Improv Rambling: Let Them Stew aka False Start (sort of an exercise)
A lot of improv exercises (most?) are about getting improvisers to use techniques/tools that they donât normally do. I know some more veteran performers/coaches donât love exercises. Why spend time doing things that are pretty tightly focused when you could be working on full sets? I personally love exercises (both as a coach and a performer). I like having something with simple rules and goals. Putting restrictions on a scene frees up my brain from worrying about all the tiny choices and moving pieces that normally occupy me at the top of scenes. I also LOVE coming up with improv exercises on the fly in the middle of a rehearsal. âThey are struggling with doing X. How can I come up with something that simply gets them to do that?â Just so they can get a sense of how that feels. I think Iâm pretty good at coming up with these. Often I will try something and I am not even a 100% sure why. I just try an exercise to see what will happen and how if affects their play. Let Them Stew is one Iâve been trying for the last few weeks. It seems to tap into a few things: Focusing on what has the most weight in the first few moments of a scene; Taking time and letting things hit; The power of just one person on stage. And there is something else that happens during it that is a whole tool that we rarely see in improv outside of monoscenes.. It is something that feels kind of powerful and I am not even sure yet how to define it or how to harness it. Itâs not huge or new. Iâm still experimenting. This is also one of those exercises that I donât explain the point of up top. It really is to try to trick them into playing different. LET THEM STEW aka FALSE START: Two performers. Start a scene like they normally would. 30 seconds to a minute into the scene, and character makes a choice to leave. It can be for any reason. It can (and probably should) be in the middle of the conversation. The remaining character stays in the scene, by themselves, for a full minute. After a minute someone enters the scene as a new, third character. Scene continues as a normal two person improv scene. Very simple. Deceptively simple. - It can be done with just two performers, with the person who leaves the scene just returning as a new character. Or you can have a third performer come it as that late arriving character.
- They may have a real hard time exiting the scene so early into a scene. It goes against their training and feels like bailing. Even when you side coach âOne of you decide to leave,â they will stall for another minute. Encourage them to just make the choice and leave. This is not about wrapping up and putting closure on that first interaction. It is about leaving things hanging.
- Performers tend to do this naturally, but new performers might need a little direction: The person left alone in the scene should just do what that character would do if left alone after whatever just happened. Object work or pace or talk to themselves or silently stew. 60 seconds feels like a really long time but they can take that time to unpack in their head what those first 30 seconds was actually about.
- I donât give any instructions on who or what that 3rd character should be. People tend to pick someone who will help explore whatever was most interesting (even if unspoken) in the first 30 seconds. Often even a complete left turn, seemingly random character will end up highlighting what happened earlier (especially if the character left alone really spent that minute thinking about that first interaction). There is something that happens when people really take the time to let something hit. A lot happens in those 60 seconds, both one stage with the person alone, but also on the backline as they watch. People stop worrying about the next move and rushing forward. They start thinking about what is really going on. It is different than making people pause 5 seconds between lines or whatever. I also LOVE when a character just walks out of a scene really early. Perhaps it is metahumor because we just donât do that, but I find it hilarious.
