Three-Person Scenes

A scene with three people is its own animal. It requires a bit of finesse and timing that a two-person scene doesn't. The biggest reason people screw up a three-person scene is that they think "dif­ferent" when they could have thought "same." Here's what I mean: The lights come up and you discover there are suddenly three people on stage. Let"s say the scene goes down like this:

Improviser A: It's such a beautiful Sunday!

Improviser B: I've got the picnic basket ready!

Improviser C: (says nothing)

Improviser A: I'm glad the kids are with Grandma.

Improviser B: I've got tuna, lemonade, and apple pie!

Improviser C: (says nothing, continues to wonder about his function in the scene.)

Improviser A: Let's go have a picnic!

Improviser C: Wait, I don't think we should go right now, I'm not feeling well.

This is a fairly typical beginning of a three-person scene. Two people get on track with something. The third person just stands there silently trying to figure out what to do, while the other two continue. Aware that if his silence persists, it soon won't seem right to speak at all, Improviser C blurts out something adverse to or dif­ferent from what Improvisers A and B have initiated. This is what I mean by thinking different.

It's very tempting for the third person to take a contrary point of view. He may do so because he thinks he needs to create conflict and subconsciously believes that being different will give him power in the scene. Go with the flow, especially in a group scene. You don't have time to work around a lot of tangential points of view. This advice also holds true for a scene that starts out with two negative but similar points of view:

Improviser A: I hate the way that dress looks on her.

Improviser B: Yeah, I hope she didn't get gypped at the

Salvation Army. Improviser C: I kinda like it.

Another example of a disrupted initiation. Improviser C would have gained a lot more ground with:

Improviser C: Picture perfect white trash.

Go with. The audience is trying to cipher out what the scene is about. They like seeing "Those people talk about the way that person's dressed." Simple. That's what the scene is about.

It's as likely though, that in a three-person scene the first two initiators won't even share a common point of view among them­selves at the top of the scene:

Improviser A: This coffee is delicious.

Improviser B: Really? I think it tastes terrible.

Now what is the third improviser to do? I say take one of the existing positions. In the banal scene above, declare that your coffee either delicious or terrible, thereby joining an existing point of view, or make up a different taste reaction to the coffee, joining the point of view that coffee is being tasted:

Improviser A: This coffee is delicious.

Improvises B: Really? I think it tastes terrible.

Improviser C: Mine tastes kinda bitter, but I like it.

Improviser C made a move to heighten the notion of reacting to coffee, as opposed to:

Improviser A: This coffee is delicious.

Improviser B: Really? I think it tastes terrible.

Improviser C: Who cares? Let's play baseball.

In the last example, Improviser C comes in with something dif­ferent and now the scene kinda has to start over with finding what it is about. A similar point of view does not have to be expressed only by words; it could be done through character, emotion, or state of mind, as well. An example of this might be

Improviser A (angrily): The sky is blue!

Improviser B (angrily): I like Cheerios!

Improviser C (angrily): Birds fly!

That all of them are angry declares their shared point of view, even if they are saying different things. The audience identifies that the scene is about three angry people. Also, the content is all unre­lated non sequiturs, therefore declaring nonsense as a shared point of view.

Huh?

Yes.

Think same, not different, in three-person scenes. Especially with character. I've seen the following scene 8,452 times (more or less):

Improviser A (in French accent): The water is so lovely.

Improviser B (in French accent): The park is so nice this time of year.

Improviser C (in American accent): Can you tell me how to get to...?

Oh, if Improviser C had just taken on a French accent he would have gained a lot more ground. As an American character, his choice makes the circumstance of the scene —finding directions and his American accent—more important than what the scene is already about: two French people enjoying their surroundings. He could have joined in a delightful scene between three French people, free to continue in the established scene that is about French people. Being French is their collective point of view: They can now talk about anything as those French people. Instead, he made an opposite (and often done) choice of being different, and the scene is forced to shift in order to deal with the circumstance he has brought forth. It's not just French people, either. The same would hold true if it were two robots, two sad people, two wiggly people, whatever.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-08