Playing With Spacework

An improv stage is pretty basic — a patch of floor and a few chairs. But, if we own the space, we can create anything. Here’s some ways to get more from your scenes physically:

1. SURPRISE YOURSELF

Because we’re good teammates, we’ve all stepped off the backline with NOTHING, to fill a blank stage. Stepping out and doing ANYTHING physically greatly increases the chance of our scene being SOMETHING.

Move first, think later. This turns-off the inner critic judging our ideas. If I’m happily setting-up a mime drum kit, I can’t second-guess my idea about the band arguing over leaving the toilet seat up. I might surprise myself discovering something else.

2. DELIGHT YOUR SCENE PARTNER

Our main job is to make each other look good. Good improvisers own the space: they make strong physical choices and revel in the choices of others. Make your teammates look good by giving them something to react to and be delighted by. It also helps them help you: much easier to support a scene with a clear environment than one without.

3. OBJECTS HAVE WEIGHT — PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY

Our scenes become dynamic and believable if we invest in an object’s real-world presence. Answering a mobile phone feels different to a landline. Have fun shuffling around awkwardly-placed tables, entering through sash-windows, scrambling over wire-fences.

Objects can also inform our characters. Audiences see everything we’re doing and how. Getting a mug from a cupboard or chopping vegetables are fine choices, but more useful to us with an emotional choice attached. Your teammates will thank you for suspiciously chopping vegetables or giddily fetching a mug.

4. SAVE PAINT

One improv theatre repaints its worn-out floor every 3 months because so many scenes start with two improvisers stood 4-feet apart. Let’s save paint!

Scene pictures matter: where characters are in relation to each other, how they move, how this scene looks compared to the previous one are all tools to play with.

Break conventions — who decided every restaurant scene is two chairs sat diagonally facing each other? Set chairs really close in one corner, far around a massive table, or one behind another like we’re doing pottery in Ghost. Take up power positions at the front of the stage, in the aisles, by the door, laying on the floor. All those give us a chance to discover something new.

EXERCISES TO TRY

AT HOME:

• Notice how you use everyday objects. Try a mime version. Don’t drink weak improv tea when you know how to make a real one!

WITH YOUR TEAM:

• Enter a room, establish an object then leave. The next improviser enters the same room, interacts with the same object/s, then adds their own. Continue until everyone has done it. Play a two-person scene in that location.
• Play scenes with a scene-length repetitive task (eg folding laundry, washing dishes), talking about anything else. If we talk about the task, or stop doing it, restart the scene.

ON STAGE:

• Get out of your own head by secretly playing like an improviser you admire. Copy particularly how they move and use the space.
• Set a scene in your kitchen, your office, your favourite restaurant. You don’t have to imagine a detailed location, just remember a real one.

In improv, our physical choices are just as fun and useful as our verbal ones. Next time you’re on stage, set yourself a goal to use the space and carry yourself in a way you haven’t before, and then play with the possibilities it opens up for your scenes.