Improv with Me is Like… (Sex vs Improv)

There is a fun improv game called “Sex with Me” which explores the extended connections between the act of procreation with a subject the audience deems worthy of comparison. Who am I kidding? It’s a set of sex jokes, puns and innuendo. As I said, it’s great fun. 

“Sex with me is like a writing a blog post: You think about it a lot more than you spend actually doing it.”

Photo by Robin Straaijer

The game allows me a great introduction to a topic I have thought about since I first started improvising: the connections between sex and improv. (Actually, improv has many of the same similarities with any team sport, but sex is funnier than every sport except curling.)

“Sex with me is like an analogy: two things that seem different come together and are revealed to be more similar than at first thought.”

Apart from the obvious starting with “yes” and the fact they have a similarly addictive quality, there are many ways improv is like sex.

Take the whole shortform / longform argument. Some improvisers prefer the quick payoff of shortform, where it is concluded within a few minutes and there’s hopefully a great payoff at the end, lights out. But others prefer longform. This allows for a longer build-up and a much deeper connection with what’s going on. There is still a payoff, but it’s much more about getting there rather than the moment itself. With shortform, once it’s over, there is sometimes a short rest and then you’re off again, but with longform, once it’s done, that might be it for a week. (Note: performing schedules vary person to person.)

The most common configuration of performers is two people, but scenes of more than two also happen. It becomes trickier when there are more people. Giving focus becomes more important as is gauging when to enter and when to withdraw.

There are also plenty of tools and methods we can use to make our scenes better, if we want. Status – one player taking a more dominant or subservient role; the choices of being more physical or more emotional. Many people embrace playing a character other than yourself. And sometimes it is acceptable to use a gag.

Of course, it’s all about heightening. Start small and build. Build to a peak and end here or soon after.

Something we should consider is the audience. Because improv is something people watch too. So now, I guess the analogy has temporarily moved into comparing improv to porn. In general audiences prefer shortform improv. That’s not to say there is not an audience for longform, but it’s largely other performers.

Joking aside, I think the biggest way improv and sex are very similar are in attitudes to how we play. Sure, if you go into the scene intending that you yourself have fun, it can be a good scene. But when it really works best when you go in with the intention of pleasing your scene partner and they go into it with the intention of pleasing you. That’s when you can make truly amazing scenes.

“Sex with me is like an improv blog: it’s an oddly proud feeling when it’s out there for everyone to see.”

P.S. I realise that all this analogising, I am left with one further inescapable conclusion, that solo improv, something I love doing and like to think I’m pretty good at, is basically wanking.

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What similarities have I missed?

IMPRO Amsterdam 2017: Day 1: The Mondayening (part 1)

The performing part of the public festival started off with an open stage, where eager festival attendees can perform with each other and cast members. Unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict no cast members could be there, but 20+ eager improvisers of all levels from all corners of the globe did turn up. I made them play all those classic games you do when you start plus a couple of slightly harder ones which they all did with that spirit of fun that infuses much of improv.

Journey to the centre of the Earth.

You don’t really expect the first day of the festival to knock the ball out of the park, but there were a couple of moments where the ball got send way beyond the edge of the theatre and a metaphorical ballboy had to run off and get it.

The smoker takes it all... Gbgimpro sing "Smoking!" from the unmade musical "Smoking!"

Picnic Impro leave us speechless

In the first half, Each team got to show off what they do, that is what they will do in later shows. Well, kind of. The Swedes sang an amazing, stunningly-accurate high school musical song about smoking; the Dutch team (who actually don’t have their own show, but mix in with others) explored relationships at a typical Dutch celebration; the Portuguese performed a highly dramatic scene and then sang beautifully about it (in a classic Portuguese fado style); the Colombians told the story of 2 wrestlers coming together for a fight with no words, only phenomenal mime, clowning and acrobatics, aided by a sountrack. If I had to pick a highlight this would be it. Every now and again you see a set off skills on stage and you go to yourself, “I so wish I could do that.” This was such a moment for me.

Paul Dome reaches another
high point in his improv career

Team America are Big Bang (from Boston) who take the kinetic impulse and energy from the beginning of the universe and transfer it onto stage. They not only showcased their impressive brand of quick-fire, quick-change, energetic improv, but the also they threw in a rule whereby one of their players (Paul Dome) was not allowed to touch the floor for the entire set. What transpired was a hugely playful workout, not just for the other 2 players but also the audience who had to carry Paul all the way to the back of the room and back (to the front that is). In terms of committing whilst having fun with each other, they are a group hard to beat.

Because only half of the British duo was there, which is (2 multiplied by 1 over 2, carry the 1, round to the nearest decimal…) just 1; and Patti Stiles was there not with a team but with just herself (that's 1 minus 0 divided by 0, no that means there were an infinite number of Pattis); plus the Colombians had brought a Canadian to provide their soundtrack… these appeared together as The Commonwealth, which is the euphemistic title the British have for the collection of countries it obtained to enrich itself.

Patti and Charlotte get in deep.

Charlotte (UK) and Patti (CA/AU) played a scene inspired by music from Sarah Michaelson (aka DJ Mama Cutsworth, CA). This scene about a woman and her grown-up imaginary friend had that kind of genuine depth of exploration of what it is to be human you rarely find in an improv scene. Hell,you don't get it in movies enough. Again the poor ballboy had to run and fetch the ball.

Paul Rudd and the Game of the Scene

A few people have asked me about finding the game of a scene recently. I’m still searching for a good way to not only describe what it is, but also how to teach it. I’m getting there.

An overly vague definition is that a game is something that is set up and repeated and explored but which is not what the scene is about. Games can be found in any aspect of the scene. Often they come from within the character itself – a catchphrase is an example of a character game, but also from character interactions or interactions with the environment. They often stem from mistakes – a mispronunciation of a word, for example, that then gets carried on in the scene or show, building and evolving. I remember a show where a Dutch performer translated “fridge” into cool-cupboard, from then on any apparatus became named like this. The over was the hot-cupboard, etc. This is a game.

It’s not confusing or accidental that it’s called the game of the scene because the rules of most improv games, if spontaneously started in a scene could constitute a game of the scene. Games like stimulus-response (where something one character does causes another to react in a set way), sit-stand-lie or dubbing scenes are games that really show this principal. With these games, the rules of the game happen in parallel to the scene. They have some influence on the direction of the scene but they shouldn’t take over. I think this is a big insight into what I mean by the game of the scene. More very soon.

In the mean time, here’s an example of a game in the real world. Well, at least the “real world” of actors appearing on talk shows which is actually a lot closer to an improv scene than the real world. Paul Rudd's Late Night With Conan O’Brian Game.