Exercises
Have you ever been at a party and you are in mid-flow telling a relative stranger about a fascinating, amusing, poignant, romantic time of your life, and you are just getting to the nub of the story, when a long-lost friend of the relative stranger you are talking to bounces over and starts shrieking about how fabulous it is to see them again, and you get introduced, and you say ‘Hi,’ and you are desperate to finish your story, but neither the stranger nor their friend seems to be interested, but you try to do it anyway, and the story loses all its entertainment value?
Oh you haven’t? It’s just me then.
What about a time when you are with some friends, and you have all just started to watch a game of football, when the plumber arrives two hours late to repair the washing machine, and wants to talk to you about his nightmare traffic problems, and you miss an early goal, and while everyone cheers, he tells you all the reasons he hates football, and won’t stop?
Or how about that time when you are shopping with a friend and she’s just about to help you choose between three items of clothing, when her new boyfriend turns up unexpectedly and they can’t take their eyes off each other, and neither of them are interested in your appearance anyway, so you have to ask a shop assistant to help you choose?
We get these unexpected interruptions all the time. And when they happen we just have to deal with them and carry on. We can’t just say, ‘Sorry, we were in the middle of something else and you’ve broken our concentration.’
And anyway, sometimes these interruptions can turn out to be more interesting than the things they interrupt. The person who interrupted your story at the party could turn out to be a gorgeous, undiscovered soul-mate. The washing machine repair man could be the long-lost brother you never knew you had. The shop assistant could be from market research and wants to present you with a large cash prize!
Anything could happen.
ONCE PEOPLE HAVE WORKED ON ALL THE TECHNIQUES described in this book, they will be able to use their acting skills to produce interesting and truthful improvisations in any workshop or rehearsal situation in which they may find themselves. They will be able to explore character and relationship in a creative fashion to enlighten and inspire themselves, other improvisers, session leaders or directors.
However, improvisations can be made even more interesting and informative by the input of other people. If, for instance, another improviser is watching a scene and thinks it needs a bit of help to get it out of a rut, they can join in, and introduce new and unexpected elements. If a director or teacher wants to take a scene in a new direction without interfering with the flow, they can ask someone else to enter the improvisation as a new character or a person with a particular task.
In fact, scene interruptions can introduce elements that people who are busy improvising could never have dreamed of. It’s difficult for them to think up changes to a scene when they are concentrating on the thought processes of the character they are playing; trying to create a truthful scenario; and working with the inventiveness and imagination of another improviser. Sometimes an objective eye sees more clearly what an improvised scene needs to make it more interesting, to enhance its reality or to make it come alive.
But it’s important for improvisers to keep an open mind to outside ideas and to be receptive to external contributions.
They need to embrace the creativity of other improvisers who may suddenly arrive with unusual characters and unexpected ideas. They need to allow a scene to travel in unpredictable and exciting directions. They need to welcome change and go with the flow!
Joining In
1. Intimate Meal
With everyone divided up into groups of three and all the groups working at the same time, ask two people in each trio to improvise a scene where they are having an important conversation in a restaurant. Before they start they should give themselves a relationship of some sort, and decide why they are there. After it has been running for a couple of minutes, ask the third person from each group to join the scene as an overattentive waiter who won’t leave them alone or an old school friend who happens to be in the restaurant and wants to talk about old times.
2. Plans for the Future
With the same groups of three, ask them to choose a different person to be the interrupter. The other two should then start an improvisation where they are a couple of friends in the park, trying to plan something – an important party, a holiday or a night out. After the improvisation has been running for a couple of minutes, ask the other person to arrive and try to borrow some money from them, or to try and get back a book they lent to one of them last week.
3. Relationship Problems
Again, with the same groups of three, the third person becomes the interrupter. Ask the other two to be flat-sharers discussing the problems of their relationship. After a minute or two the third person can arrive as a neighbour wanting to borrow some sugar, or they could be a person on the phone trying to sell double glazing. (If someone wants to interrupt by being a phone call, all they have to do is to say ‘Ring ring . . . ring ring . . . ’ until someone in the improvisation realises what is happening and mimes answering the phone.)
RATIONALE These three improvisations give everyone a chance to be the interrupters, and at the same time they give everyone two opportunities to deal with interruptions.
DEBRIEFING At this stage it’s a good idea to have a discussion about their experiences during these improvisations. Some people find it annoying to have, what appears to be, a perfectly reasonable improvisation spoiled by a random person, but if they learn to accept these interruptions, then their improvisations will become more exciting and unpredictable.
Improvisations
Interruptions
With everyone divided up into groups of three and all the groups working at the same time, ask two people to start an improvisation using the Simple or Complex Scenario Cards and the Character Cards in the usual way. After a couple of minutes have the third person interrupt the improvisation with one of the following objectives:
Tell the person interrupting that they mustn’t give up too easily. The other two improvisers have to see if they can deal with the interruption without losing sight of the original scenario.
With people in the same groups of three, try two more scenarios, so that each person can have the opportunity to be the interrupter.
RATIONALE This time the interrupters have strong objectives to achieve, so the improvisers have to stay really focused on their improvisation. They should be learning to welcome these changes, and they should recognise that these interruptions add colour and depth to a scenario.
DEBRIEFING How did the interruption change the scene? Did it stay truthful? As improvisers, were they pleased or annoyed with the interruption? As characters, were they pleased or annoyed with the interruption? Did they learn anything about their characters?
Group Interruptions
Before you start, tell the whole group that anyone who is watching an improvisation can interrupt, join in and leave, at any time they like. Then, with the group divided into pairs, each pair improvises while the rest of the group watches. Use the Complex Scenario Cards and the Character Cards to set up the scene in the normal way, and let an improvisation start. After a minute or two, when the scene is properly established, the rest can join in. The rule is that there should be no more than four people in the scene at any one time, so if a fifth person arrives, one of the others has to leave. Even one of the original pair can leave, but of course, if the improvisation goes on long enough, they, or anyone else, can come back later. The original two improvisers should always come back as the same character they were when they left.
The original two improvisers can also bring other people into the scene by, for instance, calling for the waiter, or knocking on an imaginary door, or (wait for it . . .) making a telephone call. Now that everyone is tuned in to these techniques, the other improvisers who are watching can immediately leap up and be the waiter, or the person answering the door, or the person on the other end of the telephone!
(The rule about never having one-sided conversations on a telephone still applies, but now that other people become part of the improvisation, there never needs to be a one-sided conversation.)
RATIONALE This kind of group work makes it possible for exploratory improvisations to be taken in all manner of directions, and, although the improvisations can become quite wild, if everyone is able to keep them truthful, then they can also become exciting and unpredictable.
DEBRIEFING Again: Did it stay truthful? If not, where and why did it go wrong? Did people feel free to interrupt at any time, or were they afraid of ‘spoiling’ the scene? Did the improvisers learn anything about their characters and relationships?
Introduction to the Extreme Scenario Cards
First of all, explain that some of these Extreme Scenarios may seem to be silly but they are all the basic building blocks of film, TV or theatrical drama. As I said in the Introduction, when the baby alien bursts out of John Hurt’s stomach in the film Alien, it’s not a joke, the actors play the scene with total truth and conviction, resulting in a horrific moment. E.T. makes the audiences cry because he is lost, ill and far from home. Frodo Baggins’s quest to throw a ring into a volcano is massively important and scary. So, bearing all that in mind, the improvisers should approach these scenarios with the desire to create the same in-depth emotional reality as the makers of all those films did.
So it’s time to crack open the Extreme Scenario Cards and to let the improvisers have fun. They can imagine what it’s really like to be aliens from another planet, or goblins in an enchanted forest. They can explore meeting an identical twin for the first time or having a conversation with someone who is invisible. They can discover how they might feel if a nuclear war had just started or if they were a passenger on a sinking ship. They can imagine what it’s like to see a ghost and what it might be like to be a ghost!
Extreme Improvisations with Interruptions
Using the Extreme Improvisation Cards and the Character Cards ask a pair of people to come forward to choose an improvisation. Once they have discovered what they are supposed to improvise and who they are supposed to be, ask the group if anyone else wants to become part of the improvisation. When you start experimenting with these Extreme Scenarios, it’s probably better if there are only two or three extra people joining in.
Then, as the group becomes adept at exchanging and swapping focus, more and more of them can become part of the scenario. They can be other passengers on the sinking ship or they can be people in the street or other family members or anything they like. And they can interrupt and create unexpected changes. They can interrupt in pairs. They can take over the improvisation by becoming very high-status characters and arresting everybody (or trying to). They can be foreigners speaking in gobbledegook so that the other improvisers have no idea what they want. They can be silent observers within the scene. They can walk on and walk off like passing strangers who are getting on with their own lives and not become involved in the scene at all.
Once these improvisations have started, anyone can join in and become part of the scene by arriving as a suitable interruption, but here’s a couple of rules:
1. |
IT’S VITAL TO KEEP THESE IMPROVISATIONS TRUTHFUL. |
2. |
EVERYONE IN THE GROUP HAS EQUAL IMPORTANCE ONCE AN IMPROVISATION HAS STARTED. |
DEBRIEFING Always discuss whether the interruptions were suitable and whether they were integrated correctly into the improvisation. Discuss whether too many people became part of the improvisation and whether it became confusing or not. Also keep a firm hand on the focus of the improvisation. As they get used to these techniques they will be able to develop ‘sub-scenes’ in the background of an improvisation and they may be able to allow these sub-scenes to become the main focus for a while, but it’s important to prevent everyone in the group trying to make their sub-scene the main focus of the improvisation at the same time as everyone else.
Session Debriefing
The purpose of this session is for the improvisers to learn how to be creative and to discover how far they can ‘push’ an improvisation without losing the truth and reality of character or situation.
They can have fun. Explore. Find out how other people think. Investigate situations that are unknown to them. Enjoy the creativity of others. Trust their own talent. And get involved.
From now on they should be able to approach any improvisation request without fear. They should respond positively if a director wants to guide an improvised scene in a new direction by asking another improviser to interrupt and join in. They should be able to use improvisation to explore mystery, romance, drama, adventure or any other genre. They should be able to improvise with courage, imagination and creativity. But whatever explorations they make, they will always have a total commitment to the truth and reality of a scene.