Follow The Fun

I just got back from the Edinburgh International Improv Festival. It's something I really look forward to each year, mostly because I learn so much. Not just from the workshops but just from being exposed to so many different philosophies or styles of Improv. One of the standouts this year to me was Jim Woods who I've never seen before. His moves were almost clownish at times, but hit the audience just right. The biggest laugh of the festival was him playing a man meekly taking money out of an ATM at a bank that was being robbed, and then walking out apologetically and completely ignoring the robbers then being chased down. It's hard to translate it, but it was wholly unexpected. Interestingly as an improviser we had seen the tag away, and knew this was a scene setup for a superhero we had just seen. And to be fair the scene was slightly predictable. In a way it was a move to be appreciated by other improvisers.

Something Jim mentioned in a workshop was to not play the game of the scene, but to let the game butt against the reality. You only play the reality. I think I really like and appreciate that style, as I prefer the theatrical immersion over cerebral joke telling "what ifs". But the idea answered an age old question for me which is when has the game been defined enough? When giving a justification you ultimately want to land on something playable. I think a game is defined enough it's playable regardless of the base reality. There will always be something to find in almost any space. Define it well enough to butt up against base reality. An example might be say if I have an obsessive love of corn mazes. That's fine, and silly, but it doesn't give us a game to just keep bringing up corn mazes. But if I think all food are puzzles to be solved, that's more interesting. I can play that almost anywhere, as food can exist almost anywhere.

Unrelated but an improv game I made up the other day that can be played solo or as a group. The game is designed to help you come up with names in a more free flowing manner. Saying names as an after thought is something that happens quite a lot, and is a bit of a pet peeve of mine as it really makes it sound like an improv line. "What a fine turkey you've got there... dave."

The Name Game

To play solo is simple, identify objects in your vicinity that you can fixate on. Pick them at random and try to name them with a full name as quickly as possible. e.g. I look at my pot and say Trooble Wyatts, or Jennifer Hardsteel.

To play in a group, a player starts by saying "My Name is..." and a full name that you make up on the spot. Then you go around in a circle (as many times as you like) and each person comes up with another full name (and says "my name is ...") that is based on the first letter of the previous last name so that you're not sitting there thinking of a name as the game goes around. You can also turn it into a memory game if you like and try to recall as many names as possible after the game is over.