Once the whole gang had arrived, we did a mock audition. (Because you have to audition after Level Two to be allowed to complete the program.) This was a mid term of sorts. If you remember that scene from Rocky IV where Ivan Drago declares to Rocky: "I must break you," you have an idea of what Gellman was out to accomplish with this exercise. Everybody was against the back wall, and we did three people scenes after getting a suggestion from the "audience." The characters were supposed to be somewhat close to who we are in real life.
Then, it was time to be broken. Of the ten people in our group, he said that two of us would have made it through. Spoiler alert: yours truly ain't one of 'em. And then, things got personal. "Personal" as in personal critiques of what we're doing wrong. Questions about what we were thinking on stage. And tips to improve what we're doing. (I think at that point it was pretty much a given that we would have a better turn out than usual for our post class drinking session.) A global suggestion was that we were taking far too long to get going. In these scenes, we need to check-in and get the first line out within three seconds. Tops. Another global suggestion/admonishment was that these scenes are about character. Character comes first and scenic content is a second. (Perhaps a distant second.) The goal of these scenes is to have the actors perform their characters with an emotion while interacting with their environment. Easier said than done. You've taught all these great things over the course of months or years, and it's confounding how it all can evaporate during that three minute scene. You (or I, more accurately) find yourself making the same mistakes. Again and again and again. Son-bitch.
Another mistake: letting the first line define the entirety of the scene. (This is useful corollary to the beginner's mistake with object work -- talking about the object or the action involved with the object.) Yet another error that found its way into more than one of our scenes was turning the three person scene into a two against one. This is bad. Very bad. Well, it's very bad for the two people who gang up on the one. The one, according to Sensai Gellman, will almost always come off looking better than the two. In fact, the one will have a much better chance of making it through because the auditors will conclude, "fuck, she deserves it after putting up with those assholes."
Yeah, I was involved in one of those 2 on 1 scenes as part of the 2. In the personal critiques afterwards, I was once again told -- wait for it -- TOO ANGRY. I was genuinely surprised, but it's again something to work and to try to banish. Gellman then asked me several questions about the character I was playing on stage. What did he want? What did he desire? I had no answers, which was reminiscent of trying to write a character based loosely on me in a writing class. I had the same critiques: this character's wants and desires were not well defined. Well, yeah, because I'm apathetic. And angry, evidently. (We grow 'em dispassionate and irritable in the wilds of southwestern Michigan.) So, that's a challenge and some homework worth doing with respect to improv and writing: stop doing the same shit.
But enough about me. As a unit we were also faulted for "yes anding" a single topic or just "yessing" a single topic. Example: grandma died. And then an entire scene about the single subject of grandma's demise. Throw another log on the fire and take it in another direction: "Cool. She was an ornery old bitch who never let me eat ice cream. And now we get to sell her house and pocket the money. I'm spending Christmas in La Paz with a gaggle of whores! Thanks, grams."
Going further on emotions, we all too often have the urge to treat a scene partner the same way that we would treat a real person who is emotional: we try to console or de-fuse the trauma. But we get a better scene when we throw gas on the fire instead of putting it out.
Another fundamental thing that we were drilled on was connecting on stage without constant eye contact. In several of our scenes, whatever object work we were doing would either get ignored entirely or get turned into a mindless and repetitive motion. (Think Daniel-san doing "wax on" when a table or something else is being scrubbed or wiped off.)
Man, that class was a punch in the gut. As I understand it, he is trying to get us out of the trap of thinking too much on stage and trying to be funny. We just need to let it go and start moving, talking and reacting without all the pre-planning, processing, and stammering. Just start delivering lines and moving around and figure out what you were doing after you did it. I've been trying to get myslef to do that in scenes for a while, but it just seems to fall apart in practice.
So, back to my anger issues and the above paragraph. The final scene of class was a four person scene: mother (Elizabeth) and her three kids (Dan, Megan, and I). After some side-coaching, Gellman got one of us playing the kids to assume a place in the birth order. It was Dan as the youngest (and he's a real life youngest child). And his lines were delivered after the mother and his sister. So, after he did his bit it was my turn to go. Given my crow's feet and ever-increasing light black hairs, I took the mantle of oldest child (even though I, too, am the youngest in real life). I just channeled my oldest sister and some of the tirades she used to have when we were all growing up and having an argument as an entire family. It was anger, sure, but it was also just delivered freely without trying to be witty or clever and the words just came out without searching for them beforehand. Despite this outburst of anger, Sensai told me it was a solid contribution. According to him the difference was that the emotion was honest and the character had an opinion, something to say, instead of just spouting off out of intellectual laziness.
* * * * *
I finally went out and saw professionals imrpovising this past week. I had fallen into a lull of not going to shows after the past several weeks. What got me off my ass and out of the house on a weeknight? One of my Second City instructors, Kate Duffy, is leaving flyover country for Los Angeles. Well, Kate was performing with her close friend, and improv giant, Susan Messing at the Annoyance on Wednesday. It was a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: see Kate before she left and finally see Susan Messing improvise.
The fuss and hype are entirely deserved. This show was awesome. You can tell that they are great friends and that they love being on stage together. As entertaining as the show was, it was also kind of intimidating for a novice improviser. You find yourself thinking, in between bursts of laughter, "damn, how do they that. I have so much to learn." Personally, I was tickled pink that they used the audience suggestion "Jimmy Hoffa" for the show. What ensued were scenes with mob wives, cellmates in prison having altercations over chess pieces, a mob wife cheating on her husband, a psychologist taking advantage of her patient and insisting on payment afterwards, a pervy dude named Glenn using fisting as a pick-up line, Turkish prison guards who are huge fans of the NHL, two early teen-age boys calling each other "abortion face" and trying to explain sex with a dinner date metaphor. The whole experience was a reminder of just how fun improv can be and is. A reminder worth keeping in mind after a harsh review, a bad class, or a bad performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment