Dramatic Improv

[shando]

I saw said group before and thought it was laughable. I gave them another chance and they failed again in my eyes. Dramatic improv sucks because it's really easy and really lazy. Try it.

Once again, Justin, your use of logic is ironclad. If dramatic improv is easy, then why doesn't it work for most people? Seems like it's saying playing Beethoven's Hemmerklavier Sontata is easy because look how few people can actually do it. (?!?) You could also susbstitute comedic for dramatic in the sentence above and that would work equally true.

Late edition--I have no doubt that this group sucks. I trust you guys to know a bad show. Just thought I'd make that clear.

[York99]

I'll add this: The Double Feature (from OoB) was not comedic improv. It had funny moments, but it was not funny. They even asked Shannon not to introduce them as doing "improv comedy," but rather as simply doing "improv."

They were wonderful. The improv was spot on. The story lines were (although not exactly my taste as far as genre) great.

There we go: an example of dramatic improv done extremely well right under our noses.

[arthursimone]

To be clear, my definition of comedy includes tragicomedy, which can include dramatic narrative, to be sure, but only in the service of highlighting the Human Experience. You can strive to make improv versions of Hamlet or The Cherry Orchard all day long, and so long as you're not clearly retarded, you'll be successful some of the time.

Perhaps I'm just unable to see how anyone could hope to emulate non-narrative modern drama like Judith Thompson or Sarah Kane or dramatic realism like Henrik Ibsen or Eugene O'Neill.

[shando]

It had funny moments, but it was not funny.

Man, I've been grooving on Justin's writing lately. I hearby nominate Justin York as the Yogi Berra of the AIC.

[York99]

I saw said group before and thought it was laughable. I gave them another chance and they failed again in my eyes. Dramatic improv sucks because it's really easy and really lazy. Try it.

Once again, Justin, your use of logic is ironclad. If dramatic improv is easy, then why doesn't it work for most people? Seems like it's saying playing Beethoven's Hemmerklavier Sontata is easy because look how few people can actually do it. (?!?) You could also susbstitute comedic for dramatic in the sentence above and that would work equally true.

Late edition--I have no doubt that this group sucks. I trust you guys to know a bad show. Just thought I'd make that clear.

Sorry, what I meant was that WHEN it's bad, it's because it's easy and lazy. It's easy to do dramatic improv and have it appear at first glance to be good. The contrast is comedy, where you can tell immediately when it's bad.

[York99]

It had funny moments, but it was not funny.

Man, I've been grooving on Justin's writing lately. I hearby nominate Justin York as the Yogi Berra of the AIC.

Amended: It had funny moments, but the piece was not a comedy.

Shannon, I think you should look into a legal career. I feel like I'm being grilled by that lawyer from The Simpsons... not Lionel Hutz, but the other guy with blue hair.

I will try to be crystal clear in the future.

[beardedlamb]

just chill on the sweeping generalizations based on a narrow view of the art form and everyhing'll work out just fine.

[Wesley]

I refuse to believe that an improvised dramatic narrative longform wouldn't work, though. It would be very hard to do, but it's something I'd seriously like to try one day. It will involve re-training myself to equate audience laughter/noise with interest. That seems like the biggest hurdle to me.

I agree.

A story is a story is a story and improv is merely a method of stroy-telling. It can tell ANY story with as much or as little force as ANY OTHER story telling medium if and when done correctly. Period.

I've seen dramatic movies that sucked, but that doesn't mean you can't make a good one. And I've seen dramatic moments in improv that blew me and the audience away. The power IS there. The troupe you saw may have sucked, their acting may have sucked, their application of technique may have sucked, but I simply cannot and will not believe that improv is only good for dick, fart, and cancer jokes and cannot and/or should not attempt something with higher purpose, style, and meaning.

I very much agree that dramatic improv utilizes a (sometimes very) different skill set than comedic improv. Even in the staged world there are a lot of comedy actors who cannot do drama and vice versa. So while I can believe that people must be trained differently and must use different skills to pull off improvised drama, I do not believe that there is in inherent limiting reagent to improv that makes drama "undoable." Most of the time it probably sucks because the people doing it were not trained to do it right.

I very much want to do dramatic improv. And political improv (like with an actual political statement to make). And a whole host of formats and genres that aren't "can I get a relationship between two people and a non-geographic location for this next scene about a cuckolded taxidermist with a gas problem?"

Improv fucking de novo.

[Jules]

Political Improv! Let's do it!

[Jastroch]

re: the group in question.

That "tragic" improv failed because it was trite and emotionally manipulative and, in the end, pretty pretentious. I got the feeling from the show that the actors we're really psyced to be doing something "edgy" and "different," and I think a lot of people are impressed by that because they have terrible taste.

Real comedy is honest. Real drama is honest. The moment you are trying to be funny or trying to be tragic, you are fibbing, especially in improv. That's why we're told not to "tell jokes" on stage. I'm sure there's some equivillant rule for dramatic improv that I can't quite articulate.

I'm sure there's great, strictly dramatic improv out there. I'm just not particularly interested in it (that's me). I think the reason most improv comedy works is because, when it's truly spontaneous, there's an element of unpredictability involved. The unexpected, when grounded in an honest relationship and context is funny. Plus, people are natural game players, and when improv comedy works, it's because people are playing with eachother. Fucking with these patterns is what generates laughter.

To eliminate the comedy aspect of improv, it seems to me that you have to eliminate these things that naturally come up in improv, when you aren't censoring yourself or stuck in your head thinking about what you should do. I think that kind of censorship, or forcing a scene or a story or whatever, leads to something that is more forced.

Also, I'd like to make a quick note on the difference between a "Montage" and a "long form." People seem to interchange "Chicago stlye" (god am I sick of typing that) with the word "Montage." For the record, a montage is a series of disconnected themes that don't interconnect. Just because it isn't a linear story doesn't mean that there's no emotional connectedness, cohesiveness or point to the piece. The world isn't always beginning, middle and end. Sometimes, it's a tangled web of situations and ideas. Guess what? They both create a bigger picture.

[mcnichol]

I heard this show failed because Chris Trew was farting throughout the performance. That's real tragedy.

[shando]

says you:

For the record, a montage is a series of disconnected themes that don't interconnect.

says a Dictionary:

b. a technique of film editing in which this is used to present an idea or set of interconnected ideas.

Montage is totally about non-linear ways to make things interconnect. POwer of suggestion and juxtaposition and all that. Jastroch, you're too sensitive about this issue. No one was saying anything deragatory about non-linearity or Chicago. Toughen up, man! In fact, the only mention of Chicago in this thread was from Bill, who wasn't saying anything about linearity, montage, or anything else. You'd have to ask Bill what he meant, but it seems to be about intense dialogue and characterization.

And as to the rest of your post, spot on.

[Wesley]

To eliminate the comedy aspect of improv, it seems to me that you have to eliminate these things that naturally come up in improv, when you aren't censoring yourself or stuck in your head thinking about what you should do. I think that kind of censorship, or forcing a scene or a story or whatever, leads to something that is more forced.

See, I don't buy this either. Drama happens in real time in the real world. Maybe there is a little more paying attention to story in a more dramatic theatrical style, but I think the situations and scenes can be just as real and in the moment and out of one's head as comedy can be. Heck, so much of what we do in comedy already relies on the dramatic underpinnings in the relationships of the characters on stage.

We played the "I Want" game at 6 degrees last week and after a few moments of mundane "I want a sandwhich." "I want mustard." "I want to watch tv," a weird and beautiful thing happened.
One character (a mother) confessed to the other (her son) "I want you to leave." The son replied instantly with "I want you to stop me from leaving." And there it was. That was what the whole scene was about and that seed was what was fascinating. Everything else around it was trappings and window dressing. If that concept was played out comedically or dramatically really didn't matter to me, I just wanted to see that idea played out.
Christina and David did one in the jam this week that had an equally poignant moment. The stepdad admitted that he "wanted to be treated like her real father" and she replied with "I want you to learn your place in this family." That was what was powerful and it was just as immediate a response as a joke would have been. It's just that in "comedic" improv we'd explore that idea by having the daughter play mean tricks on the father and whatnot, whereas in "dramatic" improv you'd deal with the issue in more serious emotional levels and realistic ways.

The point is, we generate seeds on the fly and I don't think that reacting to that seed dramatically *has* to put you any more into your head than reacting to it comically. The story is the story and the exact same options are open to you (the person does or does not get what they want). I don't think you have to overthink drama any more than you need to overthink comedy.
I think it is just not what we've been trained to do so we think/fear/assume it requires something more. And I think it limits the growth of our craft because *we* refuse to even grant it or see in it the true power and range that it has available for us.

How can we ever expect others to take it more seriously if we cannot see that potential in it ourselves?

[kaci_beeler]

Also, I'd like to make a quick note on the difference between a "Montage" and a "long form." People seem to interchange "Chicago stlye" (god am I sick of typing that) with the word "Montage." For the record, a montage is a series of disconnected themes that don't interconnect.

I don't think that's a definitive definition of "montage", especially with regards to improv.

Montage: the technique of combining in a single composition pictorial elements from various sources, as parts of different photographs or fragments of printing, either to give the illusion that the elements belonged together originally or to allow each element to retain its separate identity as a means of adding interest or meaning to the composition.

Montage: any combination of disparate elements that forms or is felt to form a unified whole, single image, etc.

[Jastroch]

Montage is totally about non-linear ways to make things interconnect. POwer of suggestion and juxtaposition and all that. Jastroch, you're too sensitive about this issue. No one was saying anything deragatory about non-linearity or Chicago. Toughen up, man! In fact, the only mention of Chicago in this thread was from Bill, who wasn't saying anything about linearity, montage, or anything else. You'd have to ask Bill what he meant, but it seems to be about intense dialogue and characterization.

And as to the rest of your post, spot on.

I wasn't being overly sensitive... I didn't mean to come across that way. I'm tough as nails.

Your point is taken, however. To me, the word montage in the context of improv has certain connotations (fuck spell check,) especially in the way it's used around these parts...