Summary of Improv Goals 012

Fortunately, I was at the Roving Imp Training Center, so I did not watch the State of the Union address. In class last night, we worked on the goal for the long form: to use motion to develop and play a character.

At the 75th Street Brewery, KC drinker says, “Bar food [is] taken to the next level,” and Rachel in the bar area is always a truly excellent server, but I was delayed in leaving, so I was a little later than usual for the full class (i.e., ten openings were available and we had ten students), thus I began my class with an off feeling.

We were first in a circle, and one person suggested a celebrity, another person suggested an emotion and a third person suggested a location; this exercise is otherwise known as a Celebrity-Emotion-Location Circle. The following celebrities were among the suggested: Katherine Hepburn; John Wayne at a Taco Bell; the ashamed man, after whom Gettysburg was named, at the Appomattox Courthouse; and Jimmy Stewart. For Stewart, David had the best voice, facial expression, and physicality; Steve A was a close second; and John and I both made reference to It’s a Wonderful Life.

OK OK OK, some of those suggestions might have been for a round of Celebrity-Location Circle, for which we each had a different emotion. Following these exercises, we individually went on stage and silently acted out ninety seconds of a typical morning before we would leave home for our days. If my sister Kimberly had been in the audience, she would likely have recognized that I first mimed coming to the top of the stairs and knocking on her door. Because so many scenes had already featured a sink in a bathroom, I abbreviated the motion of combing my hair. As well as my digging and grasping for Hot Pockets, I could have mimed the large, vertical freezer a little better.

John, our creative director, in both title and nuisance, noticed that most of us needed to slow down our motions, especially our hands, so that objects were clearly understood by the audience.

The next exercise was not specifically called Wake Up, but each of the five pairs of players started from a sleep, used no words and only motion to develop a character and relationship, and were allowed to speak after forty-five seconds had elapsed.

If I am honest, which I do try to be, I think that my focus was more involved in the mechanics of portraying my waking up than on the goal for those forty-five seconds. Emotion was somewhat discernible in my performance, but neither my character nor our relationship was, so John stopped Greg and I at certain points.

I deeply value and appreciate the style that John uses for instruction, despite that way that the following might sound. To say that neither my ego nor pride was deeply wounded one of those times, would be a denial of my true feelings. My thoughts turned to leaving the class; such would have not just made me appear immature, or be disruptive to the class, but would also be contrary to all the work done in my therapy. I just decided that I would be as emotionally hurt the next time was on stage. Following my silent and mental resolve, Joel likely did something funny and I laughed.

 

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In the final set of scenes, each of us chose the person, and therefore character, with whom we would like to play. I chose Frank, who played a nonspeaking but supportive dog “Dog,” who had been under-utilized. Also, I have another confession: I had not changed into my stage pants because I did not leave myself enough time to go home and so do.

We closed the session with a few line games.