Just for Fun...

This is a short story I wrote awhile ago when I was bored one morning. I posted it on FB, but figured I’d give it a home here.

The Death of Cecil the Lion, the Dawn of a New Hero

Tragedy recently struck the Los Angeles Zoo with word that Jeffry, the zoo’s beloved giraffe, was dying. Mark Hamble, the zoo’s currator, said, “Old age has finally caught up with Jeffry. He can no longer stand and is being made as comfortable as possible in his last few days with us.”

Things seemed pretty bleak at the LA Zoo until Phil Lapcum, a pediatrist from Wisconsin, stepped in. Dr. Lapcum, inspired by his hero, DDS Walter Palmer, offered the LA Zoo $100,000 dollars to hunt and kill Jeffry.

“When we received the check,” Hamble explains, “we were thrilled! We assumed it was a donation in honor of Jeffry. The memo line said, “For Jeffry,” but when we read the attached letter we figured it was a joke and didn’t try to cash the check.”

The zoo tried to contact Dr. Lapcum, but his out of office message was simply, “I’m a hunter now!” Zoo officials dismissed the whole thing as a prank.

Phil Lapcum was a sportsman. He arrived in Los angeles with only a sling-shot mounted onto a fully automatic AK47. He was not stopped at the airport for his AK47 because his is white, as are all pediatrists.

So, with only the precise location of the zoo as a reference point, Dr. Lapcum hailed a cab and told the driver exactly where to go.

Meanwhile at the zoo, Jeffry, surrounded by those who had cared for and loved him, passed on. “It was sad, but it was also beautiful, “ said Hamble. “Jeffry had led a full life and death was gentle in taking him.” The whole of the zoo observed a moment of silence at the passing of this noble giant.

That silence would soon be broken.

Phil Lapcum stood in a very short line at the front of the zoo. The line was short because it was a weekday and not a lot of people go to the zoo during the week. Which is a shame, they really should. It’s relatively inexpensive, you get outside, lots to see, and the gorillas, I mean, wow, the gorillas alone are worth the trip.

The line didn’t bother Dr. Lapcum. He knew the value of patience in a hunt and had honed that ability within himself through hours of looking at peoples feet. Two, one, and in. Again no one questioned his openly carried AK47 because he was white and obviously a pediatrist.

Phil Lapcum had refused the map offered to him upon his entrance to the zoo because he was a sportsman. He would stalk the great beast using only his skills as a hunter. He decided on pure animal intuition to randomly go right.

Now the LA Zoo is basically one big circle. If you stay on the main concourse you will eventually pass by every exhibit. It is uphill as you enter and, assuming you continue in the same direction, downhill back to the entrance. Dr. Lapcum didn’t know this and kept doubling back to try and find a way to go downhill into the zoo. He was doing this because it was hot and he wasn’t sure how many bottles of water he could drink.

Now when it’s hot, like ninety plus degrees hot, don’t go to the zoo, like ever. It’s miserable. It ain’t cheap, your outside, none of the animals are out and nobody wants to look at gorillas when it’s that hot. Really, in the summer, fuck that place.

Dr. Phil Lapcum almost gave up. He cried at the thought of Jeffry not being dead. In his despair he looked though his tears to the heavens for a sign…and found one. There, just above him, as if put there on purpose, was his sign. “Giraffes,” with an arrow literally pointing to where giraffes could be found. Phil Lapcum cried harder now, but these were not tears of sadness these, were tears of the hunt.

Mark Hamble lay a large blanket over Jeffry’s body, for Jeffry was no longer there. A wordless glance shared among Hamble and Jeffry’s keepers said what all already knew in their hearts. Jeffry was in Heaven. The matter of his remains, while necessary to be dealt with, an unimportant task. A strange calm came over them in that moment, as if Jeffry himself…no, that’s crazy…but still. No one said it, but they all felt it as they left Jeffry’s paddock to resume their duties.

Phil Lapcum greedily swallowed large mouthfuls of churro and washed them down with diet coke as he followed the giraffe arrow signs up into the zoo. And then in a moment, there it was. A sign that said Giraffes but with no arrow. Dr. Lapcum was momentarily confused. Had he lost the favor of the gods? He almost doubled back again when it occurred to him that maybe this is where the giraffes actually were. Keen is the mind of the hunter. Now feeling as Orion led by Artemis, Phil Lapcum pushed on.

Just a few steps, before being confronted with a ridiculously tall door. It seemed insane to him, the unnecessary height of this door. He was about to double back when he had a vision. Long ago Dr. Lapcum realized that when he thought about something sometimes he would see images in his mind. He never told a soul about his ability to do this, and his secret power was about to be very useful. In his vision, Dr. Lapcum saw a giraffe laying down in this doorway before him. This seemed to confirm his thinking that the doorway was built by fools. Then his vision changed and the giraffe was sitting. While interesting, Dr. Lapcum’s contempt for the door builders remained the same. But then, though exhausted by the use of his brain pictures, the final image came to him, the giraffe standing in doorway. The image vanished but Dr. Lapcum had already discerned its’ message. This doorway, madness to the untrained eye, was built by giraffes.

Slowly Dr. Lapcum pulled open one of the stupid big doors and entered. Once inside, Dr. Lapcum saw that everything was moronically oversized, completely useless for anything but a standing giraffe. He chuckled to himself, pleased in having already dissected this riddle. His movements were efficient as he walked from paddock to paddock hunt reading the names on the enormous gates. And then, there it was, “Jeffry.” The gate was ajar, as if this hell beast were daring the great huntsman to enter. Enter he did.

The lair of this man eater seemed empty save for a blanket so large that it was dumb. Ever so gently Dr. Lapcum pulled back one end of the blanket to reveal the head of the already dead giraffe. The hunter reeled and fell back, horrified and confused at the sight. “This giraffe was laying down! Why was everything here so absurdly overbuilt?!” His mind raced, but this was no time for brain pictures. Dr., hunter, hero Phil Lapcum leveled his weapon to the beast, closed his eyes and click, nothing. The gun had jammed!

Phil Lapcum froze. What fury was about to be released upon him by this Goliath? Jeffry, of course, was still very dead. His body stiffening, his eyes which had looked on so many children, now looked at nothing. Because he was dead.

“The slingshot!” With only minor difficulty Dr. Lapcum removed the slingshot from where he had taped it to his AK47. Now all he needed was a projectile. In another vision his mind gave him the brain picture he needed. The bullet necklace that came with his AK47 when he won it at a fair, COMPLETELY LEGAL in Wisconsin.

Phil Lapcum stood straight up now. And in doing so became slightly taller than the highest point of the dead laying down giraffe. Again, only with minor difficulty, he removed his prized neck dick, loaded it into his slingshot, leveled it on the dead giraffe, closed his eyes and click, nothing. The slingshot had jammed!

When the Allied Forces stormed the beaches at Normandy, many knowing they were rushing to certain death, their combined bravery could not hold a candle to what happened next in that giraffe paddock. Dr. Phil Lapcum, hunter, hero, pediatrist, feinted and died.

The keeper who discovered Phil Lapcum’s body rushed to Mark Hamble to inform him that a pediatrist had died in Jeffry’s paddock. After visually confirming that the man was a pediatrist, Hamble ran as fast as he could and cashed that check.

Every doctor who examined Dr. Lapcum’s remains concluded, irrevocably, that it was heat stroke brought on by dehydration. But others, others who weren’t there, who only heard about this about an hour ago, know better. Phil Lapcum was murdered by Jeffry the giraffe’s spirit in a ghost battle, wherein, Jeffry the giraffe snuck up behind the good Dr. and strangled him. This is a fact!

No statues will be built, but they should. This man, so clearly a pediatrist, represents everything that was great about America when he did this. But, no. He leaves behind no wife, no children and a failed practice. The money he paid for the hunt, his life savings, is going to be used to build some batty gigantic giraffe thing.

So it is up to us to remember. Remember that one day not long ago a man gave everything he had on this earth in an attempt to hunt and kill an already dead giraffe named Jeffry.

The zoo was hot that day and really, when it’s hot, fuck that place.

The Deconstruction

Note: You should probably read the previous blog posts on Scene Type before reading this.

The Deconstruction, or Decon, was the first piece created by The Family under the direction of Del Close. The Family at that time consisted of myself, Ali Faranahkian, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Adam McKay and Neil Flynn.

Where traditional Harolds utilized an Opening to generate ideas and information upon which to base the piece, the Decon asked a simple question, how many different ways can you be inspired by a scene. There was no set form, other than the opening scene would be longer, would recur within the piece and would likely close the piece. Everything else would be an exploration of every level of information we could perceive within the opening scene.

What The Family did within a Decon was unique to who we all were at the time. The loose format allowed our shows to range widely. I can not, nor would I try, to teach you how to be who we were. I have, however, spent quite a bit of time examining what we did and have organized it into a structure or form. I have taught this version, my version, of the Decon for years. If you learn it, you will have a good handle on most of what you need to know onstage in most any given long-form.

My layout for the Deconstruction. First I will lay it out and then I will explain its components and pace. Opening Scene, 2 Thematic Scenes, Opening Scene, 5 Commentary Scenes, Opening Scene, Run, Opening Scene Close. See, simple! Now let me explain all that. This layout will be for a piece approximately 30 minutes long.

Opening Scene: This is the primary source of information for the piece so we give it more time, approximately 6-8 minutes. This scene can be done any number of ways, but I have found the following to be effective for a successful Decon. The scene should be played more realistically, create a relationship we care about, demonstrate a problem or difference between the two characters and tell stories with detail and reference. Now I am not going to write out a six minute scene, so for reference lets just say the Open Scene is: A father hits his son with a bottle of Budweiser for reading Batman. Brilliant!

Two Theme Scenes: The Theme Scenes represent what we think the Opening Scene is about. The Opening Scene may introduce many themes but what we are looking for here are two main themes, one to represent each character in the Opening Scene. Themes are general and can often be boiled down to a single word like love, fear, etc…In the case of our Opening Scene here I might pick abuse to represent the father and escape to represent the son. The idea of a Theme Scene is that the theme stand out. To that end, I have found that a simple Character Driven Scene with a character mirror is an effective approach. If both characters embody abuse certainly abuse will stand out. We want our themes to stand out clearly as they are about to be focused on by the Opening Scene. Theme Scenes should be done in under two minutes each.

Opening Scene: Having seen how it was perceived by the two Theme Scenes, the Opening Scene now continues with a focus on heightening each character’s behavior based on their perceived themes. i.e.The father becomes more abusive and the sone becomes more escapist. The idea behind the heightening is to reveal further flaws in the characters, their relationship and their behavior. This will help moving into the Commentary Scenes. The second beat of the Opening Scene should only be 2-3 minutes.

Five Commentary Scenes: Now we shift our focus from the general theme to the specific behavior that we find flawed. The reason I named these Commentary Scenes is because that is what we are trying to do, comment on something we saw as flawed. A simple way to think of it is what struck you as fucked up? In this case, a father hitting his son with a bottle of beer, yeah, that’s fucked up. All you have to do to create the Commentary Scene is think of the specific behavior in the generic and then fill in the blanks. Here’s what I mean, in this case, someone hitting someone they shouldn’t with something they shouldn’t. And in this case the thing the hitter uses should also represent their own addiction since the beer likely represents the father’s alcoholism. Blanks filled in: A doctor hits a patient with his bong, a priest hits a confessor with his crack pipe, etc…You don’t want to do a father hitting his son with a beer because we have already seen that. Another simple way to look at it is put the fucked up behavior somewhere else, ideally, somewhere that makes it even worse. The litmus test of Commentary Scene is does the audience know what specifically from the Opening Scene you are commenting on. The scene approach here should be Straight/Absurd. The Straight literally saying how fucked up this behavior is should make your comment abundantly clear. These scenes should be done in 1-2 minutes each.

Opening Scene: I put the Opening Scene here again to serve as a marker for the end of the Commentary Scenes and the beginning of the Run. This scene should only be 30 seconds or so long. I’m not looking for a lot out of this scene. If it does anything it should focus on its story elements because we are about to focus on them in the Run.

Run: In the Run we focus on story line characters mentioned or fairly assumed. tangents and references. In our current Opening Scene we see no characters mentioned, it’s only a sentence long. We can, however, fairly assume this child had or has a mother. That’s definitely a character I want to play. Tangents are the things that strike us as interesting or catch our ear in the Opening Scene but are not significant in defining theme or behavior. In this case, Budweiser. A reference can be many things. In this instance, what we are listening for are references that refer to larger known stories, characters and events, movies, books, times, etc…Our reference here, of course, is Batman.

How to approach the Run: There is no set scene order for the run as it will be dependent on what information the piece has thus far offered. In the Run everything is fair game, every scene type, any pull from anywhere in the piece is allowed. In the Run we are looking to explore the characters and relationships that potentially surround our opening scene, peppering that exploration with tangent and call back scenes while finding a way to place our overall story within the alternate reality of our reference. i.e. And, again, based only on our one sentence Opening Scene, the Run might include the following scenes: A scene where the mother explains to her son why she left, story line scene. A scene where a guy is being annoying at a bar, another guy orders a Budweiser and knocks him out with it, tangent scene. A scene where the son meets his mother’s new boyfriend, Bruce Wayne, reference scene. Already the possibilities abound! And this is just off of one sentence. In the Run you have the entire piece before it to draw upon.

Although there is no set scene order for the run, I have found the following guidelines to be helpful. Once the Run starts, nothing should be on stage for longer than 30 seconds. The Run should crescendo in pace moving faster and faster to the point where the pace is no longer manageable. At which point, the Opening Scene returns to close the piece. Start the Run with story line scenes. These characters are new and need the extra seconds to be introduced. Also, in my experience, if you don’t get those characters in early they tend not to get in at all. In the Run the pace is more important than the content. The Run is designed to make you move faster and faster, forcing you to perhaps make connections you might not otherwise have made, discovering new things, also, it allows for an element of silliness. You may not always be able to count on your content, but there is no excuse for not nailing your pace, it’s just editing. The Run is approximately 6-8 minutes long.

On closing the Decon: The alternate reality of our reference might offer up a story line that is strong enough to close the piece on its own. Some other move or scene might also prove too strong not to close with. Otherwise, our back pocket out is a return to the Opening Scene. The question becomes, based on all of this, where do our characters wind up, or, where did this whole thing begin? i.e. One more time from our sentence long Opening Scene, we might jump forward in time to the father on his death bed still being a prick to his son, the son, now a man, who happens to be drinking a bottle of Budweiser. Yeah! That old fucker is getting’ hit! Or, we might jump back in time to a scene where the son is just born and the family seems perfect. Painful and funny to us because we know what is to come. You can also slip something else that was strong in the Run into that closing scene. i.e. Say the jump back in time to the seemingly perfect family scene ends with the Bat Signal lighting the sky which the father ignores and the mother stares dreamily at. Again, we know what’s coming.

The first scene-last scene close, which I believe the Decon introduced into long-form, is extremely strong. It not only forces us to, in a sense, finish what we started, it also has the affect of making everything that was done before the closing scene, no matter how scattered, seem like it was done on purpose.

In this layout of the Decon, we have all 4 scene types represented. We have pace varying from 8 minutes down to seconds. And we have five different levels of information upon which to draw scene ideas. While this layout of the Decon works very well onstage as a performance piece, I designed it more as a way to become familiar with all of its components. My suggestion is to learn it as a piece and then let go of the rules and return to the original question, how many different ways can you be inspired by a scene? As I said before, if you learn it, you will have a good handle on most of what you need to know onstage in most any given long-form.

Listening for Scene Type and Position (Part II)

Last week I covered listening for scene type and position in Realistic and Straight/Absurd scenes. You should read that before you read this. This week I will cover listening for scene type and position in Character Driven and Alternate Reality scenes.

Take this scene start: Player 1: (Sits and clearly plays an old man) Kids these days are too soft.

What I see/hear is an old man sitting somewhere talking about “Kids these days…” This is an archetype, an old man. When I see a character that I clearly recognize that comes with no flaw/game offering I go character. My job is to make a character appropriate choice. A character mirror is an easy way to accomplish that, but in the very least, I will choose a character fairly born of the first one. In this case, another old man. I might reply with:

Me: (Sitting/joining him, also as an old man) Ya got that right, Earl.

Brilliant! My genius knows no bounds. I mirrored Player 1’s character and agreed with what he said. I am in a Character Driven Scene and my position is my character, an old man. As I said in the intro to the four scene types, the built in game of a Character Driven Scene is to let your character perceive the world. There can be any number of other things going on in the scene between the characters or as part of their story, but just perceiving the world through the lens of the character is always there.

Now say the scene continues:

Player 1: Now back in the war men were men.

I hear that Player 1 is a war vet. I can join Player 1 in that and we can both perceive the world through that similar lens. Or, another option, I can create a difference between us so that, while we are both old men, we perceive the world through different lenses. Both options work. Option one makes it easier to add to each other’s similar point of view and option two allows us to play more off each other. Say the scene continued:

Me: As I recall I was up in Canada for the war. I’m more of a lover than a fighter.

So Player 1 is a war vet and I’m a draft dodging ladies man. This will undoubtedly create tension between us. Now anything Player 1 says about the war I will turn into a story about the ladies and vice versa. Still two old men, but now two different lenses.

Recapping: When a clear character is offered with no real flaw/game you should go character and make a character appropriate choice. If a character is offered with a flaw/game that is larger than the character, Straight becomes an option. The built in game of a Character Driven Scene is to let your characters perceive the world. Characters can have similar or different lenses.

Sticking with our examples from the intro, lets again take this scene start:

Player 1: (Looking out a window) Man, the vampires are going crazy tonight. (Turning back to room) This place is a fucking mess. I thought you were going to clean up.

What I hear/see is that we are in a world where vampires exist, an alternate reality. My job would be pick any character I want to play from any of the number of vampire stories that I am familiar with and then fuck with that character and their known story line. That’s the built in game. However, I also heard that I was supposed to clean up the place and didn’t. So what we have is a bad roommate scene, Straight/Absurd, going on in an Alternate Reality Scene. Since I was told that I am the bad roommate, the slob who didn’t clean up, I will play him. The scene might continue:

Me: (Looking around for something) I can’t find my burrito.

There is a nice little lesson here. I avoid the potential argument over why I didn’t clean up by saying something that represents my character rather than addressing the problem Player 1 has with my character.

So we have our clean Straight/Absurd Scene, but there is still the matter of that Alternate Reality. You can’t introduce something as strong as a known alternate reality and not use it. You will disappoint the audience. The question you will want to answer is, how is your Straight/Absurd Scene affected or changed by the Alternate Reality you have placed it in? The scene might continue:

Player 1: Fuck your burrito! I couldn’t find a stake in here if I had to!

Ah, so not only is my character’s slob-ness annoying, it is potentially life threatening in this reality. The scene might continue:

Me: (Now sad) I can’t believe Tracy loves that Vamper.

I have now brought into play a classic vampire story line and a potential explanation for why my character is a slob. I’ve also, with “vamper,” specifically referenced True Blood to anyone who is familiar. In these ways I am making use of the strengths built into both scene types.

Recapping: When an absurdity or alternate reality is treated as real and defining of the world you are playing in, you are in an Alternate Reality Scene. The built in game of the Alternate Reality Scene is to fuck with known story lines and characters. Multiple scene types can happen at the same time. When they do, make use of the built in strengths of those scene types.

There is still more to these scene types, but I think we’ve covered the basics of listening for position and scene type in Character Driven and Alternate Reality scenes.

Listening for Position and Scene Type (Part I)

As I have said before, most scenes that go bad go bad in the first ten seconds. In my previous post I explained the importance of listening to the person who starts the scene. Now, what are you listening for? For me, I am listening for scene type (see my blog about the four types of improv scenes), and my position in the scene.

Take this scene start:

What I hear/see is that we are in a kitchen and my partner is preparing me breakfast. Our genders will be determined by our actually sexes or by how player one chooses to play their character’s gender. In this instance lets assume Player 1 is a woman. I now know that I am in a kitchen and my wife is preparing me breakfast. I would only choose to play another woman if Player 1 indicated that I was one. I also choose husband because of “dear.” This scene appears to be normal so I can assume I am in a Realistic Scene. The scene type or dynamic may shift, but for now, my first response, I will try and present a normal husband as I perceive he would exist in reality. I would likely respond with something like:

Brilliant! I am a comic fucking genius! No need to add more at this point. I have accepted the reality of Player 1’s initiation and know my position, husband, and my scene type, Realistic. But I didn’t add anything. Aren’t you always supposed to add something? You know, yes, and? Yes, and is not about adding, it’s about agreement. I have agreed with my partner’s initiation and my position in it. What I am giving Player 1, my and, in this instance, is space, time to get to what they were thinking of when they started the scene. I always assume the player who clearly starts a scene has at least a basic idea for the direction of the scene. If they don’t, very common, that will become abundantly clear in a few more seconds. In which case, I can then do whatever occurs to me to do to best further the scene. It has also been my experience that if you treat a player like they have an idea, they will get to one.

Recapping: If a player starts a scene in a way that feels normal, with no indication that you or they or the situation is anything other than normal, then you are in a Realistic Scene. The player starting the scene may clearly indicate who you are suppose to be. Yes, and is not about adding, it’s about agreement.

Now take this scene start:

There are a few lessons in this one. Nine times out of ten if I start a scene with a student by saying, “You are such an asshole.” Delivered realistically. The student will become defensive and likely respond with some variation of, “No I’m not, you are. What the fuck?” That seems to be our natural reaction to being called an asshole. But you aren’t being attacked, the person you are supposed to play is being attacked. And the attack is the gift. You are being told to play an asshole. So just play one! It’s fun!

This initiation also has what I call a loaded name, Blane. Jeeves is a butler, Cleetus is a hillbilly, Poindexter is a nerd, etc…You get my point. Blane isn’t as obvious as the aforementioned, but, for me, Blane is or was the quarterback of the high school football team and is a dick about it, probably refers to himself in the third person etc…that guy.

Back to what I hear. What I hear in this initiation is that I am an asshole, named Blane, who slept with someone I know’s girlfriend. I am perceivably flawed or wrong, Player 1 delivered his line realistically, therefore Player 1 is the Straight and I am the Absurd. The scene type is, of course, the Straight/Absurd scene. Player 1 is angry so I will choose to be happy. Ninety percent of the time the Absurd position is better served by being in a positive emotional state. The Straight almost always winds up in a negative emotional place because they are calling attention to behavior that they believe to be wrong and is upsetting them. I would likely respond with something like this:

Brilliant! I am pretending to be an asshole named Blane who slept with someone he know’s girlfriend and is happy about it. I’m a fucking genius! Why? Because I did exactly what Player 1 told me to do based on the rules mentioned above. Did I think about all of this before I did it? No. The rules, and there are lots of them, become part of your reaction once they are learned.

The reasons why I chose to deliver my response towards the audience rather than Player 1 are these: One, it’s a great way to clearly present your character/Absurd to the audience. Two, the more we stare at the other player on stage the less we play our character and the more we think, both bad. Three, my job/focus as the Absurd is to play them, be them, heighten their flaw and reveal them to be even worse than they were at the start. All of which feeds the Straight. And four, to help avoid the argument.

The job/focus of the Straight is very different. Where I think of turning away from the Straight when I realize I am the Absurd, I think of turning toward the other player when I realize I am the Straight. Because my job/focus is not to miss anything. Every little behavior, any misspeak, any further presentation of flaw I want to call attention to, attack and take apart. When I am the Straight I will have to react and deal with almost every line. When I am the Absurd I listen opportunistically, choosing only lines that are useful to me to react to. The primary way to avoid the argument in a Straight/Absurd scene is for the Absurd person to never engage it. The Straight is basically always presenting one half of an argument. So, as the Absurd, if you hear something that you find difficult to deal with or that makes you want to argue, ignore it and keep your focus on furthering your absurdity. Argument avoided.

Back to what I heard, or in this case, what I didn’t hear in this opening line. What I didn’t hear was who exactly we were to each other or where we were. Since I did hear my position and scene type, these immediately become tools for heightening. The simple question is what would make this situation worse? Or, who shouldn’t we be and where shouldn’t we be? What pops into my mind is I am the guy who has been dating this kids mother and we are at the church where I am about to marry her. Any answer to the question, what makes this all worse is probably a good idea.

Recapping: The attack is the gift, be it. Names can be loaded. The player who is perceivably flawed or wrong is the Absurd. The Absurd is most often best served by being in a positive emotional state because the Straight is almost always in a negative emotional state. The Absurd should not focus on the Straight beyond what is useful to them. The Straight should overly focus on the Absurd to make sure nothing slips by. The Absurd should try to never engage the argument of the Straight. Undefined scene aspects, who we are, where we are, can be tools for heightening.

This covers the basics for listening for position in the first two scene types. That’s a lot of rules! Like all rules they are not absolute, but, just like our beloved yes, and, they are pretty fucking good rules. All rules in improv are breakable and if you are going to break them you should have a good reason to do so. You should probably also know them first.

Next week I will cover listening for position in the Character Driven and Alternate Reality scenes.

Please feel free to ask questions.

Thanks!

Listening vs. Monkeys

I know it can seem insulting to be told that you need to listen. It’s the kind of thing we tell our children to do. We assume because we can hear the we are listening, but hearing is an ability, listening is a skill. And for my money, it is the most important skill we have in improvisation. It’s how we connect with the other player on stage so we can move forward with our exploration. That is why my number one rule in playing is that if another player starts a scene, I am listening.

Most scenes that go bad, go bad in the first 10 seconds. Why? Almost always because something wasn’t heard, poor listening. Both players start the scene with an idea or something in mind for themselves and this puts their focus on themselves first, other player, second. Now someone, technically, started first. They spoke first or started their physical or emotional play first. I know it can be a very close call sometimes, but still, someone was first. If the second player is holding on to the idea they had for themselves that means they are not listening as well as they could to the player who started the scene. (See my first blog on thinking versus listening) And since their idea was not born of the first players initiation it is tantamount to responding to an initiation with a random initiation. They now have to figure out why these two disparate initiations/characters/ideas are on stage. It can be done. It can be tricky, but it can be done. But why? At what cost?

I believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to have their ideas explored. We’ve all been or have seen victims of a “big response.” Take this gem:

Whatever my idea might have been is clearly out the window. Now not all responses are this glaringly inconsiderate. A good player can more neatly bend their gift for themselves into the other players initiation. Some might say that discovering why these two different ideas are together is the essence of improvisation. But to me, the time spent trying to figure these set ups out is time I could be moving forward. I also see them as being born out of fear and selfishness. The fear of not having something for yourself and the selfishness of being unwilling to listen for the other players idea.

Mick Napier does a great job at explaining how to empower yourself as an improviser in his book Improvise. It’s an exceptional book and is filled with great lessons on starting scenes among a lot of other things. What I learned from Mick when I studied with him was that I could empower myself onstage at any moment that I chose. When I am not the one starting the scene I just choose to empower myself right after I have completely listened to the first person’s initiation. This way I make sure that their idea gets explored and, if I am listening well, they will almost always tell me basically what I am supposed to do. In seconds I have a clear scene start that can move forward effortlessly.

The trainable skill in listening is recognizing what you are being told both in and beyond the words. I will be covering listening for scene type and position in my next post.

In the meantime, if someone bothers to make the edit and start a scene, bother to listen.

An Introduction to the Four Scene Types

Do a scene. Now what type of scene did you just do? I have asked this question many times of improvisers in the first day of my class. I am generally met with a room full of confused looks. Some try, but almost always just wind up telling me what went on or happened in the scene. I understand the confusion because I know we are all taught to view all improvisational scenes as equally spilling forth from the fountain of yes, and. The scene winds up being whatever it was.

Yes, and. The first rule of improvisation. All improvisers have their first awestruck moment with yes, and, “Yes,…and…..it’s so simple….so beautiful….” And it is. It is a great fucking rule. But it doesn’t help a lot when it comes to analyzing the work, your work. All you can ask is did I say yes, did I add something and could I have done either of those things better? Better. Better in terms of what? The scene. Again I ask, what type of scene did you just do?

What if I told you that all scenes that exist could be seen as one, or some combination, of four basic scene types, each of which has a set of underlying rules that makes them successful? That would be good to know, right? Right?! Who’s with me?! Good news. It’s true.

All scenes that exist can be seen as one, or some combination, of four basic scene types, each of which has a set of underlying rules that makes them successful. That’s my contention, anyway. And it is not arguable. What I am going to tell you is a true as math. You may choose to view your scene in a different way, but I have never encountered a scene that I can’t fit neatly into my four scene types.

So what are they? I separate them as follows: Realistic, Straight/Absurd, Character Driven and Alternate Reality. For the record, I did not invent these types of scenes. I did, however, separate and name them as I went about identifying the rules that I believe govern them. Their names, in the improvisational context, are my jargon. What follows is a brief introduction to my understanding of them.

The Realistic scene is a good place to start because it is just what it sounds like it is, realistic. The goal of a realistic scene is to present a moment onstage as we imagine it would happen in real life between characters we perceive to be normal. Now most of life is boring as shit. So the moments we choose to present realistically are those that involve some element of tension or conflict. How our characters react to that tension is the built in game of this scene type. The RULE is to stay true to your character’s realistic reaction. If you invent or exaggerate a response that we don’t believe your character or a “normal” person would do, you will have changed scene types. The perceived “normal” can be a fine line and will likely be the subject of another blog entry,

The Straight/Absurd scene is the most often started scene as well as the one most often fucked up. It is the most often started because most players coming in are not comfortable playing big defined characters. They have an idea they want to play with, something they think is funny, an absurdity. They present their absurdity through their normal ass selves. The other player yes, ands them through their normal ass selves and we watch two otherwise normal ass people doing something ridiculous and wonder why is this happening. RULE one, play the character who is doing your absurdity. RULE two, feel free to react to an absurdity like it is absurd. The yes, and, the agreement in a Straight/Absurd scene is that one person is straight and the other is absurd. This is also, and will always be, the built in game of that scene.

The Character Driven scene is one where the characters presented are either archetypical or with such a defining point of view that all we want to hear is what they will say next. Example, two old war veterans talking on a park bench. We just want to hear what they say next. The RULE, or built in game of this scene, is to just let your characters perceive the world. They may have something else going on between them, great, but built in is just letting them talk about anything.

The Alternate Reality scene is when we take something that we could otherwise treat as absurd and instead turn it into a defining rule of the world we are playing in. Not as hard as it sounds. Say I start a scene by saying, “ Man, I am so sick of these vampires.” Now vampires don’t exist so I could treat that statement as absurd, but clearly this person wants to play in a world where vampires exist. That becomes our alternate reality. And it is a known alternate reality. We all know a lot about vampires from movies, books. And yes, all movies and fictional books are alternate realities. The RULE of Alternate Reality scenes, the built in game of them, is to simply fuck with already known story lines and characters. When you build an alternate reality from a random absurdity, great fun, make sure you build the world to a point where we recognize it as some combination or variation of known alternate realities. If we can’t recognize the alternate reality we just view it as nonsense.

Again, this is an introduction to the four scene types. I have been putting them together for the past twenty years so there is a lot more I can say about them. There are a lot more RULES that make them work. I will endeavor to go more in depth in future blog posts.

I post this now because so much of what I have to say about improv has, in part,  to do with my understanding of these four scene types. Also, hopefully, to begin the online process of showing you that there is another way to think about and analyze the work, your work.

The Myth of Stage Time

It has long been believed that the only real way to get better, or maybe just the best way to get better, was to get more stage time. That getting more time in front of an audience was the only way to really improve. This may explain why in this age of massive improv opportunity no one commits to a single team anymore. The more teams you are on the more stage time you get. That’s just simple math. However, upon reflection, I find that the idea that stage time is what makes you better to be completely false.

I look at my own history of getting better, starting with classes.

I took classes at different theaters, doesn’t matter where, for about three years when I started, with no significant time in front of an audience at all. Grad shows and shit like that. I knew the basics but still pretty much sucked.

Then I became aware of a small improv community and surrounded myself with it. It felt better. I improved, not a lot, but some.

Then I got put on a team. The improvement in my play was there, but slow, as the team kept falling apart and being put back together with new people. Eventually, that team became six people who shared a common goal, were friends, roommates, relentlessly hung out together, talked about shit, fought about shit always with a common goal: be better, be one, get great at this.

That’s when I got better. That’s when I went from average to good.

Now you might say, “Well, you were on a team and getting to play more. That’s why you got better.” Makes sense. But we only got about a half hour a week on stage, where as we hung out and talked and thought about it for hours every day. Stage time is just a blip in the process. How you spend your time offstage is the rest of the process.

The team was only together for four years, with some members not joining until the last two years, and eventually, we went our separate ways. My team was gone, but, the knowledge that I could learn to be a better improviser by thinking and talking about it was not.

If I am having a busy improv performance week I might do three or four shows, amounting to about two hours of stage time. If I am having an average improv thinking week, I put in about thirty hours.

God knows I love doing shows, but a show only tells me where I am. The time I spend offstage tells me where I am going.

To Think or Not To Think

I encounter a lot of students and players who struggle with thinking too much onstage. What’s generally happening is they are trying to figure out what to do, or the best thing to do, rather than just doing what has already occurred to them.

The fact is that we are always thinking, in the sense that our brains are never off. When we sleep, we dream. Try not to think of anything and you’ll find yourself thinking of something. People who meditate generally try and focus on something simple to drown out the noise of their own thinking. So we can’t actually not think, but we can choose where to put our focus.

For example, I am sure we have all had the following experience. You are about to meet someone for the first time and you begin preparing to say your own name. “Hi, I’m Miles.” “I’m Miles, what’s up?” etc…Then you introduce yourself, say your name and realize that you didn’t catch the other person’s name. Your focus was on preparing to say your own name, kinda stupid, when it should have been on listening for the other person’s name. Just that little bit of thinking caused you to miss the entire point of the exchange.

So when we are improvising where should we put our focus? Simple, our focus should be on listening. What we actually do, choose a character, play a game, further a story, etc… is just a matter of trained reaction.

Our mental, emotional or physical reaction to stimuli represents who we are at any given point in time. For example, a child might first think that fire is pretty and reach for it. Upon learning that it is also hot the child will no longer reach for it. Who the child is, is now changed. We are the same. Our lives up to this point determine how we react to any given stimuli. This is also true when we improvise.

When I started improvising I was not very good. I would say I sucked for about four years. This was primarily because I was trying to figure out what was going on rather than just reacting to it. Now eventually, slowly, I got better and better and better. I thought it was because I was figuring it out, but what really happened was that over time my reactions to certain stimuli, a character, a situation, a line, etc… had changed. Who I was had changed.

Your reaction is all you get. No one is more than they are right now. In trying to be so is where we fuck up. We hear a line of dialogue, we have a reaction, we ignore or try to be better than our reaction, we think, we come up with a second or third option, but now we are no longer in the moment, we aren’t focused on listening or playing our character, we are in our head. We think we can’t come up with anything when actually we have come up with too much. What we should have done was the first thing that occurred to us.

I can’t tell you how many times in a class I have watched a scene go bad and in my notes said, “Well, at the beginning of the scene my first thought was this…” Only to have the student tell me, “ I had the same first thought, but then I thought…” It drives me crazy. They had the exact same first reaction as I did. The only difference between them and me was they chose not to trust it.

Much more often than not, our first reaction is the best possible move. I rarely, if ever, see a student think their way to a good move. If you think your way to a mistake, which I see all the fucking time, now you have to analyze your thinking and the only real lesson is you shouldn’t have been thinking so much. When you trust your first reaction, correct almost all the time, and it winds up being a mistake, well, we just learned something about ourselves and, if we own it, we are changed.

Any questions?

Miles Stroth