Fix your boring activity scenes
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.
It’s the depths of summer here. Everyone around me is hot, irritable, and wants to get to the point quickly. So let’s go!
How to keep activities from boring the audience
(Thanks to those who voted for this topic in last month’s poll.)
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you know all the benefits that object and activity work can bring to your improv scenes.
But it’s important to remember that establishing an activity shouldn’t be your constant goal. Many scenes with activities become boring, if not immediately, then very quickly. Let’s review some ideas for giving your active scenes more staying power.
Attitude
This is the absolute basics of physical improv. Even though you’re handling space objects and activities, they are real to your character. If you the improviser have the attitude that you’re “pretending” to do the activity with an “imaginary” object, you will look detached. The audience can see that you don’t believe it, so they don’t either. Commit to your characters and their activities and you will naturally become more watchable.
Purpose
Scenes with an especially intense activity can hold the audience’s attention because you’re solving a high-stakes problem physically. Most of the time, however, the activities are more mundane. In these scenes, the activity’s purpose is to add colour and depth to the character and/or scene. It shouldn’t be the focus. Keep the activity in the background and don’t talk about it, which quickly becomes boring. Focus on playing with your partner.
Variety
A common stock character in improv is the “wise janitor,” who appears from the background to dispense advice while cleaning up the location. Many times, the actor playing the janitor simply sweeps the floor, again and again, over and over, until it lulls everyone to sleep. Anytime you find yourself doing a repetitive motion for an activity, switch it up! The janitor can empty trash cans, clean windows, or pick up all that dust. (All without talking about that activity.) This is an excellent opportunity to play your own private game of “What else can I do with this?”
Offers
In A Subversive’s Guide to Improvisation, David Razowsky writes:
“So why do an activity? Because your partner gathers valuable emotional information observing HOW you pour a glass of milk, saw a plank of wood, or iron clothes. Often, improvisers don’t recognize their partner is conveying feelings through an activity. For example, they watch their partner stirring something in a mixing bowl without seeing how they’re stirring. Are they stirring quickly, tentatively, angrily? Instead, they talk about the activity, leading to dumb dialogue like: ‘You’re doing it wrong.’ Or, ‘Mmm, I like cookie dough.’”
So, use your activity to make emotional and other non-verbal offers. And be on the lookout for similar offers from your partners’ activities. Make assumptions from what you see and act on them.
Do you have further questions about keeping activity scenes from becoming boring? Hit reply and let’s chat!
Things to Try
Exercises, scenes, and practices to work out your physical improv skills.
- Enjoying the Olympics? It’s the perfect time to research physicality. Watch how the athletes move and use the various props their sport requires. Think about how you might reproduce it onstage. Try a fun scene about Olympic competition (that doesn’t involve preparing for the match and never actually playing).
- Solo: Activity Trouble. Choose any activity (maybe even an Olympic sport) and perform it as a routine, thinking about the various micro-steps involved. At any point, any of these steps can have a problem, or “trouble.” Explore how you correct that trouble to continue with the activity. Experiment with minor trouble, which might be a mere annoyance, and major trouble, which breaks the routine completely and forces you to come up with different solutions.
- Do you have an improv book on your beach reading list? Here’s a list of my recommendations.
More from Improv Illusionist
The Improv Illusionist book – Preview and order info
Improv Exercises for Physical Skills
Improv Books — Reviews & Recommendations
Improv Podcasts — Reviews & Recommendations
News and Links
The Pretend Company
Chris Mead is serious about bringing more truly theatrical improv work to the London, UK community. Read more about his plans here. The initial application process is now closed, but you can send him feedback. I’ll be watching this with interest to see how we might all bring more of this to our local communities.
How to read a(n improv) book
This short post from Seth Godin is actually called “How to read a business book,” but the ideas apply equally well to improv books or any non-fiction learning. Highly recommended reading. (And I’ll write more about this next month!)
Do you have any feedback about Improv Illusionist? Send me a message or just reply to this email. Seriously, I read everything and respond to nearly all of it as my schedule allows.
Next issue on September 5th. (I’ll be at the Robin Hood International Improv Festival.)
Ex nihilo!
— Dave
