I keep saying that I need to just compile a list of my all-favorite improv scenes - the brilliant little gems of pure comedy that keep me so excited about this hobby that dominates my weekends. Best way to handle it will probably just be to document them as they happen.
This past weekend, there were two DOOZIES:
1 - Friday, January 21
The game is Fast Forward/Rewind, wherein the MC gets to stop the scene at any point and either fast forward or rewind. It's one of the more physically demanding games in our repertoire.
Our scene suggestion is Human Centipede - which, apparently, is a movie. I'd post a link to the Wikipedia page, but, after reading what the movie is about, I actually feel a little sick. You can research on your own, but prepare to be disgusted if you do.
STAY AWAY
I start the scene off alone onstage, miming an experiment with various unidentified chemicals in a laboratory. From behind me, Tony (one of our bright young students) comes in.
"Guess what?" he says excitedly.
"Careful," I say, "I'm performing a delicate experiment with transformation enzymes and centipede... monacles."
"No, but listen," Tony says, and he shakes me. Now doused in the chemicals, I start to transform, flicking my fingers out by my sides to indicate legs sprouting from my body as I twist and twitch down to the ground. Tony screams in terror and steps back.
"Pause," yells Blake, the MC. "Fast forward."
I convulse and collapse to the ground. Tony runs away as I scramble towards him. He runs around the stage, then he runs up behind me and shakes me. I bobble wildly back and forth.
"Pause," yells Blake. "Rewind."
We do the whole thing in reverse - the bobbling, the running, the crawling, even the transformation. I make loud sucking noises as the centipede legs retract back into my body.
"Play," yells Blake.
Tony busts into the room. "Guess what?" he says excitedly.
So we do the whole thing again. Blake continues to fast forward and rewind through the transformation (he told me later that he really liked to watch me bobble). Finally, he lets us play through the end of the transformation.
"You tried to kill me!" I yell, then I make to eat Tony (I'm a human centipede monster at this point, remember?).
"Freeze!" Blake yells, and then, "Skip scene."
So I stand there, stomach distended, as if I'd just finished eating Tony. Then, from behind, Tony dives out on stage, as if he'd just somehow broken through my stomach.
Blake storms out on stage, triumphantly yelling, "And that's our game!"
As fun as it was to get shaken around so much (I'm not sure "fun" is the word I want), without a doubt, Tony picking up on the cue that he had been eaten and busting out of my guts was a FANTASTIC moment of improv. Kudos to Tony the Quick-Witted. I was proud to be in the scene with him.
2 - Saturday, January 22
We had a lot of great games this night. I think it'd be a shame not to mention the fantastic round of What Are You Trying To Say? that I played with Andrew (set in a Dance Dance Revolution competition, no less). For me, though, the best moments came in scenes with Brady.
Brady and I have actually been friends pretty much our whole lives. Brady's mother was my teacher in grade school three years in a row. When it comes to working together and reading each other's intentions, Brady and I have a bit of an advantage, I guess, given our history. We showed off a little how in sync we can be during a game of Accents, when we both started yelling at each other in Italian and shaking our fists. Still, though, nothing will top our game of Half Life from this night.
The game requires two or three actors to perform the exact same scene repeatedly, cutting the time taken in half each time. We get our scene suggestion (Synchronized Swimming, something I've never seen work on stage before).
Brady and I step up to do the scene. We dive down onto the stage, rolling and kicking our legs at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME. I think we both had to keep an eye out and make sure we were following the other person precisely, but we actually made it look like we were swimming in unison.
Above: Me and Brady
I don't think I've ever been that in tune with what another improv performer had in mind, and the scene has definitely gone down as one of my all-time favorites.
Of course, I DID tear out the knees in my jeans, so it wasn't a PERFECT game, but still.
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