Getting away with murder

Why do some improvisers get away with murder (not literally), and others who know a million tricks and skills fail? Everyone can have an uncharacteristically good or bad day, but is it more than that?

Let me ask a different question; what is the relative importance of confidence, attitude and skills? Can one have confidence without the right attitude or skills? Certainly I’ve seen this from beginner improvisers who get the rules to games wrong, aren’t skilled mimes or singers etc.; and gag, block and pimp their way through a show. They get away with murder, with the victim often being their fellow performers. At times it has surprised me how well they do. Clearly they have something more than just confidence; let us call it cleverness.

Cleverness, a quickness at coming up with puns or one-liners, is a skill much as miming or singing are, part of the bag of tricks that an improviser has up his or her sleeve. But cleverness is a two-edged sword. If you can come up with witty lines, then it may be tempting to rely on this alone rather than attempt to build up scenes with your fellow improvisers. So it’s possible to get by on confidence and cleverness. This is where a stand-up would come into improv from. If you have a show full of these people you can get some pretty funny extra-short-form shtick that is competitive, non-narrative but a lot of fun, and likely perfect for bar-prov. Think of the proliferation of panel shows on TV and you will get the sort of humour I’m talking about. If you can add to that some skills such as physical comedy, voices etc. then even better…

House of skills

But if you start from this point, you may have built your house on poor foundations as far as improv goes. Without a good attitude it’s hard to extend comedy to telling whole stories; there is no real ensemble work, just a series of individuals fighting for the lime-light. Is this a problem? Only if you care about such things. I count myself with the many improvisers who find the real joy is in constructing something as a group, feeding off each other and the audience, letting the laughter come from the sheer joy of watching something cohesive yet spontaneous and unexpected.

So what do I mean by a ‘good’ attitude? Most improvisation books talk about a good improviser as being one who builds on offers and supports other performers, making improv a truly collaborative process. This interaction with other improvisers and suggestions should be one of fearless playfulness, which is where the need for confidence is needed. Part of having a good attitude is having the confidence to be silly, to play and not hold yourself back by self-critisism.

While you can always break the other so-called rules of improv, if your attitude is right and you do it with confidence, you will probably get away with it. This is a good foundation to start adding skills and tricks.

A real danger when improvisers teach themselves, certainly what I’ve seen in myself and others who have gone down this route, is that we have been trained by the audience’s laughter to go for quick wins. Knowing no better one can spend years working on skills and polishing games without even realising that all you are doing is building a larger and more complex edifice on shallow foundations. I was always surprised in this situation when shows flopped. How? I know so many tricks! My mime skills are great!

It was only in going to experienced teachers and reading extensively (more the latter really) that I realised what was missing. It’s hard to go back to scratch and build new foundations. Luckily this is where the metaphor breaks down; many skills you have learned can still be used once you’ve improved the basics. They don’t disappear, though it can be hard to reconcile some bad habits like pimping, that does have a place in shows despite what some purists say, once you’ve internalised the habit of making your colleagues look good.

It’s just an longer-term way of looking at the rules. If you want to make people look good, sometimes you can pimp them to challenge them. They may not succeed, though if you know them then they are more likely to, but they probably will the majority of the time. Which makes them look good! It just has to come from the right place. If you are pimping for the cheap laugh that makes you look good, shame on you. If you are pimping to raise the stakes, with the feeling that your co-performer is up for the challenge, you’re being playful and the show will benefit.

In summary, confidence and cleverness give you one type of show, but for group-improv the most important thing is to have the right attitude, then to be confident. Only after these vital elements are in place should you worry about learning lots of games, tricks and skills. They are the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.