The Broken Record

I've been thinking about fighting in scenes this week. Coaching (and reading about and watching improv) has trained my brain to not only acknowledge that fighting happens in scenes, but to now attempt to diagnose the cause. 

More often than not, I've found fighting to be the result of one or both of the improvisers not establishing enough of who their character is (what they want, what they believe) to avoid fighting as a way to propel the scene forward. Fighting does propel a scene forward in that it creates the need to speak and many improvisers think that speaking is how we progress in scenes. There is such a thing as good fighting and I was listening to Will Hines and Louis Kornfeld chew this over on a recent Magnet podcast episode. 

Here's my take on fighting.

Fighting is good if it is done in the vein of arguing or debating. 'Debating' is probably more in line with what I mean to say, even if this is merely an exercise of semantics. I think of debating as a battle of philosophies, points of view, logic, and reason that necessarily involves a sharing of one's personal beliefs, values and evidence. When a character argues with another to further their point of view, we learn more about them and more material or food is created to feed the machine of their relationship to to another character or to the game of the scene. Telling us more about your character creates an opportunity to play. You become more of a 3D person to engage with.

Fighting is bad - and the distinction is somewhat hard to make in black and white - when the goal is to win or to prove the other person is wrong. One could argue that what I just said about good fighting is the same goal as bad fighting. However, when we (bad) fight in scenes, we are being defensive. We are not allowing ourselves to be emotionally affected as a character by what’s going on, so we are angrily pushing back as the improviser. We are commenting on the scene through our own voice rather than reacting as a character. Reacting to something in scenes is how we move a scene forward that is just treading water. It signifies to your scene partner(s) that ‘Hey! We can make something of this thing that I just reacted to!’. It helps to identify a possible button that can be pushed to get you to behave in a certain way and if your scene partner takes advantage of that opportunity, it allows you to heighten and explore that behavior. 

I think fighting stems from fear and panic. If we haven’t found something playable, we think fighting will get us there. Or it’s just easy to fall into an argument because we’re all familiar with how that works and how that should look. As an improviser, I think I have developed an internal system that starts buzzing when I start to panic in a scene. Either I feel really uncomfortable with what I’m doing or self-doubt creeps in because I don’t sense that the audience is with me or that I look stupid. In the past, I can feel that turning into motivation to argue. Anything to get away from compromising my self and my reputation. Now, I try to recognize that feeling and push through it. I try to push through the discomfort, even if I can feel the sweat forming and my face reddening (tell tale signs that I’m feeling very self-conscious). I try to remember that my onstage persona is different from me offstage.

I had the pleasure of appearing on the Soul Glo Podcast and my episode is now online.

I was surprised to be asked improv related questions and my answers were less coherent than I would have liked in the moment. After recording the episode, I was able to consider the questions some more, and would like to provide more articulate answers to ninasles and @stormofcomedy here: 

@stormofcomedy’s question:

“How do you stay in the moment/in character when a scene is not getting laughs? All I usually think about is wrapping it up!”

What many improvisers enjoy about doing improv is that we are never alone on stage. You almost always have a scene partner and (if you have multiple people on your team) people on the backline to support you. It is important to remember this when you feel the sense of doubt and fear creeping into a scene that isn’t getting laughs. If a scene isn’t going well, it’s not up to one person to ‘save’ it; it’s up to you and your scene partner. It’s on both of you to get yourselves out of it. And again, I don’t think audience laughter is a way of gauging the success of a scene or show. As I said in the podcast, I’m the kind of audience member who often does not laugh because I’m thinking about what I’m watching. Depending on who’s in your audience, they might not readily laugh because they’re absorbing your performance. Some people who are not improv savvy or avid improv fans might think it impolite to interrupt the performance by reacting (through laughter). I also am not of the camp of improvisers who strive to cater to what the audience wants (or what they think the audience wants) to see and hear. I like being motivated by the desire to honor my own ideas, experience and sense of humor and to make my team mates laugh. I want to enjoy being on stage. If the audience also enjoys it, that’s just a bonus. So instead of reacting to that panic or fear mid-scene by thinking “Okay, gotta wrap this up” (by the way, I’m also not a fan of self-editing, unless you’re doing duo-prov), try to focus on your scene partner. It’s difficult to prescribe advice without context (because every scene is different), but I would encourage you to state an observation of your scene partner or to discover something in your environment. Do things to ground you in the scene and get your mind out of the external elements you can’t control: what your scene partner is doing, how the audience is reacting. Control what’s in your power to control: your own body. You can try giving your scene partner something to react to by stating something random. It’s an exercise I’ve done with teams I coach - saying an “I” statement irrelevant to the scene you’ve established and force you and your scene partner to deal with it, justify it and incorporate it into the scene. It might be the shot in the arm that the scene needs to move forward.

ninasles‘s question:

“What do you do when you’re doing improv in a community and it starts to feel competitive?”

Answer:

While improv as a medium is supportive and collaborative in nature, competition is also an inherent quality. Where there is talent and opportunities to showcase that talent for a select few, there will always be competition. I don’t see competition as inherently bad; competition can be healthy, encouraging and inspire you to be and do better. I think competition can become unhealthy - and often can quite easily in an improv community - when it is your only motivation. If you are only doing improv so that you can become a house team performer, that’s fine. But if improv is the only thing you are doing with your time, it can easily consume you and begin to wear down your confidence when you don’t get what you want. Audition time is especially stressful, resulting in jealousy and bitterness when your friends and peers are selected for teams and you are not. Ultimately, I have found that balancing improv in my life with other things that make me happy has helped keep the competitive feelings in check. It’s still hard, especially around auditions, but that’s life.

Hey Tumblefans,