A popular improvisational (improv) comedy exercise is called the “Cliff Hanger”: After every few lines in a scene, one of the (usually a pair of) performers would incorporate audience suggestions into their scene. Audience members may provide suggestions on pieces of paper that were folded up for the performers to open and use as periodic cliff-hangers in a scene. The director may also halt a scene and solicit audience members’ suggestions verbally.
Imagine you and your partner are in the middle of a scene when the director freezes your scene to solicit a movie cliff-hanger from the audience.
An audience member said, “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”
… While you and your partner are in character as swimmers battling for the Olympics gold medal.
The art – and the comedy – is in justifying the cliff-hanger, which usually has no apparent relevance to your immediate scene.
(My husband actually gave that quote as a cliff-hanger suggestion when he attended one of our improv comedy showcases. The quote was from the movie, Predator.)
The director may ask audience members to call out quotes or phrases, or ask the audience to write down their suggestions on slips of paper.
Recently, our improv comedy troupe gave its first public performance at a local Bar and Grill. I was in charge of going around the restaurant tables, handing out slips of paper to the audience for suggestions in an upcoming Cliff-Hanger scene. I instructed the audience members to write down “action phrases” on slips of paper. To be safe, I gave examples of what I mean by “action phrases”:
“Action phrases – you know – ‘scaling a mountain, skinning a monkey, sweating to the oldies,’” I said to the audience at each table.
I collected a formidable pile of folded pieces of paper and handed them to our director.
In this Cliff-Hanger, the performers were supposed to stop in the middle of their action, open up one of cliff-hangers in front of them, and incorporate the new action into their scene. I noticed that the performers were going through various suggestions and discarding the certain slips of paper without incorporating the suggestion into their scene.
It turned out that some of the audience members had not written down “action phrases” as I had repeatedly instructed. Instead, they had written down quotes from movies or random phrases not conducive to physical action.
The audience members who did not listen and follow my instruction were members of a professional improv troupe. In other words, very experienced improv performers. Instead of listening to the examples I had repeatedly given, they assumed what they knew about a Cliff-Hanger scene that asked for random phrases or movie quotes. Instead of following instruction, they wrote down what was usually expected instead of “actionable phrases”. As a result, the performers on stage couldn’t use many of the suggestions the experienced improv performers gave.
When I moved into intermediate improv class, I noticed that some “experienced” performers had a hard time listening to the director. Experience had become their obstacle. They became so attached to their experience that their minds became closed to new information, their ears ceased to listen, and they perform on assumptions and preconceived notions instead of the director’s direction. It made me miss the beginner improv classes, where new people were often so terrified that their eyes and ears hung on the director’s every word.
How many times have you seen a person with a bit of knowledge shut out new ideas? How often do you see people with experience assume they’ve “done this before” and therefore automatically assume?
How often are you the victim of your own knowledge and experience?
Originally published: Aug 1, 2008 @ 8:13
