Improv Should Be broken
It’s Friday night. A group of friends want drinks, food, and something fun to do. “Doesn’t that comedy place have drinks? I’d do a comedy show!” The group sidles into a lively place. With this many folks in here, it’s sure to be a good time! They sit together, relatively far in the back; they’re excited to be wowed with improvised comedy but don’t want to be made “part of the show.”
Lights go up and the host presents the show- what they’ll see. 3 groups in one show? We’re getting our money’s worth!
The first opening group: The Dingdongalings (I hope this isn’t a real group name)! The group leader explains what they will be doing. He jokingly asks if the audience is taking notes, it’s seemingly complicated. They go up and do an organic opening, clomping around on stage, chanting words that evolve into new movements and phrases. It’s a great way to get the improv group on the same page, but ultimately alienates the audience. They go into scenes loosely affiliated with the opening. Eh. “That’s our show!” rings out to an audience that hoots and hollers while the group of friends think “it was?” The host re-enters and expresses how lucky the audience was to bear witness to such art.
The second group and third group of the show are good examples of well-executed harolds and deconstructions, and a masterclass in emotional relationship-play…
The group of friends decide unanimously that improv isn’t something they enjoy, especially since everyone else there seemed to really enjoy it and revel in the artistry/mastery of the craft itself.
The single greatest threat to all art really- comedy, painting, music- is complacency. It’s also a core tenet to improv. I’ve heard the phrase from a lot of different folks recently, and I don’t mind the sentiment necessarily… “don’t give a bad show more time than the show itself,” meaning, don’t dwell on a bad set longer than the set was.
I beg us to dwell on them as long as it takes for us to get better and bring a consistent quality to our performances. We should be hitting for 95% great work over not great work, but we can’t do that if we already think we are. Let’s improve. Let’s evolve. Let’s break improv a bit.
