Over Spring Break, I went to visit the city of Chicago (and yeah, it was windy). So, while I was in the mecca of comedy, I felt like I had no choice but to check out The Second City - one of the most renowned comedy troupes in America. On the night I went, the performance included a mix of prepared sketches and improvised scenarios - two completely different styles. There was, however, one skit that mixed the two styles together by pulling in a member of the audience and using him to tell a story. It took on an interesting form, which I had yet to see performed, such that the audience member was actually a participant in the story that was developing on stage - rather, this skit appeared to be a game-like interaction between the troupe and the participant.
The plot of the story was that of any classic mystery novel (a girl loses a valuable item, and the detective has to find it, but doesn't know who to trust). The audience member, in this case, was the detective.The story, apparently, is being written in real-time by an author in the center of the stage with a type-writer. He also acts as the narrator. Most of the story is told through narration (and the audience member, along with other actors are acting it out meanwhile), but at times, the narrator stops and expects a response from someone else, then continues the story from there.
One simple example would be the narrator's prompt for the detective's name. He would say something along the lines of "After years of retirement, the best detective in town was back to fighting crime in the seediest of cities. His name was..." then all would go silent until the detective responded.
Now, what I find interesting is that most of the plot was prescribed (as evidenced by the readiness of props and set-up of the skit), but it could have gone in many directions. At one point, in the middle of all the action and confusion, all goes silent again after the narrator says "And the detective pulls out his gun and shoots the one person he knows to be responsible for this crime." The audience member then has to choose one of 5 or so people to kill, even though, at this point, it's not even remotely clear who he should.
Fortunately, the troupe was talented enough to make any scenario work (less the initial reaction of the detective pointing the gun at the narrator), since they had the skill to drive the story towards the end, regardless of the means that are taken to get there.
Most of the humor in this game of make-believe came from either the breaking of convention or the highlighting of tropes in typical mystery stories (as a complement to the audience member's confusion as to what was going on). Though one would typically find a person who constantly breaks out of character or over-dramatizes their character to an unbelievable level to be a spoil-sport, I do think it is important to remember that this particular game of make-believe was wrapped up in a larger meta-game, being the skit itself. If the context of the make-believe game was different, perhaps if it were a game being played among a group of children, the rules would require much enforcing to satisfy the players. However, because on stage, the rules of the game were to break the rules of the detective make-believe, doing so was expected.
-Jonathan Lipkin
The beauty of The Second City is their incredible ability to be funny and make an audience laugh without even trying! Some of the most popular improv experts of our time make their start at Second City, like Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, and many other cast members of Saturday Night Live. Their game and their skill absolutely comes from deliberate practice; the skills needed to trust one another on stage without a script and to comedically deliver lines and jokes do not come easily. However, I find it interesting that in this case, though Second City actors do indeed practice the art of improv, they hardly ever practice the exact scene that they are going to be presenting in front of an audience that night. Like you said, it's all a game that we, as audience members, get to watch step-by-step!
ReplyDeletePrior to this class, I would not have considered improv a game, but after I watched the East Quad improv show and thinking about it more, I can definitely understand the qualities of a game. Improv is not very structured, usually, but there are very basic rules that go along with it. It can be super enjoyable as spectator to experience the game. The "players" do practice improv but they practice by playing other games with different scenarios. I am extremely jealous that you went to Second City because some of the funniest people started there!
ReplyDelete