C H A P T E R 6
Creating
Environments
In a full-length, improvised play, a well-created environment can be a wonderful gift to the improviser. More than just providing a location, the environment can help develop the story. It can serve as a catalyst for the action, affect the relationships between the characters, and offer a symbol or a metaphor to feed the play’s theme.
In fact, in a full-length play, the environment not only can do those things but it also absolutely must. The world of the drama has no room for the arbitrary. Everything presented to the audience, great or trivial, must have significance in the context of the whole. If we choose to present our characters in a certain location and at a certain time, then that location and that time must be absolutely essential to the story. Indeed, it should be impossible for that exact story to unfold in any other place imaginable.
An all too common occurrence in improvisation is for a scene to take place regardless of its environment rather than because of its environment. For example, a husband and wife are in an ice-cream shop and a handsome, young man walks in, catching the wife’s attention. The husband starts feeling insecure and jealous, and the wife becomes annoyed. They squabble, and the husband walks out, leaving the wife to take a second look at the handsome, young man.
This could be an interesting scene, but notice how independent it is of the environment. Rather than taking place in an ice-cream shop, it could have just as easily been set in an elegant restaurant, the deck of a cruise ship, or a park bench on a Sunday afternoon. It happened regardless of the fact that it was in an ice-cream shop and not because of it. Now, this might be okay for a short scene in a short-form improv show, but in a full-length play, the environment must be necessary and not just possible. Otherwise, it simply will not be substantial enough to support two hours’ worth of stage time.
Think again about the couple in the ice-cream shop and imagine if the scene unfolded differently. The wife rushes in, followed by her husband. He’s tired, and she’s pregnant. It’s 11:30 P.M., and she’s having a craving for Chocolate Triple Fudge, and until she gets it there will not be any peace between them. The clerk, however, is very sorry, but they just ran out of Chocolate Triple Fudge and can she offer her some Rocky Road Deluxe? The wife becomes insanely furious at the notion that Rocky Road Deluxe can in any way be considered a substitute for Chocolate Triple Fudge and berates the husband for his inability to provide even the barest of necessities for her and her child. The two begin to squabble until finally the wife breaks down in apologetic tears and confesses that she is absolutely terrified of becoming a mother and riddled with insecurities. The husband assures her that they are in this together, and the two reconcile. Suddenly, the clerk discovers a whole, unopened tin of Chocolate Triple Fudge. However, the wife is now in need of a pastrami sandwich, and she runs outside pulling her husband behind her.
Notice how, now, the scene could not take place in any other location in the world aside from an ice-cream shop. It simply wouldn’t make sense for a woman in desperate need of Chocolate Triple Fudge to go anywhere else. Furthermore, not only was the scene in need of its location but also the scene was caused by its location. The fact that this particular ice-cream shop did not have any Chocolate Triple Fudge was what propelled the wife into hysterics and launched her emotional journey.
Establishing the Environment
The goal, then, is to create an environment without which your play could never exist. To marry the plot and the place so closely that one would be meaningless without the other. Here, then, are some various ways in which you might approach the task.
NAME IT!
Before the environment can become an integral part of the play, there must be no mistake about what it is. Where and when does the action take place? Assuming that the improvisers are working on a bare stage, in the typical “black void” with perhaps a few generic set pieces and a couple of those ubiquitous black, wooden cubes, the only way to unmistakably establish the environment is to have the characters identify it, verbally, in the course of their dialogue. This needs to be done within the first five minutes of a full-length play, and the sooner the better. If your play is going to change locations from scene to scene, then it needs to be done at the top of every scene.
Otherwise, you risk disastrous confusion, not only on the part of the audience but also among the improvisers themselves. Nothing is tougher to recover from than a fifteen-minute scene in which everybody thought they were someplace else. A simple line such as, “Wow, the living room looks great,” or “I’ve never been in a real bank vault before,” is at least enough to make it clear from the outset where the action takes place.
DESCRIBE IT!
Naming the environment, however, is just the beginning. It is a common trap for improvisers to assume that the audience “sees” the environment as clearly as they do. But, they don’t. While the improviser in the scene might see that elaborate Las Vegas casino, with mirrored walls, flashing lights, thick red carpeting, rows and rows of flashing slot machines, and hundreds of people milling about, the audience sees an empty stage with a few generic set pieces and a couple of those ubiquitous black, wooden cubes.
Even if the characters very properly announce that they are in a casino, the audience will, after a couple of minutes, very clearly see an empty stage with a few generic set pieces and a couple of those ubiquitous black, wooden cubes. It is up to the improviser to create the casino for the audience, and descriptive language is the only tool available. The skill is incorporating the descriptive material into the natural dialogue of the characters.
Exercise #27: Tell Me about It!
Player 1 and player 2 improvise a scene in which each line of dialogue must add to the description of the environment:
USE IT!
Nothing helps to create an environment as much as filling it up with objects and furniture through the use of pantomime. Few things are more magical to watch than several different characters open up the same drawer, in the same nightstand, or play the same piano, or flip the same light switch, throughout the course of the play. While pantomime is a highly specialized skill that does not come easily (especially when an entire troupe of actors is trying to create the same physical reality) it is not impossible to gain a basic enough competency with pantomime, or what Viola Spolin called “space-object work,” in order for it to be highly effective.
Justifying the Environment
While naming, describing, and using the environment will establish it clearly, it will not necessarily justify it. Again, it is not enough for the environment in a full-length play to be possible, it must be necessary. It must be at least partly responsible for causing the play to take place.
AS A CATALYST FOR THE ACTION
By endowing the environment with attributes that affect the characters, it can easily become a catalyst for the action. For example, if the environment is oppressively hot, it might cause the characters to become easily irritated and lead to an argument that would not, under other circumstances, have taken place. Or, if there’s an unrelenting thunder and lightning storm outside and the characters are trapped inside, they might be led to an intimacy that would not have otherwise developed. Or, if the environment had a spider in it and one of the characters suffered from arachnophobia, the character’s behavior would be in direct response to the environment. In each of the cases above, the environment causes the action.
Exercise # 28: Is It Hot in Here, or Is It Just Me?
Prepare by writing environmental attributes (such as extremely hot, isolated, being bugged by the FBI, etc.) on slips of paper. Player 1 and player 2 choose a slip of paper at random and improvise a scene in which the chosen environmental attribute affects the characters and serves as a catalyst for the action.
A TIP FOR SUCCESS:
Try to talk about the environmental attribute as little as possible. Rather, allow its influence to affect the relationship on stage by affecting the behavior and the emotions of the characters.
AS IT EFFECTS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CHARACTERS
By creating an environment that is of special significance to the characters, it can easily stir the relationship between them and add fuel for the drama. For example, a scene between two adult sisters will be different if it is set in the lobby of a hotel than if it is set in the bedroom that they shared as children for thirteen years. The personal and emotional connections with their childhood bedroom are far more likely to tap into the inner core of their relationship and provoke a dramatic scene. It’s very helpful, therefore, if several of the characters have a deep emotional connection to the environment.
AS A METAPHOR
We have already spoken about using the environment as a symbol for its primary inhabitant or as a foil for a visitor. Certainly, using the environment as a symbol or a foil for one of the characters will justify its presence.
Another way to make a thematic use of the environment is to use it as a metaphor for life. For example, if a play is set in a circus, the circus might be cast as a metaphor for life, suggesting that life is full of the ridiculous and inexplicable, and all that we can do is strive to keep our balance on the tightrope of sanity. Or, if a play is set in a lush garden, the garden might be cast as a metaphor for life, suggesting that life can be endlessly bountiful for those who work hard to make it so.
It is actually quite easy to accomplish this. It only takes a character to notice the metaphor and to explain it out loud. “You know, this old circus is a lot like life . . . ” Of course, the more the action has been dependent upon the environment, the more the metaphor will resonate with truth.
Exercise #29: Life Is Like a Metaphor
Standing in a circle, player 1 announces an environment and player 2 explains how that environment is just like life. Then player 2 announces an environment and player 3 creates the metaphor. It goes around the circle until everyone has had a turn:
Again, return to long, Substantial Scene work and complete plays, incorporating the work from the above exercises.