The audience is abuzz with anticipation and alcohol-induced chatter when the first improviser takes the stage. It is Friday night at Improv Comedy Copenhagen, and the crowd is here for the promise of a show that has never been seen before and will never be seen again. The first improviser, an older gentleman, takes the stage and announces the order of events for the evening: a long-form show followed by a series of short games. For the unindoctrinated, long-form improv is a form of improv where the actors create a series of linked sketches, or at times an entire play, based on a single suggestion from the audience. This form has taken off in the United States through the work of popular improv groups such as the Upright Citizens Brigade (a group with such prestigious alumni as Amy Poehler and Aziz Ansari), where Stefanie Grassley, now the artistic director and co-owner of Improv Comedy Copenhagen, formerly trained.
Having studied this form of improv myself, I am sitting in my seat in anticipation, waiting for the actors to build a world with simple tools: the words “yes” and “and.” Even those completely new to improv will most likely recognize this iconic phrase, a trademark of improvisational theatre. “Yes,” is crucial for improvisers to practice because they must always accept the reality created on stage. For example, if an improviser says “My arm has fallen off!” one cannot respond “No it hasn’t.” That kills the scene, and there is very little one can do to regain the trust of the audience. The improviser might instead say “Wow, it has!” and then to honor the “and” of “yes and,” will add something to the story, such as, “maybe it was that dinosaur bite from earlier.” As the improvisers walk onto stage this is what I am most excited for, the positivity and support amongst improvisers who are trained to accept and add to a world.
The team of 6 is made up of 5 men and 1 women, most of them Danish, with a visiting Canadian actor, Rob Norman. They ask for the obligatory audience suggestion and receive the word “chicken nuggets.” The one woman on the team steps forward, and I am surprised to hear her launch into a monologue (which somewhat involves chicken nuggets). Perhaps it is just the cold audience, but it seems somewhat jerky as far as monologues go. None of the other improvisers jump from the wings to aid her as she speaks. While this was most likely the result of a decision to format the show in this way, I find myself wishing the other improvisers would jump in. When the monologue is over, I breathe a tiny sigh of relief. Thankfully, the improvisers at ICC begin to hit a groove during the group scenes. The first group scene involves a child and his “out of touch” dad, who can’t seem to understand why all of the cafeteria’s options are vegan, but looks at his kid lovingly even as his kid laments that his dad’s generation has ruined the earth’s climate. When the child asks, “When is mom coming home?” as if she might be home any minute, the dad expertly responds “Soon… one of these days,” in a classic twist which gets the audience laughing. While the dad doesn’t reject the kid’s reality, he finds a way to make it even more intense and startling.
As I watch the various group scenes, a common theme emerges: this team is best when they’re building on each other seamlessly (either making the world more absurd or elaborating on a teammate’s creation) and worst in the scenes where the teammates are pitted against one another or left hanging. In improv, it is of course fine to have improvisers in conflict within scenes, so long as the improvisers are working together behind the curtain, but sometimes that line can blur. In one particularly jarring scene, an improviser stands on a chair in a staff cafeteria, drained and fed up with his job, while one of his coworkers tries to coax him down. Meanwhile, another improviser calls out, “ten bucks you can’t get him down.” The coaxer takes the bet, “ten bucks I can,” and continues to coax him down. But now, his motivation has changed. While before it seemed as if he was coaxing him down out of genuine compassion (albeit with a bit of frustration), now he is doing it to spite the other coworker. The adversarial move from the improviser broke my trust in the character’s motivations, breaking my trust with the world they had built as well.
On other occasions, however, improvisers joining in from the wings was a delightful surprise and show of support. For example, one hilarious scene begins with a woman miming eating at a restaurant while a man stands to the side gesturing with his hands, in a way reminiscent of a priest. The improvisers on the wings of the stage clearly notice this gesture, and walk across the stage miming the waving of ecclesiastical incense. Suddenly, the improvisers make it clear we have the merged realities of a church and an italian restaurant, resulting in a strange cult scene. The scene finally comes together when the two improvisers stare into each others eyes and simultaneously say, “church of the magdalena,” waiting for each other as they speak slowly so that they can agree, as they speak it, on the name of their cult. It is a wildly successful moment, in a very bizarre scene, which only works because the improvisers did not allow the strangeness to reroute them; they simply ran with it and worked together. These types of moments demonstrate what good improv looks like: funny, bizarre, and impossible without intense collaboration. When these improvisers became adversarial or stood alone, they seemed to fumble, but in these moments of pure cohesion and delightful strangeness, ICC truly shined as a team.
No comments:
Post a Comment