Last year, Luke took an improv course at cabrillo college to, you know, meet babes. Anyway, he enjoyed that and so did his fellow students. So much so, that during the summer, they held improv “training” at our house. It was a little odd hearing all the loud screams, elephant imitations, and thumps emanating from downstairs. The neighbors didn’t really seem to mind, even though they were plenty aware of it.
Anyway, Luke kept saying that I should join him down there, since it was free and at our house, so there was nothing to lose. Well, I didn’t want to go, because earlier that year, I was already forced into going to a free improv workshop (where everyone there was going through a mid-life crisis). My beef with improv is that most of the people doing it aren’t even trying to be funny. (if you don’t try to be funny, what’s the point? Why not just live life?) It seems most try to coast by doing serious scenes (which are apparently easier to do than funny scenes). If they do try to connect their dislocated funny bones, they try to humor it up by “freakin’ out.” Gobbling like a chicken, shaking their limbs like an electrocuted frog, and mussing up their hair. Where’s the humor there? Where’s the wit? That’s not humor. That’s just embarrassing. That’s the same with the warm-ups (another reason “formal” improv isn’t on my Top Ten). It seems in warming up “improv style”, you have to shake it out and let out your animal spirit. Most of the improvers spirit seem to be yelping hyenas. Well, when spending a day at the Native American amusement park/casino, for only 10 bucks, I found out that my animal spirit was a leopard (either that, or a sloth). Leopards keep their cool, are silent, and strike swiftly, humor dripping from their teeth. That conflicts with shaking uncontrollably and getting all wild.
I rest my case...
Aaanywho, Pa said that maybe if I did something that Luke wanted to do, maybe he would do something I wanted to do, which was throat singing. He said the same thing when I refused to go to the free improv workshop, to play fiddle tunes and go dancing with him, and guess what? He still hasn’t done any throat singing with me!
Anyway, so, once again, I got shamed into going down. However, the problem was that before they started doing improv, they would warm up by talking. You know, “What’s up?” “How’s your sister?” “Remember that funny thing that happened last week?” Since I was not in the group, melting into the conversation wasn’t the most bearable. I told Luke that I’d come back once they all started improving. He said chatting with them was necessary ’cause if I didn’t, they wouldn’t know me and it wouldn’t work. Also said, if I wanted to improv with them, I had to participate for the whole deal (3+ hours) or else leave. Well, that wasn’t a hard decision.
It wasn’t just trying to blend with the crowd that was hard. They were such a tight group, that once one person started just one hint of a game, they all were tuned in and joined. Me, not knowing a French Scene from a Helping Hands, wasn’t too encouraged. So I left.
A few months later, Luke was improving downstairs with 4 other people when he found out that two of them had colds. So he respectfully asked them to hit the road. So, with only two other improvers plus himself, there was a shortage. So he came upstairs and asked me to join. Pa said again that if I didn’t go, I’d be wuss (which sounded more philosophical the way he said it, but it was about the same). I was a bit more into going this time, because they were doing audio-only improv, which meant you didn’t have to do any weird improv-like body convulsing (which many improvers seem to like to do -see top image). However, this time, I stayed out until they were done doing their warm-up chat. Then I joined in.
It was good. I’m willing to admit it. Particularly because the two other improvers had a good sense of humor which kept the scenes funny (that’s the thing, most people like to do serious emotion-wridden scenes because they’re easier than humorous scenes). And another thing, more importantly, it worked just fine even though I didn’t join in the warm up chat! Ho! So there!
So without further adieu, here’s one snippet from our little quartet.
