From Hated Exercise To Improv Epiphany
If you have been doing improv for any length of time you have probably been asked by a teacher to do an exercise that goes something like this:
Walk around the room neutrally. Now, walk as if you are happy... Now, walk as if you are sad... Now, walk as if you are in love. Now, walk as if you are jealous...
This exercise used to drive me up the wall. Do we really walk all that different based on the emotion we are experiencing? Maybe others are different but for me: not really. Wider context may change how I walk, for example if I was in a rush I may walk quicker, or if I was trying to avoid someone I may try and make myself inconspicuous, but as far as pure emotion is concerned, it felt like it had little influence. And besides, aren't we taught that good acting is about trying to conceal rather than reveal our emotions (but letting a little spill through), because this is what we actually do in real life?
There is a status variation of the same game which goes something like:
Walk as if you are a king... now walk as if you are a servant... now walk as if you are a CEO... now walk as if you are homeless...
This was mildly better but still lacking in context. A king doing what and where? In the royal gardens in a golden year or hosting another, more powerful king who he suspects will try to invade his kingdom soon? A servant with the other servants or a servant in front of one of the royals? Which royal? The one he's close with or the one that hates him? And does their walk really change that much, or is it other things like gestures, posture and eye contact that change more?
Occasionally, you would encounter a better teacher who would give you a scenario with more context like:
Walk as if you are a warrior returning to their home town after having just returned from a successful battle.
But even so, immediately half the class would start walking around with plank straight backs, heads high, nostrils flaring and making crazy, aggressive eye contact with everyone. Maybe this is how warriors behave in some parts of the world, but the soldiers and martial artists I have met don't choose to walk around like this, especially if they are good at what they do. Whenever I see people doing this, I am always reminded of the following anecdote about Marlon Brando's time at acting school:
Brando's remarkable insight and sense of realism were evident early on. Adler used to recount that, when teaching Brando, she had instructed the class to act like chickens, and added that a nuclear bomb was about to fall on them. Most of the class clucked and ran around wildly, but Brando sat calmly and pretended to lay an egg. Asked by Adler why he had chosen to react this way, he said, "I'm a chicken — what do I know about bombs?"
Source: Wikipedia
And so, as I started thinking about the curriculum for the school, I was faced with a conundrum: do I keep this exercise or do I remove it? On the one hand, it is taught at just about every improv and acting school which must mean something and just because I loathe it doesn't mean other people don't get something out of it. On the other hand, can I really use and stand by an exercise I don't believe in?
Up until this point, I had been thinking of structuring my school around the Pirate/Robot dynamic described in Billy Merritt & Will Hines' excellent book Pirate Robot Ninja. In this book they try and categorise two types of player, the Pirate who makes bold moves based on gut feeling and the Robot who makes more calculated moves based on pattern observation. It's a good metaphor and I still recommend the book but some pieces of it didn't quite feel right. Similarly, the Discovery/Invention dichotomy, which can be summarised as improvising from reactive discoveries vs improvising based on thoughts and analysis also didn't quite align with what I wanted to convey.
My epiphany would come from a few sources.
First, I witnessed this scene entitled Slinky Dress by Ben Schwartz & Friends. Second, was researching animation styles as part of making the illustrations for this website, in particular the old-school style referred to as "rubber hose animation". Third, I took a workshop lead by the wonderful Stuart Moses at a British Improv Project retreat. Stuart taught us about Commedia dell'arte - a precusor to pantomime that features archetypal characters and very clowny, physical comedy.
All these have one thing in common: exaggerated cartoonish caricature. In Slinky Dress, look at how most of the performers but in particular, Ben Schwartz, quite literally use gestures lifted straight out of Looney Tunes cartoons. Now, look at this quote from the rubber hose animation wikipedia entry:
The early animated style originates from the comic strips and vaudeville performances, which caricatured in line and gesture. The simple designs and exaggerated movements from such performances were adapted by the early animators to create visually engaging characters.
Source: Wikipedia
And in the Commedia Dell'arte workshop Stuart had us do the walking exercise embodying the archetypal characters - only this time, I loved it. Within this context, I had no problem channeling Scrooge McDuck for the "Vecchi" - stingy, wealthy elders who are often the villains of the show. Nor did I have any problem dramatically wilting from side to side when inhabiting the "Innamorati" - dramatic young lovers who are often more infatuated with the idea of being in love than love itself. And I realised that yes, there is a time to do the Snow White & The Seven Dwarves style happy walk or a sad sack-of-bones shuffle. In the same way writers use tropes, these techniques are shortcuts for actors to convey information quickly, even if they are not particularly real. And so they are particularly useful when we are playing from an absurdist perspective.
And so the lightbulb moment occurred, and I realised that Real/Absurd, not Pirate/Robot or Discovery/Invention, was at the heart of the way I saw improv and should form the core of the way I approached teaching it. And to that end, I decided that yes, the walking exercises should be included in the curriculum, but explicitly placed in these two different contexts, so that the student can contrast and compare, feel the differences for themselves, and develop their intuition for when to go big and when to go subtle with their physicality.
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