Some of our favorite sites:
Past Mouthings-Off:
Why Improv Is Absolutely Essential
Soft Focus and the
Go Ahead, Screw Up.
Creativity: What Is It
Art of Telling a Story
It’s Good for You!
and Who Has It?
Mouthing Off
Seeing the Refrigerator in the Road
One of my brothers had a friend, John, who bought a car many years ago. When my brother asked
him what kind of car he bought, John replied, “Um, it’s a… a Pedros.” It turns out that it was
a Peugeot. Not remembering what brand of automobile he bought wasn’t the dumbest thing John
ever did though.
No, that might have been totaling his Pedros. One night he was driving on a highway when he saw
a refrigerator in his lane. He drove right into it. Asked why he didn’t avoid the appliance,
John reasoned, “Why would there be a refrigerator on the freeway?”
People usually respond with incredulous laughter when I tell this story. And yet,
based on my experiences in the theater and the classroom, I think there are more than a few of
us who, but for the grace of God, would also plow into a fridge were it in our way.
In one play I saw, an actor dropped a glass, which crashed upon the floor. Everyone in the
audience saw it happen. The actors certainly saw and heard it—hell, they were standing in it!
But neither responded to it because it wasn’t in the script. True, it wasn’t in the plan but it
was undeniably happening.
Glasses drop in ‘real’ life fairly frequently and the actors could have just picked up the
glass and continued with the script. Their failure to respond to the accident demonstrated that
they weren’t in the moment of the play even if the moment wasn’t what they expected.
Now, in improv we’re looking and hoping for that dropped glass. That would be something that’s
actually happening and not just an idea that one of the players is trying to bring to life. We
don’t play with glasses (or any props for that matter); rather, we strive to respond to what we
see and hear. So we pay attention to what’s going on and to our partners and respond to that.
The best improvised scenes seem to happen by accident. They’re about what is actually occurring
onstage and the dynamic between and among the players set within a context.
Conversely, the worst scenes often involve players totally missing what’s happening onstage and
with their fellow improvisers. Ideas and expectations tend to blind actors to things that are
actually taking place. Gifts and offers, some of which are obvious to the audience, are ignored
as players try to impose their will upon a scene. Missing these offers, these accidents, is a
sure sign to me that an improviser is in his or her head rather than present in the scene and
the moment.
Actors in scripted works can also be guilty of being in their heads and not in the moment, even
when they’re not dropping glasses or other fragile props. I have seen actors start to respond to
lines that haven’t been said yet. That reveals that the actor is still essentially on the page
in the book rather than onstage in the moment. Additionally it prevents other actors from being
in the moment. One actor cannot be in the moment if another onstage isn’t. Where is this
actor if not in the moment?!
There is a danger to “not seeing the refrigerator” in real life aside from actually running
into refrigerators.
I have seen presenters so wed to their plans that they cannot adapt to their surroundings. This
can be as simple as not repeating a word or phrase when a loud noise such as a sneeze or
something mechanical overpowers the speech. Or it can take the form of responding to a question
with a “canned” answer that winds up being irrelevant or even inappropriate.
In my business-school courses we occasionally do mock interviews by sending the interviewee out
of the room and having him/her return to face an interviewer to whom we have given three or four
annoying or nasty behaviors. Over and over we see the interviewees fail to respond to what is
going on or to adapt to it. Rather than respond to the moment, some of the interviewees
plow ahead with what they have rehearsed.
However, there are those who will respond to what’s happening in the moment. If the interviewer
keeps looking at his/her watch, the interviewee might say something like, “I see you’re checking
the time. Would another time be better for us to meet?” How cool! By being in the moment you can
respond to it assertively and adapt to it. You may not control it but at least you are
not a helpless victim of circumstance.
Many of my business students then share horror stories from interviews, ranging from
interviewers’ deliberate monopolization of conversations to turning out the lights and leaving
interviewees in the dark! This suggests to me that many employers are much more interested in
how aware potential employees are and how they respond than they are in these prospects’
backgrounds, which employers already know from resumes.
As a corollary to driving, theater, and real life, I would say that you will tend to go where
you look. So if you’re paying attention to what’s happening right now, you can respond to it,
just as you would to the curves in a road. If you go straight when the road curves, you’re
probably not heading for a good outcome. And if you’re staring at the ditch, afraid you’re
going to wipe out, instead of eyeing where the road goes and trying to follow it, where do you
suppose you’ll wind up?
“See what you see, not what you think you see,” Paul Sills, the famous improv director, has
told his students for years. To that I would add, hear what you hear, not what you think you
hear.
Dwight Eisenhower, who was not, to my knowledge, into improv, said, “Plans are useless but
planning is essential.” I take that to mean make preparing to respond part of your preparation.
Prepare for your plans to be obsolete. Plan to be surprised.
It’s like those road signs that warn, “Be prepared to stop.” Shouldn’t we always be
prepared to stop?
After all, there might be a refrigerator ahead.
-Greg Hohn, Director
News & Notes
We have new
video footage
on the site!
Anoushka recently acted in her first movie, Lost and Found, an indy film by
TinkhamTown Productions. She plays a homeless woman with a message. She loved it!
Greg is busy with teaching this fall. In addition to his normal Applied Improv courses at UNC's
Kenan-Flagler Business School, he's doing a program on innovation for Washington University in
St. Louis and teaching Applied Improv at the UNC Friday Center for Continuing Education. In
September he led a 21-hour improv workshop for MFA candidates in UNC's dramatic art department.
Jeffrey, who recently spent his 40th birthday in Hawaii, has a newly rediscovered appreciation
for Tony Orlando and Dawn. He watched one episode when he was nine. This episode stayed with him
for 30 years. It was the best show he had ever watched. He realized a dream by watching it again
on DVD.
Jill is going back to dance class after a four-year hiatus.
Mike is working as the engineer on a recording session in his own studio.
Nancy is the tall one!
Rachel is enjoying teaching Intro to Theatre at NC State and is taking a couple months off from
her extra-theatrical activities. Transactors will get her full attention until December when
she will direct three plays simultaneously, Santaland Diaries at Common Ground Theatre
and two one-acts for Ghost & Spice Productions. She's an all-or-nothing kinda girl!
Steven and his new bride, Kelly, recently moved to Durham.
Transactors Improv has T-shirts! They're black with our lightbulb on the front and our logo and
motto on the back in white. Available in S, L, and XL sizes, they are 100% cotton and cost $10.
Contact us at
transactors@transactors.org if you want one or even more.
To subscribe to our e-mailing list, write
transactors@transactors.org.
Autumn 2006
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