http://soundcloud.com/canadiancontent/no-and-2 A sneak preview of the upcoming No And… podcast. Toby Berner from Vancouver Theatresports, Urban Improv, Canadian Content and Titmouse! talks with Ian Boothby about improv. Why is being funny important? Does improv on television ever work? And how do you turn improv into scripted scenes?
Neil deGrasse Tyson was on Bill Maher’s Real Time program this week when Bill asked what good NASA had ever done for people except invent Tang. He decided to not just list the inventions that came from the space program (how are those computers that don’t take up an entire wall of your house working out for you?) but instead talked about how the space program in the 60s itself inspired American to become a nation of innovation and discovery. He said, “When you stop innovating, everyone catches up and of course the jobs are going to go overseas…”.
I’ve been frustrated when I go to see professional improv shows and they seem like watered down versions of ones I did years ago. The shows are loose frameworks to support a series of fairly safe improv games and handles. I never really understood why this bothered me so much. The audience seemed to be having an okay time. The houses were all right. But the content was something any competent high school could pull off. So what? Everyone’s happy, so what’s the problem? What’s missing?
Innovation.
The company I saw most recently that was representing itself as professional and are the one that most people in the city think of when they think of improv has stopped innovating. I get why. There are bills to pay and rent isn’t cheap so you take the safe route. But without innovation things can’t grow. They can maintain and you can slow the decline but things can’t get better. It can only get worse.
In America’s case when the innovation stopped the jobs went overseas. To other countries that learn how to copy and do things cheaper but whose culture doesn’t reward original ideas. This is what’s happening with improv. The professional companies do the same arms and endowment scenes they’ve done for decades and amateur groups and high school troupes learn how to copy those. But they don’t create their own formats because the professional group, the one they should be inspired by, doesn’t. They learn not just the formats but the mindset of the pro company. The amateur group may do a good arms scene but not as good as the pro group who themselves are copying what they’ve learned. The audience won’t really notice the difference but it’ll be there. And the arms scene will never get better, when the amateurs turn pro they’ll do it the way they always did and like a copy of a copy it’ll get a little more faded over time and with every generation.
This is why those shows bother me so much. I’m watching something I love get worse. And without innovation and encouragement of the new, it can only get worse. I don’t want to see that happen. Everything that I create, I try to add something new to the form. Often I fail. But it’s the right kind of failing. The kind that might bounce back up off the ground, not the slow downward kind. Some people can’t see the decline. Some are so new to things it seems like everything’s all right. But again, if you’re not innovating it can only get worse over the long term. There might be highs and lowers but the overall curve is going down.
It doesn’t have to. You can stop it. Just try that crazy idea you’ve got. Let it out, let it fail. Try again. And again.
Hope to see you on the moon.
I’ve been reading about the Upright Citizen’s Brigade’s teaching methods lately and one thing that gets brought up that I don’t see discussed much in workshops is the balance between heightening and exploring in scenes.
Now I may be getting this very wrong, I’ve never taken a UCB workshop, this is all from interviews I’ve read and podcasts I’ve listened to.
Heightening means increasing the stakes in a scene. Maybe the emotions get raised, things get more dangerous or some other element builds. In short you’re a builder.
You can get through a scene with some fairly solid characters and just rely on building to get you through a 3-4 minute scene.
Exploring on the other hand means taking a step back and expanding on the character and world you’ve created. Showing the connections and effects of the world you’re making. Let’s say you’re doing a scene about Thanksgiving and a farmer is going out to kill a turkey. The turkey starts to talk to the farmer. This is building. You’ve taken our reality and added a level to it. Turkeys can talk. It’s also added tension to the scene in that there’s a greater ethical problem with killing something that can talk to you.
You can keep building or you can start exploring. What the UCB teaches is the idea that, “If one thing is true then what else is also true?”
So if turkeys can talk, can all animals? Just birds? Can they talk just when their lives are threatened? Is the turkey as intelligent as man and if so how did they let themselves get into the position where they’re food? Maybe we could see a flashback scene about how turkeys gained the power of speech or how they ended up as food while man took over the Earth. Maybe this race of talking turkeys came from a man and a turkey falling in love.
Your instinct as an improviser might be to just push the plot along in a scene. But taking some time to stop and look around can give the scene added depth. Maybe one of the things you discover while exploring can be built upon and move the plot along. This is what I find usually happens. Something gets mentioned and built on, then that gets explored and an aspect gets built on and you end up with a scene no one in the audience saw coming.
This is common with a lot of written comedy sketches. Once the premise is established the audience usually can see where the rest of the scene is going. These are comfortable scenes to watch but feel a bit generic. A lot of sit-coms have this same feel. This is because sketches and sit-com plots that are simple to pitch in the writer’s room seldom take the audience anywhere they can’t see coming a mile down the road.
As a writer I try to stay in the improv mindset of heighten and explore which usually takes you off the main plot trail but still remains true to the characters and situation you’ve set up. You get somewhere that feels true but few could have seen coming at the start of the scene.
The downside of exploring is something the improvisers can just shelve the plot and never get back to it. It all becomes just a character piece that can end up as people on stage standing around talking and never really doing anything. Not that there haven’t been good scenes with little to no action, but just be aware so you don’t get too navel gazing. Try to balance the two out. A little Bob the Builder, then a little Dora the Explorer.
Kenneth Tynan said that, “All writing is an anti-social act, since the writer is a man who can speak freely only when alone; to be himself he must lock himself up, to communicate he must cut himself off from all communication; and in this there is something always a little mad.”
I make most of my living as a writer and Mr. Tynan is right, it’s a lonely process shutting yourself away with your own thoughts. But not all writing is a solo effort. I’ve only worked on a few TV series where there was a writers’ room, a place where every line gets worked on in a communal setting. My problem with it is it’s so slow. Every bit of dialogue gets questioned and re-questioned until it’s like when you say something over enough times and it stops making sense. I think this is why so many sit-coms seem so generic and bland, you become numb to your own words and can’t even tell what’s funny anymore. You develop Stockholm syndrome with your work being locked away with it for so long (this happens when you write alone as well).
Most things I write involve me shutting myself away for hours to days to weeks. I have a fair sized office but I only see the corner I’m in. Even when there are other people working here, they might as well be invisible. It’s hard to complain about my job, there’s no heavy lifting and you don’t end up with black lung (actually my office window is right over a smoking area so there’s a chance) but it’s mentally exhausting and very lonely. When I’m done a script I need to take a day or two off just to get my thinking back to normal, to get out of my own head and back into the world.
Conan O’Brien talked about taking St. John’s Wort for anxiety. But the same thought process that caused his anxiety was the one that he used for writing and the St. John’s Wort was dulling that. Thinking, “what terrible thing could happen next?” is where a lot of comedy writing comes from and a lot of anxiety as well. In therapy we learn how to get out of our own heads. As a writer you crawl as deeply into it as you can and let the unthinkable thoughts run free, hoping you can climb back out of yourself again when you’re done.
This is one of the reasons I love improv. It’s writing onstage in a social setting. The audience starts the process with a suggestion and then the actors write on their feet finding the characters, situation, twists and resolution. When the scene is done, it’s done. There’s no room to rewrite or edit, maybe there’ll be a few notes after the show but that story you told was complete. As a writer that’s incredibly relaxing. The old saying attributed to many authors is that they hate the process of writing but love having written something. At the end of an improv show, you’ve written multiple scenes. They’re not perfect but they’re done. I’ve taken some improv scenes and based written sketches out of them but that doesn’t take away from their completion.
It always makes me shake my head when fellow improvisers tell me that they wish they could write. Somehow they feel that what they do onstage isn’t writing but it is. It’s like someone playing the piano improvising songs onstage and stepping off it then complaining that they can’t write music. Yes maybe you don’t know how to write sheet music but that’s just a technical part of the process, you’re already a music writer. Just like the actors in an improv scene are writing in a communal way (almost all of these people would do just fine in a solo improv monologue scene as well).
The writing done on stage is valid enough that it doesn’t need to be taken to the printed page but if someone wants to, there’s no reason they can’t. The same writing process you use on stage can be used in front of a word processor. If you work well with others onstage then try writing with others. If you’re good at solo scenes use that same mindset in front of the keyboard. If the idea of writing something is frightening just think that you get onstage regularly with no script in front of people. That’s something most folks would find terrifying. If you can do that, what’s so scary about this? Yes it’ll be sloppy at first and imperfect (it’ll always be imperfect no matter how long you write for) but if you can get over fear of failing onstage you can apply it to this.
I had a drama teacher who didn’t like me taking improv classes. I was doing very well in their course and was splitting my time drawing comic books, doing improv shows, doing stand up comedy and writing sketches for TV and radio. She said I needed to focus on one thing in order to get great at it. But I didn’t. And maybe she was right. But I’ve found each of the things I do informs the others, my improv influences my comic book and sketch writing and my writing impacts on my performing even doing other people’s material. Steve Allen was my big influence in this, someone who did a little of everything.
Writing can be lonely but I disagree with Mr. Tynan that it has to be anti-social. Improv has stopped me from becoming a hermit. To be fair I am writing this in a very cave like corner of my office. Damn it, when are those smokers outside going to leave? Need to get my lungs x-rayed just in case. Maybe I should get a canary in here.
There’s a difference between someone saying that your work is offensive and saying that they’re offended by it. When a person says that they’re offended by something it means it bothers them personally. They’re saying that it hurt their feelings or sensibilities. That’s completely fair. It’s up to the artist to weigh that against what they want to achieve and make the choice to repeat it in the future or not.
When someone says your work is offensive that’s declaring it’s not just offensive to them but should be offensive to other sensible people (usually this means people like them). There’s a third situation where someone will tell you that they’re not offended by your work but others will be. In these last two situations the person talking to you has decided to speak for others. I don’t put a lot of stock in people talking for others unless they’re ventriloquists. And even then, there are only a handful of ventriloquist dummies that I truly respect.
So let’s just talk about that person who comes up to you after a show and tells you that they’re offended by the content of it. Your knee jerk reaction will usually be to put up a strong defense. Everyone in their life has said something racist, sexist or homophobic but very few people consider themselves a racist, sexist or a homophobe. You might take what they’re saying as an insult to you personally. But take a mental step back. Try to listen to what they’re saying instead of doing what people normally do and writing a backstory for this person in your mind (“they’re clearly some crazy uptight nut.”). This kind of situation feels a lot like being scolded. That’s something nobody likes and after you’ve just done a show your emotions are probably heightened. Maybe you’re feeling a high or a low but you’re not yourself right after a show.
When this happens to me, and it does every few months or so, I try to say something like, “Thanks for bringing that up. I’m sorry you felt that way. I’ll give that some thought.” It’s not easy to talk to a performer after a show with a negative comment for most people, so this issue probably is very important to them. I want to respect that. I really don’t want to make people feel bad at a show so when I’m saying sorry I’m not apologizing, I’m sympathizing. In the same way I can say, sorry your Grandmother died without admitting I killed her. And I really do intend to give the situation more thought when I’ve got a clearer head and I’m not coming off a show’s adrenaline rush.
The next day when that clear head comes, give some thought to their reaction. As an artist someone is going to be offended by your work no matter what you do. Even if you’re constantly trying to avoid controversy someone will think you’re being condescending to them for being so inoffensive. If you’re doing short form improv you’re even more at risk. How do you show China in under three minutes without using broad stereotypes? And if you don’t take “China” as a suggestion isn’t that offensive? Can you play a woman if you’re a man? Can you play a gay woman if you’re a straight woman? Can you play Jesus? Can you play a little person and if so do you get on your knees? How about a scene with mentally challenged characters? A tragedy like 9-11? What’s fair game and what’s out of bounds?
As an artist these are the choices you’ve got to make. As an improviser you have to make them in a few seconds. A writer can look at their story and edit it later. You can’t. You constantly have to make decisions about how far you’ll take things on the spot. I’ve been a member of a company that does family friendly shows and one that was uncensored. Neither was more difficult than the other. I really get annoyed at clean comedians and improv groups that make a point of how they don’t go the “easy” blue comedy route. But that’s another essay….
My take on this is whatever you do, take responsibility for it. Own it. If you do something in the heat of the moment you’re not proud of later and that you don’t feel is the direction you want your work to go in, remember that. Store that away and learn from it. Every show you do is a workshop as well as a performance. If you know it offended someone but you feel it was a valid choice then stand by it. Not everyone in the audience is going to be on board with you.
Another thing I dislike is the performer that just gets mad at the audience, thinking they’re too sensitive. “What’s the problem? They’re just jokes! Stop being so politically correct.” People that do that aren’t giving value to their own work. They’re also not valuing the audience. All they want is to be loved onstage on their own terms and if anyone doesn’t agree to that then there’s something wrong with them.
Any artist who’s trying something new and trying to grow is going to come up against some resistance. It’s your call how you choose to take the feedback. But if you just ignore or dismiss it right away, you might miss out on some important information while disrespecting a person who might be helping you out in the long run. Put the offense on the scale with how you want to present yourself and see which weighs more to you.
You can do whatever you want onstage, just own everything you do. And if you don’t agree, fuck you.
No offense intended.
At the improv company I used to work for, they did a show based on the reality TV series Survivor. It regularly sold out shows. The cast dressed like they were on a deserted island and got jobs from the audience to base their characters on. The structure had a host much like Theatresports has a referee and two teams competed against in each other in improv games, with the audience voting which team did a better job. The team that lost had a member voted off by the cast itself.
One of the interesting things about the show was the host would lead the voting off process with a discussion about what went wrong and right in the scene. Even though the actors were in character, they’d actually be discussing what made a good improv scene and where it went off track. It was like a series of little workshops throughout the show. Once a performer was voted off, they left the stage.
This carried on until the end of the first act where the remaining members of the two teams were combined into one group. In the second act that group was challenged to scenes not by the host but by the previously voted off improvisers who return (and play things up as if they’re seeking revenge). The audience no longer votes at the end of the scenes, the performers continue to vote off who they thought didn’t contribute to the scene or if they choose who they feel is a threat to them winning.
The show ends with the two remaining performers doing a simple challenge like a hat game or going through a scene without saying a certain letter. Something with a clear victor.
The audience really enjoyed this show and it was remounted many times. The actors on the other hand had very mixed feelings. If you got voted off in the first half you were done improvising for the night. It was possible you’d be done in the first five minutes. While they made the “losing” improvisers part of the second half by issuing challenges, most of the time they were just sitting and watching the show.
I found it frustrating when I saw an improviser whose work I enjoyed voted off very early in the show night after night. It was usually because they were new and didn’t have as firm a grip on things as some of the others. It wasn’t unfair that they was voted off but it meant that they got a very small amount of stage time. And stage time is how performers get better. You can learn some things by watching but experience is the real teacher.
This is my problem with most elimination based improv formats. They work for the audience because the show builds to a point where only the most experienced “best” performers remain. But it not good for the improvisers in the company because you’re taking stage time from those who need it the most. So the strong players get stronger and the weaker ones have to take the short bursts of time they can grab in front of the audience.
A good improv structure strikes a balance between serving the audience and the performers. This isn’t about catering to an actor’s ego though I don’t think avoiding hurt feelings is a bad thing. It’s about building a strong company and you don’t get that by just working your “stars” as much as possible. If the good players really are good then the weaker ones should be in as many scenes with them as possible to learn from them.
While elimination games like the one I described are great in the short term you lose out in the long game. If you care about your company as a whole getting better you can go two routes. One, cut out the weak players and give them less time on stage. Then bring in new players and have them either rise to the top or get cut as well. Or two, give the weaker players more stage time alongside the already strong ones. There is the third option of playing the weaker players even more than the strong ones which works at making them better quicker but that doesn’t serve the audience as well.
Again, to me shows need to have that balance and serve both masters. The players and the audience. If the scale tips either way it’s not good for the craft. You need to delight the crowd while giving your performers their best opportunity to grow and shine.
I’ve been asked to clarify my problems with the Calgary style of teaching and performance. But after some thought that’s not really fair and just plays into stereotypes that can all be countered. There are many mistakes I’ve seen improvisors makes from all over the world so I’m just going to hit a few of the high points. There will be some repetition with things I’ve talked about in past essays. Please give your own lists.
1. Don’t dismiss things you disagree with as stupid especially to students. A full education should include multiple points of view, even if it’s just to learn what you disagree with. If you call something stupid or garbage you’re saying it’s worthless and insulting the people that do it. That might cause a student to build prejudices against something they might find useful in their artistic growth. Also, calling a group of people or style of performance stupid is just a dick thing to do. It sets a low tone to things. We should be better than that.
Ineffective teachers I’ve seen blow off large segments of the improv world and look down their noses at those they don’t agree with. It’s okay to favour your style of performance, it’s not okay to dismiss others especially in a class.
2. Don’t mind read. I’ve seen teachers tell students the reasons they did certain things in scenes. They’ll say that they acted out of fear or wanting to be liked by the audience. I’ve had that happen to me. An instructor will say I did something because I was scared but I wasn’t, I was just curious what would happen if I made a different choice. I’ve had them say I was scared to make a simple choice, in the case of the scene in question to kiss a fellow improviser. But I didn’t think it was appropriate to actually kiss this person. I wasn’t scared, I was trying to be respectful of the actual actor. Two people can have the same action on stage but for wildly different reasons.
Ineffective teachers say things like, “all bad scenes come from fear.” No they come from a lot of places. And they’re only “bad” if you don’t learn from them.
3. Learn to take notes, learn how to give notes and keep backstage from getting too tense. I’m going to generalize here because I don’t see a way around it. I’ve performed in Calgary and in Seattle and while both have very good improvisors there a fear I see when I’m there. The Calgary shows I’ve done have been with Keith present and the ones in Seattle with Randy Dixon. In both cases the improvisors were nervous about the notes they’d get from Keith and Randy and it affected their on stage work. I’d hear “we can’t do that” when an idea was brought up. There was hesitation and giving everything a second and third thought. Then after the show it was like a meeting with the Principal. The players were on eggshells. After the shows those that got negative notes took it very hard.
In Vancouver and at spaces like The Upfront Theatre in Bellingham the vibe backstage is much more relaxed. Notes are given and taken by the players and anyone involved with the shows on a peer to peer level. I have nothing against an outside eye giving notes but they have to be aware of the environment they’re creating. If players are scared you’ve got to find way to help them get over that. If they’re that nervous about your notes you’re giving them wrong. If you’re that nervous about hearing them you’re giving the views of one person too much weight.
4. Walk the talk. This is the big one for me. I’ve seen so many instructors talk about one thing then the second they’re on stage do the opposite. They’ll talk about fear but come across as painfully nervous on stage. Instructors will talk about making bold character choices then play the most basic stereotypes. They’ll talk about working at the top of your intelligence then pander to a crowd with the most base material. They’ll be insulting of other groups and ideas but be the most sensitive flower when anything they believe is questioned.
Students listen to what you say but they learn from what you do. If you’re kind in your class they learn kindness. If you’re insulting, they learn that’s acceptable. You have to be what you teach or you might as well be speaking another language.
And it’s not just your students. There are always going to be future improvisors in the audience and they’re learning from what they see. If you just have women play girlfriends and maids they learn that’s what’s acceptable. If you use homophobic terms casually they pick up on that too. You’re always setting the tone for the next batch of performers.
5. You are never better than your audience. A trend I dislike is improvisors thinking of themselves as experts at their craft and cutting the audience out of the improv process. Thinking that they’ll always give boring suggestions or try to be clever. If an audience member gives you a boring suggestion the odds are you asked a boring question. If your audience is being sexist with their suggestions think what you’ve done to make them think that kind of thing is acceptable. What tone have you given your room? How can you raise it in the future?
Personally I find just talking to the audience as people settles all that. Tell them what you think is acceptable off the top and what’s not. Treat them as equals who you’re happy to have be part of things. That’s all they usually want, to be part of the fun. They’re not ignorant. You just have to give them the right door to walk through. Why would you want to shut out that amazing resource from your show? It’s like not playing catch but instead going into a corner with your ball and bouncing it off the wall. You could, but you’re missing out on something fun.
I used to work at the same newspaper as Dan Savage. He was the sex columnist and I was the cartoonist so we only met once but I’ve always liked his work. He wrote a column with good advice for kids in their mid teens who wanted to have sex. http://www.avclub.com/articles/august-11-2010,43997/
The advice basically went, don’t worry at 14 or 15 about having sex, work on getting your 18-19 year old self laid. Go to the gym, read books, get out of the house and learn things about the world so that you’ll be attractive and interesting in the future.
I think this applies to people starting off in improv as well. It’s such a form of instant gratification to do a show and get that audience approval that you might forget the long term plan, which is to get better at your craft. Go to any high school improv show and there’ll be some big laughs. A moving bodies or arms scene can be done by the newest improviser with a solid payoff. They’re fun to do and the audience loves them, so the temptation is to just keep doing that kind of thing.
But as an artist you should also be concerned about what you’ll be like in five years. Will you still be doing the same type of scenes? Have the same style of performance? When you’re young to an art form there’s an enthusiasm that something new carries with it and if you’re getting great feedback from an audience it’s a drug-like mix. You’ll probably make some friends and get into some improv cliques. Nothing wrong with that, working with the same people can build your confidence and that helps you stretch on stage. But if you really want to grow as an artist and take this to the next stages (and there are an infinite amount of stages) you’ve got to work with other people, try new things, fail at a lot of them and keep growing.
Reading books, seeing films or plays, going to school, taking dance lessons, learning about politics, all of these are things that can help you grow as a performer and make your work less generic. Once you have a stronger sense of what you’re interested in you become more interesting. Passion translates well onstage. A mistake comedians make when they start is just being down on things. Saying say, “twitter is stupid”, can get you a short laugh but if you go on about why you love twitter there’s a lot more ground to cover. Anyone can call the government incompetent but if you can break down the reasons why you stop just being a grump.
The 15 year old who wants to get laid is just one kid in a testosterone sea. A 15 year old doing an arms scene in school is just one kid in a sea of enthusiasm. But both are going to do a lot better if they start working on where they plan to be later. This is difficult because most teens live in the now. Most adults in improv can get trapped into living in the now as well.
No matter where you are now as improvisor, you should be thinking of where you want to be. If you’re on cruise control coasting along, then all that’s going to happen is you’ll get more and more generic and more and more performers are going to blow past you. Even if you currently are great and unique, if what you’re doing works new improvisors are going to adopt and improve on it. This is a good thing for the art form but if you’re competitive it can feel like someone is stealing part of you. The only way to beat it is either to try and stop the new performers from rising up or keep moving forward yourself. If you’re 20 what’s the 25 year old version of you going to be like? If you’re 50 what’s the 55 year old? Let’s make sure that tomorrow’s version of yourself has something interesting to say and get them into some hot future performer audience action.
I’ve been getting into a debate on an improv message board about the old Theatresports device of the horn. What would happen during a show is a judge would have the ability during a scene to honk a horn. The lights would immediately come down and the scene would be given a zero.
The horn wouldn’t be honked if the scene was offensive, derivative or went on too long. The only criteria for honking the horn was only if the judge found the scene boring. The reason for this was to save both the performers from having to keep going and the audience from having to watch this dull performance.
My problem with this is it feels like a gong during a talent show or the hook at an old time vaudeville theatre. On the very surface it seem cruel. A team is out there doing their best and is stopped with their scene being judged as worthless and given zero points. They might smile and try to take it well but it can’t help but sting.
If this was just a talent show format then maybe it would just stop there for me. Not to my taste but no big deal. I don’t like American Idol or Hell’s Kitchen or any show where amateurs get insulted and dismissed by professionals without any real instruction on how to get better. It’s my personal taste.
But during Theatresports training you’re told from the start not to try and be clever or funny. They also tell you to not be afraid to fail. But once you get on stage if you do fail you’re embarrassed for it. You’ll also notice the funny and clever stuff does get points from the judges and a great reaction from the audience. In class you’re told to not be afraid to be simple and yes, even boring but once you’re on stage that’s punished.
This is all under the guise of saving you as performer. So even when you’re getting slapped down by the judge you’re told it’s being done for your own good. And again to save the audience from being hurt any more by you.
When I did Theatresports in Vancouver the horn had been removed from the show’s structure. If you got into trouble on stage you’d either go down in flames or find a way to climb out of the hole you dug. I both burned and climbed on various nights. If someone had been there to “save” me I might not have learned how.
Oh on a side note, here’s a dirty secret. The teachers who’ll stress to you how unimportant it is to be funny or clever? They usually don’t have those as personal options. Not always but most times. Often those teachers stop performing (and get more and more judgmental the longer they stay off the stage) but if they do get back on the board you’ll see some very broad over the top choices. You can see the abuse they went through in their training and their fear to fail while they preach the opposite. In their classes they’ll have goals for the students that seem to contradict each other and can never be achieved except in some zen way they can’t communicate. Be interesting by being boring but if you’re boring your scene is worthless but if you try to be interesting you’re doing it wrong. It’s brain melting.
My big problem with the horn aside from the cruelty and one person deciding a scene isn’t worthwhile for an audience full of people, is the idea that something boring is bad.
People who don’t understand twitter dismiss it saying, “Why do I care what someone had for breakfast this morning?”. It’s boring. But most of our lives are filled with small details like that. Knowing what a group of people are doing makes you feel connected. If you’ve got something important to say to a friend it can really help to make some small talk first. Talk about the weather and your cat and it makes it all the easier to talk about the big things on your mind. A couple that only talks about important things is going to miss talking about the really important things.
If you’re having a dinner party and a person is telling a story what would happen if another guest said, “Boring!” and stopped them. How would conversation flow after that? Would everyone up their game and try to pepper their stories with interesting content or would everyone just clam up?
This is what it’s like during a show. Most scenes are 3-4 minutes in length. Even if it’s painfully boring that might not be a bad thing for the next team. Anything they do will look good in comparison and the first group has some time to figure out what went wrong. The conversation and motor for the show keeps going.
But if the first group gets the horn we’ve set a tone where the dull isn’t tolerated and now the pressure is on the next group with the first having to pick their egos off the floor. Those in the audience with a bit of bloodlust might actually be hoping for failure instead of that the scene goes well.
I’ve personally been in scenes at shows where there is a horn and we had things ended during the set up by someone who didn’t understand what we were doing. Maybe we would have paid things off, maybe not but it made everything we’d done a waste of time.
Back to that dinner party. Have you ever been to a get together where someone says, “God, everyone around here is so dull?” What they’re really saying is they’re the one who’s boring. An interesting person is someone who finds things interesting. In improv training we’re told to support the other performer and make them look good. I think this applies all the way up the line, to teachers, hosts and judges. So when any of them are dismissive in any respect of the performers or students the shadow of failure falls backwards onto them.
Keith Johnstone has said he can’t watch improv anymore. He finds it too boring. That has nothing to do with the shows and everything to do with his perspective. I tell a lie, he does mention a couple of improv shows he’s enjoyed in interviews but they all seem to involve pretty girls either in dominatrix gear or seducing dates on stage. They might be fantastic improve shows and I can’t speak for him but I suspect he enjoys them for the same reason I enjoyed Benny Hill’s comedy in my teens.
The boring and the weird are the price you’ve got to pay to get to the interesting and the new. If the audience can’t take a bit of that then they’re better off seeing a hit movie or play that’s gotten a load of good reviews. Even the most amateur improv show is the birthplace of the new and one person shouldn’t have the ability to stop that. By protecting the audience from the dull you’re cutting back their chances to see what happens next. And that at heart of it, is the point of improv.
