Be obvious!
Note: This is a reprint of a previous Improv Illusionist newsletter. If you’re not receiving my email newsletter, you can subscribe here and get my “Learning the Improv Illusion” series as a bonus.
Welcome to another issue of the Improv Illusionist Newsletter, a monthly update from me, David Raitt, with a focus on the improv skills of environment, object work, and physicality in character and performance. I’m honoured by your interest.
Happy 2nd month! I’m hoping the groundhog will have good news for us all tomorrow.
I’m making tour plans to teach my Improv Illusionist workshops internationally. First up will be a visit to Amsterdam in March, and I’ll be in the UK later this year. If you’d like me to visit your area, ask your local improv group to get in touch. Maybe we can make that happen.
Be obvious!
Especially among beginning improvisers, a common fear is that the audience won’t be able to “read” our object work. I often notice players narrating their way through scenes, telling everyone what the objects are before showing them. (“Yes, we do have that book in stock, ma’am. Just let me get it from this shelf over here, and then I’ll ring it up on the cash register…“) This dialogue is unnatural and disrupts the conversation that’s driving your story.
I feel like this is a subconscious attempt to stall while we figure out what the moves should be, so the audience instantly sees it. Or maybe to do it so it gets a laugh.
Most of the time, the audience already knows what you’re doing through the context of the scene. Maybe you started from the suggestion of a bookshop. Or the previous dialogue has told them you’re discussing a transaction. Even if they don’t understand immediately, they will watch you happily as long as you’re engaged with the activity. If you’re adding variety to your movement—as opposed to repeating the same single thing—they will figure it out, eventually.
Like everything else in improv, we have to avoid the temptation to be “creative.” As Keith Johnstone wrote in Impro…
The improviser has to realise that the more obvious he is, the more original he appears. I constantly point out how much the audience like someone who is direct, and how they always laugh with pleasure at a really ‘obvious’ idea. Ordinary people asked to improvise will search for some ‘original’ idea because they want to be thought clever…
In Johnstone’s logic, what’s obvious is the first idea that occurs to you in a situation. Rejecting that idea for something “better” is a judgement that slows you down and is often less successful.
To start a kitchen scene, the classic “cutting carrots” move has become a cliché, simply because it’s an obvious idea that occurs to many people. Of course, you may have a different idea that’s just as obvious. The point is to follow that first impulse. You don’t have to be clever or creative with the activity.
Even if your first choice seems (or becomes) boring, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it. Having established what you’re doing, you can then heighten and explore the activity to have more fun with it.
I recently saw a brilliant example of this from my Toronto colleague, Ken Hall. He’s an accomplished improviser and teacher, and internationally known for his duo 2 Man No Show (as well as his multiple roles in The Umbrella Academy on Netflix).
In the scene, Ken and his partner were two characters deep in conversation while walking along the shore of a lake. Ken began picking up stones and skipping them out across the water. It was an instantly recognizable move, flinging them sidearm, then bobbing his head as they skipped. (Try it yourself in front of a mirror!)
Then, as the scene continued, he began throwing stones in different and increasingly bizarre ways: kicking, bouncing them off his elbows and chest, heading them soccer-style. Throughout, the very earnest conversation continued in hilarious counterpoint. Neither character mentioned the stones at all, and it wasn’t necessary.
Before this gag emerged, though, Ken started in an obvious way. And each of those subsequent moves was his next obvious choice in playing with the activity.
You can do the same thing. When the bookshop customer asks you for something, just go to the shelf and grab it. Then scan it at the cash register. Maybe you discover the price is something outrageous, which causes a problem. Or you start a conversation about historical fiction, which begins a lovely relationship scene.
Don’t narrate your way through your object work. Keep following your obvious physical ideas and dive in, trusting that the audience is right on board.
Things to Try
Exercises, scenes, and practices to work out your physical improv skills.
- Try these two exercises in rehearsal with your team.
- Finding Objects in the Immediate Environment: (A Viola Spolin exercise.) Three or more players agree on a simple group relationship and a topic of discussion. While the discussion proceeds, each player must handle objects found in the environment. Try not to invent objects, but rather discover them. Keep the discussion going! There should be dozens of objects by the end.
- Create an Object, Say a Line: Two or three players. Like Finding Objects in the Immediate Environment, but players can choose any location, characters, and activity. They can speak a next line of dialogue only after they have established a new object in the environment. It must be a new object, not a new activity or new use for the same object.
- Solo – Exploring Activity Movements: Choose any improvised activity. As you perform it, notice any single movement that reoccurs. Explore changing it up, making it faster/slower, harder/gentler, bigger/smaller. Notice how changes to the movement can suggest things about the character, maybe their emotional state or personality type.
More for the Improv Illusionist
The Improv Illusionist book – Preview and order info
Improv Exercises for Physical Skills
Improv Books — Reviews & Recommendations
Improv Podcasts — Reviews & Recommendations
Interesting Improv Links
A couple of improv-adjacent articles from Backstage.com…
How to Use Callbacks in Your Comedy
Callbacks are highly satisfying for audiences, if you execute them well. One other tip for your scenes: try to solve problems using the objects and environment you have already established, rather than inventing new ones.
Acting Exercises for the Well-Prepared Performer
I find it interesting how many of these “classic” exercises are similar to common improv exercises. And there are a couple from Viola Spolin here too!
Question(s) of the Month
Have you ever been to an improv festival? What was your experience like?
Hit Reply and share. I love to chat with readers, and it gives me ideas for future content to help the whole community.
Do you have any feedback about Improv Illusionist? Send me a message or just reply to this email. Seriously, I read and respond to just about everything.
See you again on March 7th!
Ex nihilo!
— Dave
