On Friday Nov. 15, audience members filed into the Pocket Playhouse, a student run theater in Villard Hall, and settled into the auditorium. They were waiting for Absolute Improv, an improvisation comedy group of University of Oregon students, to take the stage. No one, including the performers, knew quite what to expect. While they had rehearsed the structure of the show beforehand, each of Absolute Improv’s performances on Nov. 14, 15 and 16 were a series of one-time, impromptu moments.
“Every show is different which is my favorite thing about improv — you can never go wrong with it,” said Gabby Socolofsky, a performer and co-leader of the group. Improv scenes or games begin with a call — a suggestion from the audience such as a relationship, object or location that gives actors a starting point.
On Nov. 14 and 15, the shows opened with a holiday-themed scene: an amalgam of eccentric cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents arrive for a holiday dinner and a conflict generated by the audience propels the action. As the night continued, actors delivered impromptu slam poems based on calls like “Kool Aid” and “friendship” and played improv games like DVD. In this activity, three improvers act out a movie in an unconventional genre of the audience’s choice, such as romance-horror, while two more actors, the “movie watchers,” modify the “movie” by fast-forwarding through scenes or changing the language with a pantomimed remote control.
The Nov. 16 show featured Oregon State University’s Improv Comedy Club in a friendly competition in which the two team’s performances were ranked by audience applause.
Amidst the spontaneity on stage, there are also basic rules guiding the action. One that Absolute Improv applies is “Yes, and,” — the rule of agreement. It encourages improvers to accept the reality that their partners create — whether that’s an object they’re pantomiming or a relationship between characters — and build off it, rather than contradict it.
The “Yes, and” principle helps actors bypass the common improv mistake of attempting to carry out a pre-planned vision for a scene. You can’t plan ahead when you can’t read your scene partners’ minds, according to Socolofsky. “You need to just support your teammate and then help carry that scene with them,” she said. “I think it’s better if you don’t know where it’s going because it can turn into a thousand different places.”
“Yes, and” ties together the spontaneity and cooperation essential to improv: in order to create a cohesive scene, you have to react instantaneously to others’ ideas as well as contributing your own.
Socolofsky and performer Julian Steinberg agree that performing improv is less nerve-wracking than rehearsed theater. With no lines to work through or scenes to memorize, “you’re present and feeling all those feelings,” Socolofsky said. And performing without a specific story arch in mind makes it difficult, if not impossible, to make mistakes. “The knowledge that I don’t have to have anything prepared is freeing in a way because I know that I’m not going to have to go out there and forget a line or anything because I can say or do literally anything,” Steinberg said. “There’s a calmness in the uncertainty.
But the lack of lines can also present one of improv’s biggest challenges. Without a script or storyline to fall back on, actors are creating the content as well as delivering it in each unfolding moment. “You’re not resting on a playwright’s words or a set or anything like that — it’s all just right off the top,” Steinberg said. “I think the hardest thing about improv is that mentally and emotionally you have to be on top of your game every performance.”
Absolute Improv is gearing up to compete in the College Improv Tournament in Seattle. Following the competition in January, they will hold auditions for their upcoming season starting this winter. The troop also hosts open rehearsals for community members throughout the year.
