Part Two: Check Out What You Did.

After you do something at the top of the scene, after you've made a real choice, take half a second to check out what you did. Immediately after you do something, assess what you created.

Let's say the lights came up on stage and you look out over the audience and without thinking, yawn and initiate the line, "Ah, Saturdays." That's a start of an improv scene. You've succeeded in the first step: You took care of yourself by initiating and you had some­thing going on behind it (seemingly bored or tired as evidenced by the yawn—it's something).

Now what?

Now what the hell do you do? The lights came up and you are improvising and you said "Ah, Saturdays." What do you do now? I'll tell you what some improvisers do. Some improvisers might think, "Why did I say that?" or "What's my partner doing now?" or "What am I going to say next?" or "That was boring," or "Why did I say it's Saturday?" or "Why am I looking out over the audience, is this a window?" or "That didn't work," or a host of other things like that. Sometimes by the time the improviser has gone through those thoughts the partner is responding in the scene, or already did.

So what am I suggesting? This.

To chill out and merely check out what you did—in a real literal way. Like, "Oh, I just said 'Ah, Saturdays' kinda' bored and I'm looking out." That's it. That's all. Period. No speculation, no self-judgment, no seeking answers to questions, no worrying about what ifs. Merely assessing what you literally created. "What did I just do? Oh."

Why, why, why?

Because you've just created your character's road map to the scene. That's where it lies. The move you just made. In what you just did. That's where the deal is for you and your character. The very first thing you said or did from your character's point of view lies in that moment, and I'm asking you to take one half second to merely check out what that was. What did you literally just create? Oh that, very well.

A lot of improvisers create something at the top of the scene and have no idea what the hell they just created. I've seen it so many times and so have you.

An improviser will say something at the top of a scene, the very first line, and get a laugh. After the laugh subsides, that improviser says something else. The second line lies flat. It's disappointing to the audience and God. In fact it's almost anger-invoking, because it's obvious from the improviser's second line that he didn't get the deal behind his first line; that is, he didn't know what he was doing.

Literally, such improvisers do not know-what-they-are-do-ing.

Create boldly in the first moment, then check out what's up.

Good improvisers do this without even realizing it sometimes. It's automatic. Make an intuitive self-appraisal that has nothing to do with worrying or wondering what is going to happen next. Merely that you did something and what it was.

Notice there is no why in that statement.

Who cares why you did something? Most of the time in improv­isation asking (or answering) why you did or said a particular thing is a form of judgment and measurement that will get you in your head. It's only important that you did it.

How about howl Yes, yes.

How is everything in improvisation. How people do something in improvisation is most of the reason people laugh at improvisation. The line "Goat is good eatin'" may or may not be funny in and of itself. But did you say it as a southerner, someone bored, someone who stutters, someone who's scared, someone who jumps every time ay a sentence, someone with a nervous tic? How, how, how?

Words are of little impact when not filtered through the how. The how comprises everything from emotion to state of being to character to character attribute to intonation to physical score to point of view. The how is your deal in the scene, the magical road map for the character, created instantaneously, acknowledged there­after, and played, I said played, furiously.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-08