Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation (20 page)

Music is always a good way to end a Harold, and is usually an audience-pleaser, whether
the song evolves organically within the final scene, or there is a call for a madrigal or other
group number.

"I loved the madrigals, and I loved singing," says Chris Farley. "It makes a Harold a lot of
fun. My group sang quite a bit —
maybe too much, using it in scenes and such! A lot of our
Harolds ended in some sort of song. Singing was always a vital part of our Harolds."

Of course, there is no one way to end a Harold. The players can only follow the moment,
and do what the piece requires.

The only way is
the organic way. An ending cannot be decided until the spur of the
moment —
that's improvisation!

LEVEL OF THE WORK

There were many interesting levels working in the preceding Harold.

Events in the newscasts kept showing the time spans of the other scenes in each round.
The reports displayed the changing of American ideals, particularly on the subject of
patriotism. This is particularly reflected in the husband-wife scene, when the man is looking at
his old yearbook. He proudly reads about himself as an "All-American," as he packs to flee the
country. Throughout the reports, there were also connections to the scenes that are too
numerous to mention.

The first physical connection of the actual scenes comes when the woman sees and
remembers the vet on TV, which was occurring in the split-scene format. But there was
another level to this connection. The innocent high school boys reading the bathroom wall to
discover how many classmates had screwed the same woman, is reflected in the scene of the
vet reading the names on the Viet Nam Memorial. The woman becomes the symbol for
America when it becomes apparent that the vet is still reading on a wall the names of men who
have been "screwed."

It's interesting to see the different levels of ideas extracted from one
theme, through a
group mind. In another Harold, the theme of "money" inspired various levels of fraud,
scheming, plagiarism, and impersonation.

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One scene depicted Exxon executives lying to the public about their efforts to clean up
the Alaskan oil spill.

A second scene featured underwater characters, including two fish, and Bruce the Shark
—
the King of the Sea. In the first beat of this scene, the fish were able to pull a scam on Bruce
because they were pink, and could easily blend in with the coral whenever Bruce was on the
prowl (obviously,

this took place before the Exxon spill). In the second beat, the fish were distressed
because the coral was stained black, and they could no longer blend in.

The third scene involved two aspiring rock stars who deliberately plagiarized the songs of
famous musicians to reap the publicity. They become so famous as plagiarists that, in a later
beat, a fan asks one of them for an autograph, but requests that he sign it "James Brown." In the
final beat, one of the singers becomes an Elvis impersonator.

Clearly to this group, money represented fraud and power, with its images of the "king"
(Bruce the Shark and Elvis), and the powerful Exxon.

LIFE IS A SLOW HAROLD

The Harold is an incredible tool for teaching improvisation, but it teaches other lessons,
as well.

Strangely enough, many of the Laws of Physics and the Laws of Improvisation are
similar (including such principles as order out of chaos, anything can happen, the cycles and
patterns that naturally occur). Understanding these laws makes life a bit easier to understand.
We learn lessons from the patterns in our lives, and start to believe that there are no
coincidences.

A few years ago, one ImprovOlympic group was hired to write a show. Since everyone
had so many ideas they wanted to work on, the members wrote up their ideas separately, and
then came together a week later to read them. The scenes not only connected, but had direct
references to each other —
yet they were written completely separate!

Needless to say, the group was in shock. They could understand how something like this
could happen while on stage improvising together, when they were listening to and using each
other's ideas to make connections. But how could they make connections while physically
separated?

Improvisers have been trained to notice the connections

in everything, which may be the answer. The connections are always there; they run
through our work and through our lives.

When you notice the richness of connections in a Harold on stage, then you
can go out
and live your own Harold.

You will, too, you know. You can't help it!

KEY POINTS FOR CHAPTER ELEVEN
*The suggestion is the inspiration to discover the theme.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

Harold As a Team Sport

The ImprovOlymic: Why a Sport?

How to Direct a Harold Competition

A performance situation is obviously very different from an improv workshop, so the
director's responsibilities in those two situations are also going to be very different.

In a workshop, the director prepares (and sometimes trains) the group in preparation for a
performance.

But after the director has trained and inspired the actors, once the show is set and the
actors hit the stage, the director's job is done. When the actors step on stage, their performance
is out of the hands of their director(after
the show is over, of course, the director gives notes to
the performers).

A director often employs a technique in workshop situations to keep players on track
while they are improvising informally.

While a scene is going on, the director makes an off-stage suggestion. The actors continue
their scene, incorporating the director's suggestion without breaking their reality.

Such active directing is used if a scene can be put back on track with a quick comment.
Sometimes, a scene can actually
be frozen to point out a missed game move: the action is then
resumed, allowing the players to successfully complete the scene. But most of the time we
choose not to interrupt the scene, because the mistakes often lead to more interesting
discoveries. Afterward, the scene is critiqued and the problem is discussed.

Again, all of these techniques are fine for the classroom, but it's important to remember
that the classroom is where they should stay!

Some directors insist on coaching players from the "sidelines" during their performance.
Bad idea! This works against any possibility of discovery on stage. It takes away the
responsibility of the players to support and justify each other's mistakes, which is how the
discoveries come about. Most importantly, it makes the horrendous assumption that the ideas
of the director are more important than the ideas discovered through the group mind.

Del's motto in putting up an improv show has always been "light fuse and run!"

This book is designed to provide the reader with new ideas on comedy, and to furnish
enough information for creating a Harold team. Anyone who follows the suggestions may not
have the benefit of Charna and Del's coaching in person, but then, Harolds created strictly
within the guidelines in these pages may lead to more interesting discoveries!

This is really a guide book, to guide readers to making their own discoveries. After all, in
improv, the only rule is that there are no rules.

Writing this book is the authors' equivalent of lighting the fuse and running. The
explosion is up to you.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Charna Halpern
recently
celebrated her nineteenth year as Director

of
the ImprovOlympic, and has led college seminars in improvisation

across the country. Her experience and expertise has been in demand

among professionals as well —
in a partnership with Michael Douglas

and Chris Bearde Productions, she directed and appeared in a pilot with

Michael Douglas, Rhea Perlman and Stuart Pankin. Another unusual

directorial
experience shared with Del Close was an improvisational

workshop of stars organized by Bill Murray and Academy Award

winning director Sydney J. Pollack. She runs two ImprovOlympic
theaters and schools in Chicago and Los Angeles.

The late
Del Close's
life was virtually a history of American

improvisation.

Mr. Close started his comedy career with Mike Nichols and Elaine

May in the Compass Players in St. Louis during the 1950s. Moving on

to Second City and eventually to San Francisco as creator and director

of the legendary radical political satire comedy troupe The Committee,

Del returned to Second City in 1973 and remained for twelve years its

highly successful director. He
was co-creator of SCTV with Andrew

Alexander as well as
"House Metaphysician " for three seasons of
Saturday Night Live.
He is credited for honing the talents of John Belushi, Bill Murray,
Gilda
Radner, Betty Thomas, John Candy and many others.

Close's dream of creating an art movement came to
fruition
when he hooked up with his
partner Charna Halpern where
they created long-form improvisation at the ImprovOlympic.
Together they changed the face of improvisational comedy.

A life-long devotee of improvisational comedy;
Del
Close died in Chicago on March 4,
1999 at the age of 64.

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Kim "Howard" Johnson
is an
accomplished writer, performer;

and improviser who has studied and collaborated with Del Close and

Charna Halpern for many years. Howard is the author of the

best-selling
The First 200 Years of Monty Python, And Now For

Something Completely Trivial
and
Life (Before and) After Python.
He

is also a veteran magazine writer; covering the worlds of film,

television and fantasy for Starlog, Prevue, Comics Scene
and
Video

Action
magazines, as well as various projects for DC Comics. In

addition to working for several years as a reporter and announcer in

radio news, Howard has worked for and with the Monty Python group
as part of the crew on
Life of Brian.

Upon making his home in Chicago, he began studying at Second City and performing
stand-up comedy, and shortly thereafter started with the ImprovOlympic, studying and
performing for several years, culminating in the writing and performing of the Del
Close-directed Honor Finnegan vs. the Brain of the Galaxy.

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