The House That Del Built

The Intellectual Musings of an Improv Wonk.

Give The Show What it Wants

Before every show I give my Harold team little pointers to think about for the show that night: maybe I tell them, “Take your time in the opening,” or “Listen to your scene partner”, etc. But the last thing I often say, and the directive that supersedes all other directives is this: “Give the show what it wants”. It’s sort of like Asimov’s First Rule of Robotics—all other rules are conditional on not conflicting with this rule. Giving the show what it wants means acknowledging that your goal, in the end, is to produce a—wait for it—comedic work of art. Form, rules, even comedy conventions are only there to serve the process of creating this work of art, and they should be used insofar as they serve that purpose, but no further.

The Harold works for lots of reasons that we can identify: the rule of threes, the ebb and flow of different kinds of performance energies, a pace that is regular but has inherent movement, etc. But it is not the rigidity of the form that creates great long form improv—it’s the spirit of that form, and if we honor that spirit, we are always on solid ground.

Before I proceed, though, it’s important to make something clear: this divergence from form is meant for Harold performers and teams who have already mastered the basic Harold form—opening, three scenes, game, three scenes, game, wacky mixed-up third beat. The divergence from the form advocated below must be preceded by a mastery of the form, not the other way around.

In addition to the above caveat, I’ll add this: tweaking the form usually only works artfully if the opening and first beat are played with a clarity that provides the building blocks of a strong Harold: a theme, relationship-driven scenes that explore the boundaries of that theme, and a group mind that converges around both the theme and the particular energy of the show.

Really this caveat is true of any art form—one should first master the source material before attempting to break from established tradition. Any serious modern dance instructor, for instance, will tell you that to be proficient in the discipline, you have to first be a proficient ballet dancer. You can’t just skip the classical training because you think modern dance is more interesting or relevant or speaks to you more. Because to properly hear and speak in the language of modern dance, you have to have studied its roots. Picasso was painting realistic works for years before he felt proficient enough to attempt to translate his vision to Cubism. In the best free verse poets, you can still hear the rhythms and cadences of more formal poetic styles.

Going back to the issue at hand, the performance of a 21st century Harold is like a microcosm of the development of a newly derived artistic style, happening in real time on stage. You need to begin with the Harold. You need to let the inherent structure of the Harold do its work on your show. Then, when you’ve let the show begin to happen, to be about something and to talk about that something in its unique way, you can actually hear the show asking for the next move. It knows what it wants. And when that happens, you’ll feel all the pressure come off you as an individual performer. When you’re in tune with the show, the show starts playing itself.

I’m not saying you have to or even should make huge changes to the form—if you’re performing a Harold (and especially if your show is called, let’s say, “Harold Night”), do a Harold. Don’t do a 30 minute monoscene and claim it’s a Harold because it’s in “the spirit of a Harold.” (Unlikely.) 

But once the show is on solid ground, you’ll feel more comfortable making some divergent choices. Sometimes those choices may even seem small, but they can have a big impact on the energy, pace, and style of the show: The order of the second beat scenes being (gasp!) not 100% matched up with the first beat scenes. Or having a (gasp!) third group game and a fourth beat (I’ve seen it happen—and when it was the right move for that particular show). Or an extended, scenic monologue in place of a two-person scene, because, well, it just feels like that’s what belongs there.

An expanded example: Maybe you had one very clear first beat scene that was just fine and everything, but nothing’s sticking out about it in terms of a second beat extension. Neither of the characters was particularly interesting or worth following into a new scene. The plot of the scene sort of wrapped up by the swipe, and anyway, it was sort of an outlier in terms of the theme of the show. Why try to force a permutation of that scene to continue on in the second beat, then? Because you’re supposed to? The show isn’t interested in it; it has moved on, and so has the audience. So pick up on something more compelling that the show is offering—another character, maybe even a location that seems to keep cropping up—and use that as your inspiration.

Maybe your show was really narrative in the beginning, and your third beat feels like it wants to wrap up all those narrative threads in that very standard and recognizable set of criss-crossing scenes where the people from the different scenes meet each other, Shortcuts style. But maybe you don’t have any narrative threads, and your third beat just isn’t going to work like that. Maybe your third beat will heighten the theme of your show with a new scenario that is recognizably connected to the first beats, that draws inspiration from them but doesn’t take their actual characters or events.

And maybe this show wants one of those nice little tag out run somewhere the second beat. But maybe it doesn’t. There’s an assumption that tag out runs are usually the “right” thing to do in a second beat, but your show might have three really awesome first beat scenes that each have an equally awesome second beat scene that should follow them, and your preconceived notion that a tag out run is what’s called for in a second beat might throw that off.

And maybe, just maybe (it could happen) the show really just wants to color inside the lines tonight. It just wants to be a tight, neat, conventional Harold. Don’t judge it.

And don’t mistake “giving the show what it wants” for “insert improv novelty”. Oh, I think I want to do an artsy little soundscape edit here. Wouldn’t that be artsy of me? Not to say that I am not a fan of soundscape edits; I love them when they belong in a show. But sometimes we think that just because we know how to do something, and we’ve seen it work in other shows to strong effect, we need to insert it into ours. Maybe it worked in that other show, but maybe our show is really focused on some long-playing scene work, and it doesn’t want distracting and busy edits. Did you ever ask the show if it wants you to do it? Go ahead. Ask.

Because the show will answer. You’ve heard it answer before. I equate it to that weird sensation of being able to hear yourself talk, as though you’re outside of yourself. When I get that feeling it’s usually when I suddenly realize that I am not really communicating with my audience, whether I’m on stage or in a conversation with a friend at a party. You know: the words are coming out, but they’re falling a foot in front of you instead of reaching the listener. That’s the same feeling I get when I know I’ve just done something that the show didn’t ask me to do. I can see my move outside of myself, and it’s just dropped like a turd onto center stage. And I’m not talking about a “bad” move here. It might be a really smart move, a really funny move. But it’s not a move that’s in tune with the show. And the second you make it, you know, and your teammates know, and the audience senses, that it was just not welcome tonight. No one’s quite sure how to respond. It doesn’t get the laugh that objectively you’d think it would. It’s horribly, disappointingly extraneous.

Okay, there’s a visceral feeling of knowing when you haven’t given the show what it wants, but how do you know how to do it right? Yup, you guessed it: rehearsal. Hard, thoughtful, breaking-it-down rehearsal. Because, once you get on stage, you shouldn’t be thinking about this issue at all, at least not in a conscious, overly cognitive kind of way. But if you rehearse it properly and are super conscious about it in the rehearsal process, you’ll build intuition to recognize these visceral indicators—a moment’s hesitation that says to you “nope, not that, not tonight”, or, on the other side, a flash of clarity. But if you let yourself coast along in rehearsal, never stopping to ask, Was that what belonged there? Was there a more organic choice to have made? What were the results of move x versus move y?—you’ll never be able to rely on your instincts in a show, and you’ll be stuck with either a formulaic and uninspired, if structurally sound, Harold, or just a hot mess. And no show wants to be that.

  1. thehousethatdelbuilt posted this