In the very first episode of Exploring Improv, I speak with the renowned and multi-talented Brian James O'Connell (aka "BOC"). BOC is a Co-Founder of The Pack Theater in Los Angeles, an actor, writer and director who (among many other things) co-created the TV series "Hell Den" and directed the film "Bloodsucking Bastards"
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Let me preface this by saying that while I personally love political comedy, I completely understand why people hate it. I know a lot of brilliant comedians who won't touch politics with a ten foot pole, and why should they? Politics makes people angry. It's usually preachy and condescending. Quite often political comedy is really just a self-congratulating expression of judgment and cynicism; a rant thinly disguised as humor by a nasty layer of bitter sarcasm.
I believe there's a comic goldmine in the world of politics, and although I too have fallen into the trap of writing angry screeds and calling it comedy many a time, I have recently undergone a few observations that have given me new insights into the power of political comedy. Important things are happening in the world, and comedians do themselves a real disservice by not paying attention. Not because comedians are supposed to try to save the world with their comedy, but because world news and politics teaches us a great deal about human behavior.
POLITICAL COMEDY AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM ARE NOT THE SAME THING
What was most freeing for me was the realization that on stage, it's not my job to change someone's mind. People go to comedy shows to laugh. When you do a show, whatever percentage of your audience are liberals and conservatives will not change by the end of your set. There's a long line of hackneyed shows that tried to emulate the Daily Show but failed because political ideology took priority over the being funny. Do not fall into the trap of simply blurting out an angry screed and calling it comedy. Self righteous anger is seldom funny.
You will never write a political sketch that ends with all the conservatives or all the liberals in the audience suddenly realizing everything they believe about the world is wrong.
Political comedy is not easy, but it can be incredibly poignant when well done. Most notably the short-lived Half Hour News Hour on Fox News bombed because it didn't have funny jokes, so don't put the cart before the horse. Before you get political, make sure you know how to tell a funny dick joke, because that's honestly the hard part. Had the Daily Show likewise focused on ideological purity from its outset in the 90's, it probably would have crashed and burned too.
POLITICAL HUMOR DOES NOT NEED TO RELY ON STEREOTYPES
The audience loves comedians because they experience the same world we live in, but they look at at it from a slightly different angle than us. What really makes an audience laugh is when a comedian can take an unconventional road to arrive at an observation about humanity that everyone can recognize as being true. Good comedy is honest. The Daily Show and Colbert work so well because they do not have to invent things to make fun of. They do not need to rely on stereotypes because the targets of their mockery are funny enough in their own right.
Politics are deeply personal for people. It's one of the few outlets where you can really get an idea of how people think of themselves. It's a space where people express their deepest hopes, frustrations, and fears. Your comedic subjects are real people, so suspend your judgment and assume that everyone is a rational actor; from the politicians to the media to your uncle ranting on Thanksgiving, assume everyone is an intelligent person who has valid reasons for believing what they believe. Try to understand the complexities of their lives and why their individual personalities cause them to see the world the way they do.
And be honest. Don't feel like you have to be "fair and balanced." There are way more than two perspectives in the world of politics. Stick with your perspective and really try to find the humor in the humanity of it all.
POLITICAL ACTORS HAVE GOALS
I have seen many an improv scene suffer because the players lack perspective about their environment and the other characters on stage. There's no purpose to what they're doing. In sketch and improv comedy, an actor must always be aware of his or her goals. "Who am I?" "What is it I want to happen and how am I going to make it happen?" This is all politicians do during every moment of their existence. They're walking exaggerations of humanity. They are just as human as you and I, but have to spend every waking moment of their lives trying to play different parts and appealing to different audiences to get what they want.
And your crazy ranting uncle? You wish you could make choices onstage that strong! That's what I love about passionately political people. They rarely make boring scenes because unlike self-conscious improvisers, they don't make wishy washy choices. Middle-of-the-road compromises are poison in an improv scene, so take notes from people with enthusiastically wrong opinions. At first it all sounds like incomprehensible madness, but the more closely you listen the more you'll begin to understand the internal logic of what they're trying to say and why they think saying it to you will change your mind.
When you're an improv comedian, the audience expects you to be an expert on a little bit of everything. Don't disappoint. Learn about politics and why people care. Learn how to do it funny, and who knows? You might get lucky and end up making someone think.
I show up late BUT you should listen from the beginning! Talk Party becomes a PIT-Improvisers-Who-Are-Named-Christine Party as we are joined by Christine Holt and Christine Piñeiro!
We discuss approaching characters in scripted theater vs. improv, the joys of performing with a coach and how hilarious JW is when washing his dishes.
Can a blog post change your improv life? Yes. Will Hines' blogs on making and accepting offers will change the way you improv. I seriously read this stuff and started improvising better immediately.
The gist is to think of every line from your partner as an offer being made. As the second liner, you're listening for the offer and accepting it. This provides some much needed agreement right up top... not of just your who/what/where, but of the direction of the scene: what kind of scene is it, what's unusual, just... everything. And in return, you make offers of your own. Make and accept offers! Read it! Let it change you! Thanks Will Hines!
Hey! Let's talk about tag outs. Identifying them at the top of the newly-tagged-into scene will make you seem really fast and ahead of the audience.
For the sake of convenience, let's base the scene off of this scenario:
The scene begins in an operating table and you stumble into the room, as the doctor's assistant Clumsy Carl. He asks for a scalpel and you drop it inside the patient. The patient begins convulsing and the back line provides flatline sound effect.
(not the best scene in the world, but it's easy to understand, so don't give me shit)
Simple enough, and it's a natural place to tag in if someone wants to do such a thing. As far as I can tell, there's three types of tags:
1) The game tag.
What is it?
It's the most common tag. The backline sees the game and wants to play the game in a different situation. In this case: where else can Carl be clumsy?
How do you know what it is?
You'll know it's a game tag because the new situation will be somewhere you can play your game. Maybe it's something obvious, "Okay Carl, hand me the wirecutters. All I have to do is cut the blue wire and the children will be saved..." or it's something obscure, like he spaceworks walking a tightrope.
Additionally, it will usually happen at the climax of the game. In other words, you've played your game... you hit it once, maybe twice, you just a got a big laugh, annnnnnnnd... TAG.
What do you do?
KEEP DOING THE SAME DAMN THING. It's important not to get thrown... with a more obscure one, like the tightrope, you may not see your place in the scene. But don't get thrown: it's a new locale, they tagged at the climax of the game, thus your job is to find a way to keep being clumsy. (maybe you haphazardly leap onto the tightrope, threatening to knock off your new scene partner... "Carl, there's no net! What are you doing?")
2) The Act Out Tag
What is it?
This is less common, but it's a tag where you literally just act out something that was referenced in a scene. After the act out, typically, the original scene partner should tag back in and take us back to our original scene.
In our scenario, an act out makes no fucking sense right at that moment, so just imagine the scene goes on, and Carl says, "Sorry, I'm screwing this up. I went to Clumsy Medical School!"
How do you know what it is?
This is the easiest to identify, because it will happen right after you say your line, as opposed to the climax of a game. And it's triggered by simple key words like "This reminds me of..." or "This is worse than..." And it's probably going to be weird, because it's fun to act out weird bullshit turns of phrase.
Or, as in this scenario, sometimes an act-out is simply inspired by a reference to something we haven't seen but would like to.
What do you do?
For this to be strong, you have to do EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO. Act it out. So if the line is: "This reminds me of that time I got in a fist fight with cat," punch that cat in the fucking face!
In our scenario, we want to see Clumsy Medical School. I'd probably just step out as a professor and try to intro the class as I stumble over chairs. Hopefully, my TA comes in, and he trips on the chairs. Maybe all the students do too. We just act out whatever we think Clumsy Medical School is. (I have no idea why it's so hard to come up with good examples, so in lieu of that, I hope ham-fisted examples properly convey what I'm trying to say here)
If you don't know what to do: do what you think you're supposed to, with a lot of energy. Someone will tag back in.
When you do tag back in, you have the option of either commenting on the act-out and moving on ("Yep, it was exactly like you'd expect. Anyway...") or recontextualizing the act-out ("Now that I think about it, tuition was surpringly affordable... Jesus, I think I may be a sham") and having it affect the scene. It doesn't have to affect the scene.
3) The Exploration Tag
What is it?
An exploration tag is a tag that explores some other aspect of the world implied by your game. However, the key differentiator is that an exploration tag plays a different game.
An exploration tag takes if-then to another level and asks: if that game is true, then what other games are true?
Here's another ham-fisted example: let's say the game is cat policeman. A game tag might be cat policeman in a different situation or, analagously, cat fireman or cat doctor (or dog criminal). An exploration tag as I'm defining it would be: "Sarge, you've got to stop hiring cat police officers." In the game tag, you're mapping cat specifics to police/fireman/doctor specifics; in the exploration tag, you have a game of Sarge-who-keeps-hiring-cats. It's a little different and you're getting away from the original game (although it's related) and exploring the world in which your game exists.
In our inititial example, Carl could drop the scalpel, patient flatlines, then backline tags in with the line: "Carl... I regret hiring you." Which could then launch into any number of games (maybe guy-with-history-of-making-bad-executive-decisions-then-regretting-it?).
How do you know what it is?
A really good indicator that you're in an exploration tag: the initiation will be narrative based (i.e., what happens next) and/or a commentary on the previous scene. It will also often happen at the climax of a game, but the intiation will clearly be a call out or commentary or a narrative beat, NOT a new place to play your game.
Another good indicator is that it should feel like it's time to move on to a new game. That's a big vague, but it's true. You start to feel it.
In our example, you could tag out Carl, and go "Doc, why'd you hire Clumsy Carl?" Doctor replies, "I thought the name was ironic, like our E.R. Nurse Small Jill, who's actually quite big."
What do you do?
The first thing you have to do is recognize the game has changed. Once you identify you're in an exploration tag, it's super important to recognize the game has changed.
Why? For one, the previous game won't work. If, someone tags in, "Doc, why'd you hire Clumsy Carl?" you could play the Clumsy Carl game (he could walk on), but it usually wouldn't feel right.
Two, if you don't find a new game, all you have is one cheap laugh, in which the tagger calls out the scene but has nothing else. After the call out, you MUST find a new game (or swipe).
And this isn't too hard. You're already in unusual territory; as long as you recognize the need to create a new game, it's not difficult to hone in on it.
Here in Los Angeles, Shitty Jobs, Convoy and Heather & Miles use exploration tags HEAVILY, if you're interested in seeing them in action and done extremely well.
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In Summary
As near as I can tell, these are the main three types of tags. There's a few others; for example, one could tag out both people and play an analagous game. And of course, forms and circumstance could bring about even more.
But knowing that you have game tags, act outs, and exploration tags at your disposal will make your sets more diverse, exciting, and make your group seem even quicker-witted. But it's not being quick-witted: in fact, thinking about these tags may even put you in your head. The great thing about being in your head, though, is that eventually that hard thinking becomes instinct. Over time, without even knowing it, your knowledge and use of these tags becomes second-nature.
-Sean
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