Saturday, October 13, 2012

Something I learned Today

We had a double header.  One, two, three, four, five, six -- count 'em -- six hours of improv.  Loved it.

We began with some of our usual scene work exercises.  As usual, it kind of went off the rails.

So, again, we came back to sharing stories of interactions that we had with people within the the past week or so.  Sadly, many of us found ourselves scrapping to find an example, because it had to be a face to face reaction instead of e-mail, telephone, Skype, bathhouse rendezvous, etc.  Gellman urged us to use these to initiate our scenes.  That may seem contrary to the idea of making it up from scratch.  It's not.  One of the pitfalls is to try to be too "empty" when you begin a scene.  Unless you are really at the top of the improv game, you probably can't be truly "empty" when you begin a scene and still be able to pull it off (i.e. produce a good scene).  Having some lines stored up is just a trick of the trade.  So we shared some of our personal interactions over the recent past, and began our scene work.

Again the fundamentals are stressed: emotional reactions to the situation, the other actors in the scene, and the environment.  With respect to the interactions that we had, one may fall into the trap of assuming the role you were in when the interaction happened.  The stronger choice for improvising is to choose the person on the interaction who is doing the action.  A variation on that advice is to treat your scene partners the way that people treat you.

Dan and Kristen had a fun scene where he sought counseling from a friend who is not a licensed psychiatrist.  She ran with it.  Then he got pissed off with her diagnosis.  Kristen had this funny Godzilla line -- complete with Godzilla claw motion -- that was directed at Dan.

The second three hour session was very much dedicated to Gellman drilling us on fundamentals to get us ready for our audition on Friday.  (The audition to determine if we get to move on to level three and the remainder of the conservatory levels.)  We worked on three person scenes (one part of the audition process) in the first of the second session (the third quarter?).  We had ten people in class, so two lucky dogs got to perform two three person scenes.  Yeah, I was all over that shit.

Scott, Zach (a Sunday session guy), and I played a fun scene in an airport. Our flight was delayed, and Zach's character was worried that his wife would flip out.  My character was recently divorced and not happy about it.  Scott's character was gay, and Zach and I agreed that he had it easier because guy's are easier to deal with and his partner Dale (not in the scene) was pretty cool.  Scott had this great reaction line where he accused us of judging him with our eyes.  He could see that we were just imagining he and his partner having sex every time he spoke.  That was a fun scene to be in.

We had a bit of discussion afterwards about what works in a scene.  Personally, I've been over thinking things way too much in my conservatory classes. In the past couple weeks, I've tried (with occasional success) to just have fun and not over think and over process a scene.  Almost anybody who seriously pursues improv probably did impersonations and characters for their family and friends long before they ever took an improv course. And they probably made their family and friends laugh with these antics, an that encouragement maybe resulted in school plays, prank phone calls, being a class clown, or whatever.

I know that's how things played out for me, and when I'm impersonating a co-worker for other co-workers, or impersonating a relative for other relatives, or what have you, I don't over think it. I don't try too hard to be funny.  I don't build up whatever I'm doing to be some great monumental statement.  I just have fun and act the way I think that person would act with all the physical ticks, voice inflections, stock phrases, and whatever else enters my head.  It's just fun.  And it's easy to morph into these people because I've observed them. I've noticed the small things, spent time with them, and assuming their persona for a brief while doesn't feel like a huge stretch.  The past few weeks, I've made a conscious effort to reconnect with that.  I still stumble and fall into bad habits, but I've felt more locked into the process recently and simplifying things helps immensely.  Paying attention to what the instructor says and has said for the past eight weeks also helps.  (So glad I've been writing it down and regurgitating it into cyberspace; I can review my notes on my phone when I'm riding the Blue Line on a weekday morning. It sure as hell beats having what I think is a staring contest with the former fratboy day trader douche who wears his sunglasses for the entirety of train ride.  But I digress.)  The advice to have a line or even a character in your back pocket before you step out makes it less daunting.  Ultimately, that's not too different from riffing with friends, except that you have some parameters to work with and ground rules to keep in mind.

On that note, Gellman told us that part of what we're being taught to do is to fuck around with focus.  Fuck around with focus.  What a great ethos.

The last portion of class was fucking around with characters and we were encouraged to get goofy, crazy, whacky, and bats hit.  Shit got pretty warped -- as it was supposed to.  I got to use my Canadian accent, which is always fun for me.  (And not a great stretch because I have several relatives who live in various small towns east of Toronto along the 401.)  There was a great scene where Kristen was a grandmother who had some form of dementia (I guess), two of her grandkids were trying to keep her from hurting herself, and she accused them of wanting her dead.  Casey (the difficult third grandchild) just agreed with that accusation of wanting Grannie to croak, Grannie lauded him for his honesty, and the scene clicked into place after that.

There was so much great scene work that I'm not recalling at this late hour, but this was an immensely fun day of improv.  Everybody in the class is immensely talented, and it's a privilege to play with them.  We were joined by two awesome improvisers from the Sunday class: Zach and Ann Marie.  It was a pleasure having them on stage.

Wow, after six hours, I wanted to keep going.

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