The balls jump around. One of them bounces up the funnel and . . . YES! It’s ‘31’! . . . All six numbers are correct! You’ve won the lottery!!!’
You can build the excitement of the lottery numbers by the way you use your voice. It will help them feel the excitement for themselves. As soon as you tell them that they have won the lottery, stop speaking and let them do whatever they do. Let them carry on for five minutes or so and then bring the exercise to an end.
RATIONALE The purpose of this exercise is to get them used to the idea of improvising truthfully without feeling the need to talk. It’s relatively easy for them to behave realistically when they are asked to recreate a familiar experience like walking home or making tea. So once that is established, they will be prepared to continue with a realistic solo improvisation when an unfamiliar experience is introduced: like seeing a friend on television; or winning the lottery.
DEBRIEFING After the exercise is over, allow them to discuss the experience together. Has anyone won the lottery? Did they feel they behaved truthfully? Let them know that whatever they did was right as long as they stayed truthful to the exploration. Different people react differently in any situation. Also explain that although most of the improvisation was talked through in detail, it went on for a few minutes after the moment of exhilaration or triumph with no more instructions. That was for two reasons. One, because life goes on even after moments of exhilaration and triumph, and it’s always interesting to discover what happens next: what happens after the climax can sometimes be more interesting than the climax. And secondly, because it helps them to understand that they need to continue to concentrate and explore even when an improvisation appears to have finished.
Minimal-Word Group Improvisations
Divide the group into two halves. Let one half be the audience for the other. The first half does a group improvisation of a doctor’s waiting room for about ten minutes while the other group watches. Then the second half does a group improvisation of a queue of people waiting in line to see a smash-hit movie while the first half watches.
RATIONALE This exercise is to introduce them to the concept of just being truthful, without having to ‘do’ anything.
DEBRIEFING Discuss how real these improvisations appeared. Ten to one there will have been a lot of drama and action. Ask them to compare these improvisations to their own real experience of situations like these. Let them know that the reality is more important than the drama at this stage of the training. Reinforce the message that they are not expected to be interesting! They just have to be truthful to the situation.
Minimal-Word Improvisations
Ask the group to divide themselves into pairs. With the rest of the group watching, give each pair an improvisation where there would normally be no speaking. Before they start, explain that they must really think about the situation they are in. If, for instance, they are supposed to be studying in a library, they must really imagine what they are studying. They must imagine what book they are reading. If they imagine that they are writing an essay, they must imagine the words they write down; imagine the pen they are using; and the paper they are writing on. They could also imagine that they are not allowed to speak or to disturb anyone.
Tell them that during the first part of the improvisation they must think of something they really want to say to the other person, but tell them they can’t say it until they get a signal. In that way the desire to speak will build. (I usually give the signal after about three minutes by clapping my hands.)
Here are some suggestions for Minimal-Word Improvisations:
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Strangers sheltering from the rain |
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Strangers in a café |
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Strangers waiting to take an exam |
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Strangers waiting for a bus |
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Strangers sitting next to each other on a bus |
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Strangers in an art gallery |
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Strangers sunbathing |
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Strangers at a funeral |
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Strangers studying in a library |
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People listening to a new CD together for the first time |
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Strangers watching a game of chess |
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Strangers sitting in a cathedral |
RATIONALE This exercise is to give them the opportunity to put the concept of ‘being there’ into action. Although it is hard for them to do very little, they start to learn that ‘less can be more’ in the search for truth in an improvisation. It also helps them practise the desire to communicate. When we speak to other people it is because we want to communicate with them. So often in an improvisation people speak because they think they ought to, not because they have something to say.
DEBRIEFING After each improvisation discuss what was truthful. Point out whatever seemed to be moments of demonstration. Encourage moments of silence and stillness. They don’t have to force the issue, they just have to behave realistically. And they don’t have to speak unless they’ve got something to say.
At the end of the class discuss the ability to do nothing in front of an audience. Ask them how easy or difficult they found it. Really make them understand that, if it is truthful to do nothing, then nothing is what they must do.
There are two dangers that crop up with inexperienced improvisers, and they are the oral extremes. One is the improviser who doesn’t know what to say, and the other is the improviser who can’t stop talking. Both of these extremes are brought about by fear and the feeling of being in the spotlight. If they learn to forget that someone might be watching and just find the truth of a situation, then the words that come out of their mouths will be the words they would use in real life. That is all they have to do in an improvisation.
They just have to ‘be there’.
