The Performing Arts 3: Exercises

Writing fiction is a solitary activity. It’s you and the page and your Muse. Maybe a cup of coffee is all you need, for fuel, and away you go.

Theater, by definition, is a group creativity. You need more than just you, and you can’t do it at home with the door closed. Even if you perform solo and in your street clothes, you still might need someone to manage the lights, so that your audience can see you, and the sound system, so they can hear. You need someplace to perform, even if it’s just a sidewalk outside the train station, and even there you probably want someone to pass the hat to collect contributions.

So the first thing the professor of Improv 2 began with is actor games. These are designed to foster trust, unity and cooperation among the players, and there are dozens of them. There are millions of these, some of them very old and many of them viewable on line. The easiest one was passing an imaginary ball. We stood in a circle and passed the imaginary ball from hand to hand. Then the ball changed, becoming larger or heavier or more bouncy. You had to demonstrate these qualities with your hands and gestures, since there was no visible ball.

This is low key and fun, not intimidating even for a novice like me. (How did I get into Improv 2 when I never took Improv 1? The teacher insisted I would do fine with it, and I believed her.)

Because the goal in acting is to actually become a different person. Hugh Jackman is not Wolverine and a member of a superhero team. But we believe he is, on the screen, because he acts like Wolverine. And how does Wolverine act, since he’s not a real person? Yes, the script of the movie helps, and the SFX adamantium claws are very convincing. But much of the character is created by the actor’s skill. Jackman developed all the mannerisms and tiny gestures or stances, that make us believe that he has become a member of the X-Xen who wears spandex and has claws two feet long.

Improv is one of the tools to help the actor learn those skills. Passing an imaginary ball is easy. Working with another classmate to create an imaginary garden, with tools, furrows, seeds and turnips, is more difficult. I realized this was an enormous field of creativity. And I’m only on the edge of it!