Happy, Healthy, Sexy

[kbadr]

Couple things:

Happy, healthy, sexy is taught as a *default for beginners* to combat the very real instincts to go negative as a means of control.

Brockman, I would argue that you can apply happy, healthy, sexy to playing darker characters/shows (if you felt the need to use it) because--and this is a personal preference--the best dark/villainous characters are sexy as hell. It's part of the appeal as an audience. You can't look away even though the characters are terrible by your own moral standards.

Bill the Butcher, Alex Burgess(DeLarge), The Joker, Hannibal Lector, etc. There's a charismatic stillness and sexiness to all my favorite dark characters.

So even if you want to ignore the "happy" part for playing darker character, I think sexy and healthy are still applicable, if you truly feel bound by that general concept.

[mpbrockman]

I agree with your idea of many villains being sexy as all hell. Even cheesy ones like the Demi Moore character in that second "Charlie's Angels" movie.

However, I personally don't feel "bound" by anything.

For the sake of general argument though, not necessarily applicable to my situation, posit a character that is dark without being intentionally villainous. There's nothing necessarily morally abhorrent about him/her. They're just sarcastic or overbearing or deranged or any of the negative things above which are not conducive to "hhs".

They're not this way b/c they feel a need to control a scene, but rather b/c that's who they're playing.

I've seen even really experienced imps take heat from fellow imps for being "blockers" or "bringing negative energy" to the stage when in fact (well, OK, from my viewpoint) they were simply being true to their characters.

I guess what I'm asking is, "What if your character is unhappy, unhinged and unsexy?" Hmmmm, I'm thinking Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction". As a viewer I wanted to get away from that character as fast as humanly possible. She was sad, sick and scary.

There. I've coined the three "u's" and the three "s's".

[B. Tribe]

"What if your character is unhappy, unhinged and unsexy?"

I don't know if this helps, but the villain-type character rarely thinks of themselves as unhappy, unhinged or unsexy, so you can still play with the attitude of healthy, happy, sexy for that character regardless of how they act. Villains always think they're right and aren't prone to second-guessing themselves.

Plus, I think the 'healthy, happy, sexy' is less about one character and more about how to approach a scene or show. A particular character might not be those three things. As long as it makes sense in the show for them to be 'difficult', then it's still keeping the show happy, healthy, and sexy. If all you do ever as an improviser is play unhappy, unhinged, or unsexy, then you're not doing a very good job.

And improvisers shouldn't give each other notes unless they all specifically agree to do so.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

Willem Dafoe has one of my favorite quotes on playing villains..."good and bad don't matter, everyone thinks they're righteous."

to also reiterate Bill's point, remember that you're the "writer" as well as the "actor". so technically speaking, nothing you do is "out of character" because you're developing the character on the fly as you're collaboratively establishing and discovering the story. in a play or movie, you're translating something static (the pre-written script) into something dynamic (the performance). in improvised performance, it's ALL dynamic and fluid. everything about character, relationship and story is a discovery and a surprise. if you've already pre-planned everything about your character and are married to that, then you're not improvising. you're just ad-libbing as a character you created beforehand. be present in the moment, rather than being slavishly devoted to some preconceived notion of who your character is or what he wants.

(let's face it...Glenn Close's character would not work very well in an improv show. a lot steamrolling, denials and wacky offers. "You did WHAT to the bunny?" :p)

[mpbrockman]

(let's face it...Glenn Close's character would not work very well in an improv show. a lot steamrolling, denials and wacky offers. "You did WHAT to the bunny?" :p)

That's what I driving at. Are there just some kinds of characters that wouldn't fly in improv?

It would appear that the answer is a "yes" from JTM.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

(let's face it...Glenn Close's character would not work very well in an improv show. a lot steamrolling, denials and wacky offers. "You did WHAT to the bunny?" :p)

That's what I driving at. Are there just some kinds of characters that wouldn't fly in improv?

It would appear that the answer is a "yes" from JTM.

well, that oversimplifies it a bit. i don't think there's anything you absolutely CAN'T do in improv. for every rule of "never do ___", there's an example of someone who's done that and done it well. it all comes down to execution and the choices you make. so you COULD play such a character, but you'd need to do it differently and not just use "i'm crazy" as an excuse to make any random choice you please and steamroll over other players. it should be clear that the character is acting crazy, NOT the performer (back to the notion of the improvisor being happy, healthy and sexy even if the character isn't overtly so. ).

[AllisonAsher]

if you've already pre-planned everything about your character and are married to that, then you're not improvising. you're just ad-libbing as a character you created beforehand. be present in the moment, rather than being slavishly devoted to some preconceived notion of who your character is or what he wants.

(let's face it...Glenn Close's character would not work very well in an improv show. a lot steamrolling, denials and wacky offers. "You did WHAT to the bunny?" :p)

I don't know if "pre-planning everything about your character" isn't improvising. I mean, don't the theme shows that go on all the time restrict you to a character or character type, and then you play within it? I've watched the Dickens folk work very hard at finding the character archetypes within that world, and then be able to improvise brilliantly within those archetypes. Would you say that's not improvising?

On the original note: this is an issue that I'm struggling with in my own work--I have a hard time, as a newbie, with happy/healthy/sexy. It is so easy not to do, and to wallow in the fear, and it's great place to force you to stop doing that.

But I also can't discard the notion of a wider palette of human emotions being possible, and maybe even desireable, within improv. I don't think anyone would disagree with me on this one, but it certainly would take a different approach in some ways to writing the story.

One of the things that I love about this art form is that it is so young that it's constantly evolving. I don't think Glenn Close would work in the 'standard' (if there is a "standard") form of improv, but a parallel form, with different approaches, might work brilliantly.

I don't think that people "won't pay to see people bicker"--'cause Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? wouldn't still be playing today if that were so. But the bickering has to be for a deeper purpose--the characters can be scared, and making conflict out of that fear, but there has to be something deeper, something stronger, something more positive that they want that the bickering is either covering or (in a fucked up way) getting them closer to what they want.

So it seems the improviser would have to be aware of human motivation on a deeper level--how people can do one thing and say another. And be able to play both as a self-aware actor and a character who might not be aware.

It would take a hell of a lot of concentration and a different (or perhaps, complementary) framework for rehearsing.

(Not to suck up, but I've been loving watching Pgraph balance this line--exploring what you can do with "improvised theatre." I saw a show at the Annoyance that was supposed to be just that while in Chicago this summer--and no offense to the folks at the Annoyance, but it was god awful. Boring, directionless. It was if they had no idea how to write a play. And these were brilliant improvisers.)

Something from the TJ&Dave movie keeps sticking in my head on this issue. One of them said, when asked about what was going to happen, something like 'I don't know what's going on tonight, but I know we're going to like each other." And I don't think they were talking about themselves as people. I think they were talking about the characters. People bicker and fight and get negative and dark with each other all the time--but as long as they fundamentally like each other, or need each other, as people, as long as they want to preserve a connection to each other, then it's all right.

What we want to see are people in contact with each other, people who need something from each other even if they don't know it, people who are striving for something from another person.

And I think *that's* the essence of Happy Healthy Sexy--what are the things that drive people to stay in contact with each other? The most obvious are because someone makes you happy, puts you in a healthy situation, or gets you feeling sexy. There's more, but those are the basics. And once you get comfortable with those, then you can branch out.

Or so I think.

[jillybee72]

I love Jill Bernard's theory on this--People don't want to pay money to see you sit and bicker onstage. They want to see you go off on a grand adventure together.

She also says that people gravitate towards conflict onstage because they are seeking a strong connection with the other players, but are afraid to be intimate onstage.

Right Jill? That's what you say, right?

I don't know what PEOPLE want. I just know that I don't want to see people bicker. I can only speak for my personal preference. People watch fucking idiotic TV shows right now, like Jersey Shore and Real Housewives. Maybe people do like it. It's just not what I want to see or do or coach.

There are LOTS of reasons people fight onstage. You've called out one of them. Others:
- Your teacher told you to heighten, and your brain translated heighten to yell.
- You want something to happen and actually climbing the mountain that you just promised to climb seems intimidating from a theatrical staging perspective so you fight about it instead.
- You brought your ego onstage with you and feel the need to defend it.
- The story honest to god calls for it.

Related question. What if you're aiming at a darker show? And your character, such as it is, is a little self-absorbed and cranky to begin with?

The best curmudgeons sparkle underneath: Archie Bunker, Scrooge, Mr. Burns. There's a gleam in the eye that makes us love them all the same. A smart thing to do is to play the argument as a game as opposed to arguing. We can AGREE to play the game of arguing. That's what makes "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" work. It's a tennis match.

--------------

I have never heard "Happy Healthy Sexy" before, that's fun.

[acrouch]

I have never heard "Happy Healthy Sexy" before, that's fun.

We got it from the Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary (which means it probably originated with Keith Johnstone).

The basic exercise is have two people do a scene and have the rest of the class applaud wildly for anything that is unequivocally Happy, Healthy and/or Sexy. If an offer fails to get applause, have them try to do it again and get the applause. It's obviously an exercise in extremes, but is great for building awareness.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

I don't know if "pre-planning everything about your character" isn't improvising. I mean, don't the theme shows that go on all the time restrict you to a character or character type, and then you play within it? I've watched the Dickens folk work very hard at finding the character archetypes within that world, and then be able to improvise brilliantly within those archetypes. Would you say that's not improvising?

that's a different beast altogether. there's a difference between studying archetypes and personae, learning the tropes of a genre, rehearsing them inside and out so that in performance you don't have to THINK about doing it...and being slavishly devoted to a static view of a character you're playing so that "well, my character would only do this" becomes an excuse for steamrolling and lazy decision making.

for instance, my experience with Showdown where Avimaan had us do massive amounts of work with personae, archetypes and tropes created fully formed matrices of the kinds of characters i would probably play...and from episode 1, every character i stepped on to that stage with managed to surprise me in some way and i discovered new things in every scene. that kind of work allowed us (in the same way it allows the Dickens cast or the Batman cast or the False Matters cast or the Violet Underbelly cast) not only to embody those archetypes without thinking about it, but to subvert them as well which led to a wealth of stronger choices. if i had gone into each scene thinking "well, Caleb would only do this...he would only say this...forget that offer, this is what Caleb would do," then that limits the discoveries i could make as a performer and the stories we could tell as a cast.

But I also can't discard the notion of a wider palette of human emotions being possible, and maybe even desireable, within improv. I don't think anyone would disagree with me on this one, but it certainly would take a different approach in some ways to writing the story.

One of the things that I love about this art form is that it is so young that it's constantly evolving. I don't think Glenn Close would work in the 'standard' (if there is a "standard") form of improv, but a parallel form, with different approaches, might work brilliantly.

like i said, i don't think you CAN'T play darker characters or more negative emotions. but it's good to START in a positive place and have those happy/healthy/sexy aspects to build from. Glenn Close and Michael Douglas start out flirty and attracted to each other, which results in a passionate affair. plenty happy and sexy there. things escalate and fall apart into obsession, violence and bunny boiling from there...but it wouldn't be overly interesting to START there (unless you went somewhere totally different from there...but that would be hard enough to write, let alone improvise).

I don't think that people "won't pay to see people bicker"--'cause Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? wouldn't still be playing today if that were so. But the bickering has to be for a deeper purpose--the characters can be scared, and making conflict out of that fear, but there has to be something deeper, something stronger, something more positive that they want that the bickering is either covering or (in a fucked up way) getting them closer to what they want.

well, bickering onstage has an advantage in scripted form...it's scripted. someone took a lot of time to craft the banter back and forth. put two random beginner improvisors onstage and tell them to start out bickering. you're not going to get Beatrice and Benedick or Sam and Diane out of it. put two improvisors who've been doing it for years and rehearsed together, you might stand a fighting chance. but even then...what do they want? why are they fighting? what are they scared of? it usually boils down to the desire to be happy, healthy and sexy or the fear of being alone, sad and dead...or NOT happy, healthy and sexy. so it's still a good thing to keep in mind.

So it seems the improviser would have to be aware of human motivation on a deeper level--how people can do one thing and say another. And be able to play both as a self-aware actor and a character who might not be aware.

yep. and this is an apparatus every actor, scripted or improvised, is constantly struggling to develop and refine. otherwise, anyone could do what we do.

(Not to suck up, but I've been loving watching Pgraph balance this line--exploring what you can do with "improvised theatre." I saw a show at the Annoyance that was supposed to be just that while in Chicago this summer--and no offense to the folks at the Annoyance, but it was god awful. Boring, directionless. It was if they had no idea how to write a play. And these were brilliant improvisers.)

yes, Pgraph is incredible. and they have worked their asses off rehearsing and performing together for six years and hundreds of performances to get that good and that comfortable with each other where they can straddle that line and produce consistently quality product. and that's the key...to just keep doing the work, and finding what works for you as a performer and as a group. learn the "rules," learn them in your bones, figure out what makes them work, WHY they work. and then you can start effectively breaking them.

[Kayla Lane]

People bicker and fight and get negative and dark with each other all the time--but as long as they fundamentally like each other, or need each other, as people, as long as they want to preserve a connection to each other, then it's all right.

What we want to see are people in contact with each other, people who need something from each other even if they don't know it, people who are striving for something from another person.

I totally like and agree with this, Allison, and it compliments Dan Grimm's great sentiments at the top of this thread. I believe that Happy Healthy Sexy acts as improv social lubricant. It's magnetic and attractive, and will engage other players to connect to you right off the bat.

It's also worth restating that Happy Healthy Sexy is open to interpretation; I love playing and watching characters like the tickled pink masochist, charismatic depressive, or smolderingly attractive terrorist!

[sara farr]

The past few years, I've approached my scene-work with a "Find the Love" (in the scene) mentality. I've been coached by a lot of awesome people, but I'm going to say Rachel Madorsky told me this.

I really like it as a way to find what's worth watching in a scene that's heavy with conflict. People do bad, terrible things when they want something, when they have strong emotions and are scared and confused and hurt. However, if you ask yourself, what is the LOVE behind those actions, you can usually find something redeemable about the character.

For example, in the character of Scrooge -- I use the one from the MUSICAL, "Scrooge") -- the show starts out showing you this bitter, self-absorbed, old-hunched, ugly and man who has given up on all of humanity. How can you love that guy??? However, if you realize that he USED to be lovable, but that he lost his love when he ignored her and chose wealth over his human connection, it gives his character a redeeming arc to follow back into love -- maybe not the long lost character, but in love of humanity -- an in Tiny Tim and his nephew, etc.

In an improv show, you (you personally, or you the cast as a whole) may not want to start with an ANTI-hero like Scrooge. But if you do, be aware that you can find the love inside the character and that will give you a character worth watching -- either to see him punished, or to see him CHANGED (and really, I think we are all suckers for CHANGE).

[kaci_beeler]

smolderingly attractive terrorist!

*cough cough* Kareem! *cough*

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

charismatic depressive

::coughcough:: Kareem! ::cough::

[kbadr]

Nah, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a person with charisma.