Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation (17 page)

In such a split scene, two separate scenes continue at the same time, sharing the focus as
discussed in previous chapters. As the focus passes back and forth, the two affect each other
through the course of the action, while not physically connecting.

A new team learns the proper traffic patterns in order to operate efficiently. Among the
most important are
entering
scenes from the rear;
editing
scenes from the front, and initiating
split scenes from the side.

Betty Thomas (of
Hill Street Blues)
took a chance once at Second City under Del's
direction during a three-way split scene. She simply stood up in the middle of her scene and
announced, "I'm tired of being in this scene. I want to be in that one over there," and as she
walked over and joined the scene on the opposite side of the stage, no one batted an eye. If
everyone suddenly started to move to different scenes, the results would have been chaos, but
the performers all had the cool to realize that the technique had to be used very sparingly to be
effective.

THE PLAYER AS SCENERY

Teamwork can create wonders. Improv groups can turn into just about anything, from
animals to rainstorms to trees with serpents slithering through them. During a very patriotic
Harold, when the actors in the scene began to sing the national anthem, one of the players
standing in the background leaned sideways, and gracefully waved his arms as he became an
American flag. The Baron's Barracudas displayed some amazing teamwork when seven
players became a trundle bed for the eighth member of their team. In a horizontal line, backs to
the audience, the team completed a synchronized backward somersault, landing flat on their
backs, ready to be slept on. The move was made in unison without a moment's hesitation, and
the audience cheered.

Of course, this is another great
thing about improv. Putting up a show is cheap, and yet the
scenery and props are unlimited! Since real props cannot be transformed, they become a
burden; when actual physical props are sitting around on stage, they limit the improvised
creation of other
prbps. Many audience members have difficulty accepting real items on the
same stage as imaginary props —
and it can be confusing. If there are real props and one
invisible prop on stage, the audience sees only the real prop.

75

And obviously, an invisible table could not hold a real bottle of beer!

THE PLAYER AS SOUND EFFECT

An audience always enjoys watching the back line of players taking care of the
performers in a scene. The scene may need sound effects, anything from a police siren
to the
Voice of God.

If the players in the back line are paying attention, they provide eerie sounds to heighten
the mood in a scene, or they may each be pieces of a symphony in a musically orchestrated
game.

Of course, too much of a good thing is still too much, and it occasionally reaches that
point. If the sound effects become overpowering, they literally become the scene. There is a
difference between getting in the way and lending a helping hand.

THE PLAYER AS CHOREOGRAPHER

The actors must always be aware of their movement and blocking in a scene, as well as
the "stage picture" they provide in larger group scenes. There's a lot more choreography than
that for players to deal with, however.

Many times, a group song or dance arises out of the work. Most
improvisers at the
ImprovOlympic are not professional singers or dancers, but they always impress audiences
with their commitment to doing their best.

Some incredible feats have been achieved through trust. During one Harold the team
Grime and Punishment answered the call for a ballet in their Harold. The players attempted to

76

duplicate ballet clichés as they leaped and twirled around the stage, and the audience enjoyed
watching Richard Laible lift Mick Napier and twirl him around. The best example of team-
work, was at the climax of the ballet, when, without warning, Mick took a flying leap and
hurled himself across the stage, into the arms of his fellow players. There was no doubt in
Mick's mind that he would be caught.

These are moments one can only marvel
at, yet they occur increasingly often as the trust
between team members grows stronger. Players often take enormous leaps of faith, and are
seldom betrayed by team members (despite the experience cited in an earlier chapter, which
resulted in Del's broken
collarbone . . .).

What makes a player literally take a flying leap? Is it merely trust? Is it the raised
consciousness of the group? Whatever it is, there is an equivalent feeling that makes the other
players get there in time to catch him —
one of the
most daring examples of improvisational
choreography.

77

CRIMES IN IMPROVISATION

While working on the La Jolla Playhouse production of The Misanthrope,
director Bob
Falls pointed out that a strategy of Cellimone, the female lead,
is to keep her suitors off base by
asking questions. Her first line is a question: "Is it to subject me to some quick moral quiz/That
you have come up here and cornered me like this?"

During their discussion, Falls turned to Del and asked, "What is it about asking questions
in improvisation, Del? Isn't that (asking questions) supposed to be the worst thing you can do?"

"You're asking me?" Del responded, to a few muted chuckles. "It's the second worst
thing. In improvisation, when you ask a question, you are taking information
away from your
fellow player, instead of
adding information. It's off-putting. Cuts the ground out from under
you."

“Second worst thing, eh? What's the worst thing?" asked Falls. Del opened an invisible
book under Falls' nose and said, "Here, read this out loud!"

This sort of move is usually called a "pimp," and is not likely to win the performer respect
from his fellow players. It is much like asking questions, because it forces a fellow player to
invent
information. Moves which
offer
information allow a fellow player to react and
justify.
Reaction and justification lead to an exciting discovery process
between
the players, which is
our goal. Pimping or asking questions, dumps the burden onto one player, coercing him into
dull, forced invention (and probably makes him look bad in the process —
another serious
improv crime!).

Del speculates that there is a hierarchy of crimes in improvisation, "like an

ever-expanding number of infinities." At any rate, there are other candidates for "Worst Crime
in Improv," including “reality breaking”

Players break reality when one of them denies the basis of the scene he has helped to
create, usually for the sake of a laugh. If one actor shoots another with a space gun during a
scene, saying "Pow! Pow!," the other player breaks his reality by saying "Why are you
pointing your finger at me and going Tow! Pow!'?" To compound the crime, he is also asking a
question!

"Reality breaking seldom happens, and is easily trained out of the culprit. One or two
severe beatings usually do the job," says Del. "Still, seemingly honest but actually destructive
questions pop up all the time, and become part of the improvisational 'clutter' or 'static' that we
are so concerned with eliminating."

After players become experienced and understand the reasons for such glaring mistakes,
some of them may turn the
errors into a game, deliberately violating as many such rules as
possible in a short scene.

The earliest example of "breaking reality" that was incorporated into a scene was called
"Compass Goofs." According to Del, it was performed by the Compass Players in Chicago
around 1956, and was described to him by Severn Darden.

"Two actors established a long dinner table in the center of the

stage. They were laying place settings when another actor entered,

walked in through
the invisible dinner table, closed a window directly

downstage, walked back through the table and exited," he says.

78

"Both actors continued with the place settings when a second

walk-on entered, walked through their table, and closed the window

again. He walked back through the table and exited.

"The place setting continued, when a third actor entered, carrying

a pail of water, walking through the table, and hurled water through the

(twice) closed window. He turned around, discovered the table, and

carefully walked around it before exiting.”

Reality breaking is extremely rude, even though it can become so outrageously poetic as
to become classic. This happened with the original Second City company in 1960, when
computers were still gigantic and filled entire rooms.

"Andrew Duncan and Paul Sand —
two superb mimes, by the way —
are on stage
establishing this giant computer, and a multitude of buttons and read-outs covered the entire
stage," says Del. "Barbara Harris and Severn Darden enter. Barbara says, 'Ooooh, is that the
new computer?' Severn replies, 'No, that's the old computer.' He reaches into his pocket and
produces a computer the size of a matchbox. 'Here's the new one!' Duncan and Sand were
purple with rage, despite Severn's accurate projection of future computer shrinkage!"

Another candidate for "Worst Crime in Improv" is physical violence on stage that
actually results in an actor getting hurt. This is very rare, but occasionally someone who
considers himself a "serious actor," whose only previous exposure to improvisation has been a
method acting class, lets his honest emotions lead them into vdolencl^ usually in the form of a
slap, a punch, or a bent finger. This~ls inconsiderate and self-indul-
gent, but worst of all, it
cools off the audience.

So what happens when a scene requires violence?

Easy. We do it in slow motion.

As Del explains, this accomplishes a lot of things at once, including safety! Fight scenes
on stage or in film are impeccably choreographed and rehearsed, and people still get hurt —
they arenever
improvised.

Slowing down the action lets the audience see and relish the detail of someone getting
punched in the stomach or the face; the face slowly distorts under the fist, and the stomach
slowly becomes concave as the eyes pop
slowly.

It also gives the performers a chance to show off their physical skills. A fight becomes a
dance. Shelley Berman was reputed to be so skilled at this, that when he was punched, he could
hit the floor and actuallybounce
in slow motion (and this was before Sam Peckinpah made his
discovery of
slo-momayhem)!

No matter how careful they are, improvisers constantly sustain a series of small injuries
—
"furniture bites" —
particularly in revue companies with
plenty of on-and-off traffic in the
dark during blackouts between the scenes. Each company develops its own set of collision
reduction guidelines.

"Basically, the best rule is to have the people leaving the stage and the people coming on
the stageuse different doors," says Del, though this is not usually a major concern during a
Harold.

79

"At the Committee in San Francisco, the permanent set consisted of five doors and two
hanging curtains. The safety chant went 'On through the curtains, off through the doors!' This
minimized collisions, but did not eliminate them. But, as Keith Johnstone points out,
performers are in a state of trance anyway, and tend to not notice the bruises and nicks when
they happen.

"I remember coming home after a performance, getting
undressed for bed, and having my
girlfriend say, 'My God! What happened to your legs?' Purple marks and bleeding shins.
Furniture bruises. It's amazing how many different places on stage three bentwood chairs can
get!"