In trying to get good at improv, you might be tempted to search for stuff that's "always funny". Memorize a bunch of "always funny" things to do, and you should be able to make any improv scene work. Right?
Wrong. Improv plays mainly to your ability to respond to what is unique about what's happening right now. Most successful improv techniques are ways to stimulate the players' imaginations to create a rich reality that is not under your control. If people sense that you're not freely giving them your imagination, they'll know you're just spewing canned stuff. They might laugh, but the improv magic won't happen.
| • | Repeating a line over and over again. This can be funny in a scripted scene, but in improv, just saying the same thing over and over gives your scene partner nothing to work with. It doesn't advance the scene. |
| • | Deflating stuff. Someone proudly announces, "My new can-opener can open anything! Stuck jars, stuck doors, computers that won't open, and even...cans!" To get a laugh, you might be tempted to say, "You haven't even been able to open a can of cat food with that." This may get a laugh, because seeing someone humiliated sometimes makes people laugh. But it's a denial, and kills the scene. Instead, accept, and buy into the reality of the can-opener that opens anything. What fun things could you open up? Maybe you could open up a bank vault, or your boss's mind. What would you find in there? |
| • | Doing "schtick": known lines that mock a certain kind of person, but don't have much to do with the scene. This actually does advance the scene the first time you use it, when it builds on something that was just given. It dies when you're just searching your memory for known funny lines and no longer taking input from the scene. For example, if someone endows you as Jewish, you might say, "Oh, meshugineh!" and continue with "Has anybody seen my yarmulke?" and "Let my people go!" and on and on. If the scene was about the judges at a cat show being paid off, this doesn't advance the scene, it breaks the reality. It says to the audience, "I expect to get a laugh with these lines." It's the opposite of exploring the reality seriously, which is what creates the amazing humor of improv. |
| • | Cuing: somehow letting the audience know that what was just said is "supposed to be funny." This is a dangerous trap as it blocks the creation of a reality. For example, in a scene at a fish market, you think of a great pun and you attempt to guide the discussion so that you are asked "why you are doing something?" Then, you wait for almost the entire scene, so you can say the pun "For the Halibut!" Predictably, you want your clever pun to be highlighted so you say, "Ah HAH! Ah Hah!" or "That's not funny" repeatedly. The hope is that the audience get the message that they are supposed to laugh. This is not to say that puns are to be avoided, more that they should spring from listening to context and not from an intentional gag. |
| • | NO MONTY PYTHON OR MOVIE CATCH PHRASES!--A specific subset of the case above--most improv people have seen and love Monty Python. Replicating the Cheese Shop, will never be as funny as the original--so don't try. Likewise, catch phrases from movies, "You are so Money!" and "And now for something completely different" were funny in the original films and shows. There is no gurantee they will be funny in a scene. Even if they are funny, you are not only stealing somebody's act but also you are not building a new reality with your own imagination. Very often, the hope is either that the audience will mistake someone else's humor for your own or that someone in the audience will get the reference and laugh at the cleverness of the reference to the original joke. Neither result is adding to the reality. This strategy leaves scene partneres no where to go from there--unless it is a copy an entire skit. Of course, there are exceptions a scene "in the style of Monty Python" for example, but on the whole using someone else's humor will block you from listening to potentials that spring from the context of the scene. |
| • | Imitating Celebrities or Pop Culture References -- Simply referencing something like TV shows often do (eg. "Oh my God, you're as crazy as Britney Spears losing her kids!") while it may get a laugh, is simply pulling the spotlight onto you for a single line. That's not fair to your fellow improvisers and it's kind of a cop-out, a cheap laugh. |
If it's "always funny," it probably doesn't work in improv, especially compared to the basic improv techniques, like add information, advance the scene, and raising the stakes.
See also: Gagging, From Standup to Improv.
Version 12 2008-Feb-26 20:11 UTC
Last edit by David
