6 March 2013

Rehearsals began this week for A Beginning, A Muddle And An End. Although, because it's going to be an improvised play, I'm always going to feel like it's a bit of a
Iie to refer to them as rehearsals, in much the same way that I won't always feel like its strictly accurate to call myself a director. Of course, it the early stages of - well, I'm going to have to call them rehearsals, aren't I? - there's going to be a lot more side-coaching from me, lots more suggestions of different ways to try the same methods with which to tell a story. It's certainly true that when it doubt, it's best to keep the story simple - obvious, even - and it's almost always a hell of a lot easier to see that simple, clear and elegant resolution to a narrative when you're in the audience, or at the very least, offstage and looking in. One of my early tasks will be attempting to facilitate the cast with the toolkit so that they can, with a group mind, work together towards the same resolution. No pressure. I'm also starting rehearsals this week for the other fringe festival show, Three Kinds Of Me, which will be premiering in a all new, stripped down version at The Burrow. Now, you might well claim that attempting to mount two festival productions at the same time is the very height of madness. I'd argue that the height of madness probably involves sacrificing puppies, or gouging out your own eyes, or maybe buying a boxset of The Only Way Is Essex. By comparison, spending your free time with talented actors getting to make up stories seems like an entirely sane use of one's time.

Our first rehearsal (for BME) had a really good vibe to it, full of energy, but energy that was absolutely focused. That's reasonably rare in new improvisation groups, where it's more usual to have a few souls pulling focus in a misguided attempt to prove their worth to anyone watching. There was none of that yesterday, no egos calling for attention. In fact, everyone was really supportive of everyone else in a remarkably short amount of time. When you consider that at least a couple of the gang have thus far done very little improv, and therefore may well have been feeling understandably nervous, this is pretty damn impressive, and bodes well for the rest of the rehearsal process. I will very often get into a routine where I've decided what The Most Important Rule In Improv is, and it forms my approach for the surrounding months. Usually, it's a re-stating of a rule that's already familiar, or possibly even over-familiar (which is why I consider it necessary to re-state it, in slightly different language). The start of rehearsals for BME coincide with me going on quite a lot about my new Most Important Rule Of Improv, which basically is ''Make Everyone Else Look Brilliant".

A lot of improvisation is about taking a leap of faith, celebrating Tabula Rasa, going in blind even when nothing appears to make sense. Trying very hard to avoid the phrase 'Yes, but ...'. Logic and intelligence aren't always your friends. You're having to do several things at once, and quite often those things don't exactly support one another. You can't plan the story too far ahead, you have to be ready to drop whatever scenario you're setting up in less than a second, while at the same time being mindful (and indeed, pushing) a multitude of various possible story-lines.

Very often in improv workshops and rehearsals, actors will declare that they were 'about to' set up a certain scene (or relationship, or location, or motive). Granted, it's next to impossible to pitch all that in the first three seconds, but we should have a damn good try: yes, it's important to find moments of calm and quiet, and we don't want all our dialogue to be purely exposition, but if we're not constantly moving forward, we're just dancing on the head of a pin. All that energy, and barely anything to show for it. It does seem logical to always have an idea of where we're going, even if we're going in blind. Constantly moving forward, barely ever looking behind, never risking staying still, not spending even thirty seconds spinning your wheels, because if you do, if you spend just thirty seconds not moving forward, then you die. Move or die.

Hell, I've just realised that improv is like a Great White Shark. And to further punch this strained metaphor into the deep dark water, improv - if you're not careful - has teeth that can bite. Oh, and it has dead eyes. That too. The point is, if you as an improviser are not constantly moving forward, improvisation can turn around and bite you on the ass within seconds. We've all seen improvisation groups that mistake energy for being loud, that mistake dialogue for the excuse to restate the same plot points again and again. As an improviser myself, these are the crimes that I'm (currently) most aware of, and perhaps inevitably, these are also the crimes that I am (currently) most guilty of as a performer. A couple of weeks ago, I was attempting some improvised story telling - ten minutes, one word after another. False modesty and self deprecation aside, honest critical opinion? It wasn't great. I mean, let's be abundantly clear: it wasn't awful either. And, considering that this was still my first real bit of improv in public in about three years, I was reasonably content with what I came up with. But still: it wasn't great. Most of what I got 'wrong' (whatever that means), I knew there and then, when I was still performing, long before the post mortem.

Despite the fact that as a director or workshop leader, I'm always adamant that the story is always propelled forward, that it's a misuse of energy to spend too long restating and repeating plot points (although there is space for that), I spent at least 6 of my 10 minutes doing exactly that, telling the audience loads of stuff that I'd already told them. In ten minutes, that's a helluva lot of repeating. Mainly, it's a fear of saying the wrong thing. Or the obvious thing. Or, worse, the boring, unoriginal thing. And I know this, but still I fall foul of it. Screw it. Learn, move on. And, of course, it's significantly easier to tell the kids in rehearsal not to fall into the bear traps than let them know you have a few scars yourself.

Be the shark. Keep moving. Get to the end of the story. In fact, screw that, pass the end. Get to the sequel. Tell what happens next. That's what's interesting.