Site icon Improv As Improv Does Best

Be Dynamic: Sharpen Your Vectors

patrickgantz

There’s more than one way to build intensity over time.

Both scenes work in an improv context. No doubt. But I prefer the second iteration.

The second scene is more dynamic. Yes, both Bobs are altered by scene’s end and both scenes progress, but in the second scene Bob’s change is clearly delineated to establish a rhythm and to set expectations for heightening repetition with the audience.

It’s one of many improv lessons we can learn from The Clown.  Let’s learn more.

A clown engages the audience and establishes a rhythm so the audience stays engaged and follows him.

From “Improvisation in Drama” by Anthony Frost and Ralph Yarrow –

“…The clown includes us in his game; right from the start we are implicated in whatever he is doing.  He is doing it for us; if we laugh he may repeat the action.  If we don’t laugh, he will almost certainly repeat it, insisting it is more important, magnifying its significance until its very triviality becomes the occasion for our mirth.”

Unlike too many improvisers, the clown uses his whole body to establish and heighten his rhythm.  Think about watching a clown try to hammer in a nail.  He lines up the nail and the hammer, his attention focused on his objects with intense concentration.  Then he swings.  And he hits his thumb. Does the clown just immediately react to the injury, as if the audience were watching him from an unseen perch?  No.  More than likely, that clown is going to look at the audience and give them this face —>

The beat of feeling the hammer’s impact. The dynamic change from looking at his tools to sharing his face directly with his audience. The establishment of a committed behavior he can now repeat and heighten.  These moves of the clown make him hitting his finger with a hammer funnier than a regular actor hitting his finger with a hammer while “playing it real.”

In Improv As Improv Does Best Two Person Scene Theory, we talk about keeping your Personal Game (how you react to who you are, where you are or what you’re doing) distinct from your Scenic Game (how you react to who your scene partner is, what your scene partner is doing or how your scene partner is acting). Doing so enables us to craft sustainable scenes built from characters’ interdependent patterns of emotional behavior.

Improvisers “trying to act” often struggle to separate their games. If I’m an employee in a boardroom who thinks what he’s hearing is bullshit (Scenic Game) but doesn’t want to lose his job (Personal Game), I’m most likely to allow my personal game to mute my scenic game in service of “playing it real” such that all I do is look uncomfortable but not take action in either direction.  In Improv As Improv Does Best we talk about “Playing It Raw” instead of “playing it real” so we can demonstrate and heighten those feelings and reactions.  This way, in the first 5 seconds of the scene we can hear “…synergetic solutions,” “Bullshit,” “That’s it Jackson; you’re fired,” “Oh, God, I’m an idiot; I’ve got a wife and kids,” “And I’m a softy for a family man,”…  Rather than being stuck in muted emotions that will perhaps build to one apex, a scene made more dynamic by its separation of games can feature multiple apexes.  We can play intensity right off the bat knowing that we can always jerk the scene in a different direction to keep from exhausting one idea. AND the audience quickly understands characters’ patterns of emotional behavior – when the boss again launches into corporate-speak they will anticipate the employee’s next explosion, and that engagement heightens their reaction.

Our Clown can help further enhance this dynamic.  The dynamic can be made more dynamic by committing our faces and bodies in the direction of our feelings.

Too often we keep our eyes completely focused on our scene partners. And this makes sense; our scene partner is the only other truly tangible object on stage with us. As discussed, our mime improves if we focus on “seeing” and “feeling” the environment created around us. “Looking at” and engaging with these endowments as we feel about them helps establish and emphasize our character’s rhythm making it easier for the audience to engage and anticipate the rhythm.

Here’s a warm-up exercise to help focus our focus –

RED & BLUE BALL: This is a variation of the classic warm-up with emphasis on making your eyes go where your attention is. Everyone stands in a circle. The instructor chooses Player One. Player One will turn to the player on her left and say, “Red Ball.” That player will turn to the player on his left and say, “Red Ball.” And “Red Ball” will continue thusly around the circle going clockwise. Player One will turn to her right and say, “Blue Ball.” That player will turn to the player on his right and say, “Blue Ball.” And “Blue Ball” will continue thusly around the circle going counter-clockwise. Now Player One will also have a physical ball (I use a half-red, half-blue bouncy ball, but any type of ball will work). Player One will bounce the ball to a player across the circle, saying, “Red and Blue Ball” (or whatever describes your ball). The ball is bounced to each player before returning to Player One, establishing a sequence that will be repeated the same way every time as the warm-up proceeds. Once the rules and the physical ball’s sequence are established, the group is ready to begin. The group is charged with keeping the “Red Ball,” “Blue Ball” and “Red and Blue Ball” passes going concurrently with the explicit instruction to always speak in the direction of your contribution and strive to turn one’s head to anticipate the pass given to you. The challenge is continuing to look left and right in turn and not just focusing entirely on the physical ball. Of course, handling the physical ball – not missing or dropping it – does require focus; it just can’t have all your focus and the group should work together to adjust their pacing to keep all the passes in play. As the group gets more comfortable, push them to go faster with the passes and make their heads turn more sharply with their contributions.  Note, in the strictest form of interpreting body movements, looking away is interpreted as passive while focusing on the object of your attention indicates commitment and or passion.  Let’s harness the power of commitment and focused emotion.  Help make the audience believe that you care by physically focusing on the thing you profess to feel about.

Fun warm-up? Let’s move on into other focused exercises and scenes.

Not ready to move on?  Need a palate cleanser?  Here’s The OffSpring reminding us to “Keep’em separated.”

Ready to keep going?  Here are a series of exercises building into Two Person Scene work.  They are pulled from the Character & Emotion Curriculum and elsewhere on this site.  Enjoy!

–

Personal Engagement: If you were all by yourself on stage, how would you feel about who you are, where you are and/or what you’re doing? Finding an emotion and an active scene element to feel that emotion in reaction to can be the continued catalyst for a successful scene.

If I say, “I love cats,” I’m just emoting.  If I say, “I love this cat,” I’m emotionally reacting.  If we make the object of our emotion active in the scene – actually tangible/ observable/ repeatable on stage – then we have something to react to instead of just talk about. 

What is it specifically that we’re feeling about who we are, where we are and/or what we’re doing?  What is it specifically that we’re feeling about who our scene partners are, where they are and/or what they’re doing?  If we make a decision to connect our feeling to a tangible/observable/repeatable anything on stage, we can progress the scene by heightening our feeling and that “anything.”

Suggested Exercises:

PERSONAL ENDOWMENT CIRCLE – One by one around a circle, each player engages an emotion and makes explicit what it is that is evoking that emotion. These are Self Contained Emotional Statements.

Example:

Lessons:

Scenic Engagement: We also have our scene partner to endow and react to.  The danger is when improvisers rely only on their scene partner – as they are the only other tangible presence on stage. This is why we focus on SELF CONTAINED emotional perspectives toward activities/ environment / objects first.

You want to decide how you feel about who your scene partner is, where your scene partner is and/or what your scene partner is doing.  Finding something active about your scene partner to feel about will help facilitate a scene you can both react through instead of think through.

Suggested Exercises:

SCENIC ENDOWMENT CIRCLE – One by one around a circle, each player turns to the player to their left, engages an emotion and makes explicit what it is about the player to their left’s character that is evoking that emotion.

Example:

Lessons:

Two Person Scenes Heightening Emotion:   Establish an emotional perspective, heighten the emotional perspective through reaction to active details, and edit – That’s scene. 

We want to avoid negotiation, conflict and the tepid, talked-out “discovery” that stagnates scenes’ growth.

The KEY LESSON is for each improviser to choose BOTH how they feel A) about what they have personally going on and B) what their scene partner has going on.

Suggested Exercises:

ENDOW AND HEIGHTEN LAY-UPS –  Player One initiates from stage left.  Player Two initiates from stage right.  They can start with anything. But they should strive to establish at least two emotional perspectives apiece: A Personal Emotional Perspective toward who they are, where they are and what they’re doing on stage that doesn’t involve the scene partner. And a Scenic Emotional Perspective toward what their scene partner is doing and what defines their character.

Given more lines,…

Players invest in what they initiate with more detail and/or emotional reaction.  “If this is true, what else is true?”  I love this cat and I LOVE this tiger. I abhor my scene partner’s fashion sense; I really hate the plaid of his bowtie against his lime green frilly shirt.

Players who found their Personal Perspective should ensure they have a Scenic Perspective.  Players who found their Scenic Perspective should ensure they have a Personal Perspective.

Your Instructor eyes should be focused on identifying the rhythm between perspectives; there is no right or wrong rhythm, but how cleanly students find their rhythm may dictate how comfortable they feel in their scenes.  Did they each invest in one perspective before deciding on their other perspective?  Did they quickly decide both perspectives and then oscillate between them?

After a few lines back and forth, teacher calls “Scene” and two new players start the exercise.

Progression:

Do a run where every player gets through the exercise at least once, then point out scenes where initiations were “Personal / Personal,” “Scenic / Scenic,” “Personal / Scenic,” and “Scenic / Personal.”  Identify strengths and struggles within each.  The following provides Instructors potential notes on the variations.

Lessons:

TWO PERSON SCENES –  Player One initiates from stage left.  Player Two initiates from stage right.  Players heighten what they initiate.  Have players decide BOTH how they feel about “I” and “You” – engaging an active endowment about themselves AND about their scene partner. The rest of the class sits in the audience.

Lessons:

Exit mobile version