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Impro is ostensibly a book about improvisation and the theater. Depending on where you are coming from, it might be no more than that, or it might be a near-religious experience. – vkr
Let's try some improv exercises based on Keith Johnstone's excellent book.
We'll do two improv exercises over text. Each exercise will be explained with an excerpt from the book, and then, since you are reading together with someone else, you can have a shot at actually trying the exercise right away.
When I read a novel I have no sense of effort. Yet if I pay close attention to my mental processes I find an amazing amount of activity. ‘She walked into the room ...’ I read, and I have a picture in my mind, very detailed, of a large Victorian room empty of furniture, with the bare boards painted white around what used to be the edge of the carpet. I also see some windows with the shutters open and sunlight streaming through them. ‘She noticed some charred papers in the grate ...’ I read, and my mind inserts a fireplace which I’ve seen in a friend’s house, very ornate. ‘A board creaked behind her ...’ I read, and for a split second I see a Frankenstein’s monster holding a wet teddy bear. ‘She turned to see a little wizened old man ...’, instantly, the monster shrivels to Picasso with a beret, and the room darkens and fills with furniture. My imagination is working as hard as the writer’s, but I have no sense of doing anything, or ‘being creative’.
-- Impro by Keith Johnstone
Now let's try this exercise with your partner. Decide who goes first (in alphabetical order) and have the first person come up with a scene. For example:
A: ‘Imagine a man walking along the street. Suddenly he hears a sound and turns to see something moving in the doorway...‘
Now the other person (B) has to visualize that scene, and the asker (A) can ask them questions about it.
B: ...visualizing...
A: ‘What is the man wearing?‘
B: ‘A suit.’
A: ‘What sort of suit?’
B: ‘Striped.’
A: ‘Any other people in the street?’
B: ‘A white dog.’
A: ‘What was the street like?’
B: ‘It was a London street. Working-class. Some of the buildings have been demolished.’
A: ‘Any windows boarded up?’
B: ‘Yes. Rusty corrugated iron.’
B’s obviously created much more than A has. She doesn’t pause to think up the answers to A's questions, she ‘knows’ them. They flashed automatically into her consciousness.
Once you're done, have B ask A questions about a new scenario.
If I ask someone to invent the first line of a short story, he’ll unconsciously rephrase the question. He’ll tense up, and probably say ‘I can’t think of one.’ He’ll really act as if he’s been asked for a good first line. Any first line is really as good as any other, but the student imagines that he’s being asked to think up dozens of first lines, then imagine the type of stories they might give rise to, and then assess the stories to find the best one. This is why he looks appalled and mumbles ‘... oh ... dor ... um ...’
Even if I ask some people for the first word of a short story they’ll panic and claim that they ‘can’t think of cafe’, which is really amazing. The question baffles them because they can’t see how to use it to display their ‘originality’ ... A word like ‘the’ or ‘once’ isn’t good enough for them.
If I ask one student for the first word of a story, and another for the second word, and another for the third word, and so on, then we could compose a story in this way:
‘There’ ... ‘was’ ... ‘a’ ... ‘man’ ... ‘who’ ... ‘loved’ ... ‘making’ ... ‘people’ ... ‘happy’.
One version of the game—which I still play occasionally—involved telling a story around a circle as quickly as possible. Sometimes we did it to a beat. Anyone who ‘blocked’ we threw out until only two people were left. You can make the game tougher by having each person who speaks point to the person who is to say the next word, there’s no way to anticipate when your turn will come.
Some people avoid getting involved in action. All they’ll produce is stories like ‘We-are-going-to-the-market-where-we-buy-bread-andnow-we-walk-to-the-beach- where-we-watch-the-seagulls ...’ It’s a good idea to start such people off inside a womb, or on another planet, or being hunted for murder, or some other dramatic situation.
-- Impro by Keith Johnstone
Now let's try this exercise with your partner. Determine order alphabetically. Write the next word that comes into your head based on the sentence so far, and try to go as quickly as possible. Have fun!
Please send feedback to mailto:boris@smus.com