My Harold Diary: Harold Number Nine
I can’t believe I haven’t performed more than nine Harolds by now, but there it is. Number nine is a difficult one to categorize, but I kind of want to call it Clash of Cultures Harold even though that doesn’t really capture whatever it was. Still – and with the caveat that I will probably use that title over again, as I imagine that would be a rather standard theme that emerges, especially at the level we’re at – it aptly describes some of the larger currents that moved this Harold.
Harold #9: Opening was the pattern game. One of the problems I’ve noticed in this opening, not just among my own group (though I see this a lot and it’s a bit – well, a lot – bothersome), is that a lot of performers are so stuck in their heads thinking about the next clever move, that they’re not concerned with the real meat of the pattern game: listening, matching and heightening. When I watched Dillinger at the Harold Night Time Machine before DCM 11 this year, I noticed that their pattern game was so fun and interesting because they listened to each other, truly built on what the last person said, matching energies and speech patterns, building on that, making the game something greater than it is. In a lot of the pattern games I’ve witnessed and been a part of, a lot of people are worried about simply taking two ideas and inorganically slamming them together, instead of building an idea together, and it shows because ideas are forced and patterns are stilted. What a lot of people forget is that game is built by blowing up the unusual thing that naturally emerges from trying to copy reality. It’s not built by making a forceable choice to be weird and unrealistic (even the weird thing is supposed to be played naturally and realistically and logically). The same thing goes for the pattern game. The weird thing should emerge from a natural pattern, not by forcing weird things into the pattern.
Anyway, our pattern game was, like the majority, a forced, stilted mess. Some ideas emerged and we used them all in our Harold, but the struggle to get through it was obvious. I believe the suggestion was “manifest” and of course, that led us to ideas of manifest destiny, cultures, physicality, and not-so-of-course to Halloween and pool games.
1st beats: R and K started a scene and later, our coach showed us that a golden opportunity was missed. When R and K were stepping out, R bumped into K and said, “Sorry, I always do that.” Thatwas the initiation, even if she didn’t mean it to be. K missed it though and went on with his idea that R was wearing a slutty Halloween costume that was actually more than just slutty, but flat-out inappropriate, especially for a mother taking her kids out to trick-or-treat. C and I did a walk on as their children when R called for us. The scene was ok, but in retrospect, our coach showed us what a great opportunity it would have been to just go with that accidental initiation. I think this goes to the heart of this group’s problem – and in general beginning improvisors – we don’t listen enough, and we’re too attached to our own ideas.
Let’s say K did hear R, but instead of going with it, he plowed on with his own idea. In one sense, that’s ok since it came from the opening, but in another sense, it seems antithetical to the idea of improv. The minute your scene partner introduces something contradictory to your idea, you need to drop it and move on. It’s like a chess game. If you continually play the game with a particular strategy in mind, most of the time, you will lose spectacularly. You have to have a longterm strategy in mind – in our case, getting laughs from patient, organic scenes and connecting ideas – but your shortterm strategy has to be one of continual adjustment, always ready to throw out a longer term plan in favor of the exigencies of the game.
What I think beginning improvisors have a problem with is not having a safety net – not having the safety of an idea with which to write the scenes – and thus they (we) resist the idea of just purely reacting and carrying a scene to its natural conclusion based on those reactions. And so one gets a lot of forced, inelegant improv.
The second scene featured L and myself. L said he liked my hunchback costume, and I think (I hope) that I got this from the opening, but I replied that it wasn’t a costume, that I was really a hunchback. What followed was a funny scene of me hitting on L with L enjoying it, but it never really went anywhere because we never If-but-ed. If I’m a hunchback, what else is true? How do I court women? What is it about my hump that’s attractive?
The third scene had C as the waiter of a Japanese reataurant that serves authentic Japanese food: burgers and fries. Funny, but again, didn’t go anywhere because there was a lot of plateauing and not enough if-but-ing.
Group game 1: From the opening, I initiated that our family has such a multi-cultural background that I don’t know what to serve for dinner, so I made everything. Meandered for a while, but eventually got to a place where as Native Americans, half of us resented the Jewish half because we were now way more oppressed than the Jews.
2nd beats: R now wants to drive the kids to school naked. Missed a real justification for why she wanted to do that (Later, L said she remembered how her mom would sometimes drive her to school in her pajamas, which is a great idea to apply to this scene), but not a bad scene. Eventually R is arrested by L. In the second scene, L had me as the hunchback proposing, and he says yes. Then wonders about having hunchback children. Organically, the game kind of changes to L not really understanding how genetics works. Still funny, but no movement. Scene three, I was now B’s husband at the same restaurant, and sloppily, I accidentally take over, angrily demanding a burger and fries. One funny line I had though was , “Look, only two things come from Texas, and I want one of them.” “Which one?” “The steers!”
Group game 2: Another missed opportunity. L initiates with “I dunno. I’m really bad at Marco Polo.” Instead of yes-and-ing him, we all change the game into getting out of the pool while he tries to catch us. Unnecessary, as he already said he was bad at it. That’s the game! That’s it! Our coach later made us replay that scene with that as the sole game, and it was easy and fun and not difficult to heighten.
3rd beats: R initiates by being in jail, though neither C nor I really caught on. She was moving her hand back and forth (supposed to be rattling a cub against the bars) singing, “Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen”. In retrospect, that was kind of obvious, especially since she was just ripping off Space Balls, but I’m not really a fan of subtlety in improv, especially if the goal is to get everyone on the same page as quickly as possible. Hamfistedness is almost a necessity. At least in terms of inititations in premise-based improv. C and I both misread what was going on and thought we were supposed to be in the car with her. Then L started a scene as an Italian matriarch serving a traditional meal of sweet and sour chicken. I saw a place where I could play my hunchback game and came in serving my traditional hunchback meal of lobster bisque served in an upsidedown bell. (Earlier, in the second beat, I said I was from Massachusetts and L and I talked about hunchback culture kind of). Someone edited (although not before someone annoyingly asked who I was, as opposed to STATING THE INFORMATION), and we stood for a bit thinking of another third beat. I took the initiative and thanked the “audience”, ending the Harold.
All in all, better than last week, but still plagued by the usual not-listening, pre-writing scenes, asking too many questions, etc.
Filed by andyb at November 10th, 2009 under Harold