Character

In improv there is a lot of talk about playing characters. A very popular, and in my mind ineffective, theater and improv exercise is the old walk-around-the-space lead-with-a-different-part-of your-body in hopes that a physical change will then inspire some unique characterization. The reality is that creating an effective character is much more difficult and complicated then simply walking differently. I've heard, gotten, and given the note to "play more characters" in improv but it rarely goes beyond that and you almost never hear how one is actually suppose to accomplish it. The reason is, like almost all creative disciplines, everyone is different. My process works for me but it won't necessarily work or even make sense to someone else.

One of the first scenes in tonight's Deep Schwa show I came out as a character. The scene was between three siblings, myself and Sarah were visiting our older sibling Jeannie in her fancy downtown loft apartment. As I entered the scene, apropos of nothing, I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. In that moment I figured that was my character hands-in-pockets-person. I slouched my shoulders a bit and it seemed to me the posture I was taking was representative of someone petulant, rebellious, defensively sarcastic, and most likely young. All this took place over the course of two or three seconds as I was walking on stage before anyone spoke.

Jeannie initiated the scene by saying something to the effect of 'welcome to my beautiful loft apartment, things are so much different here in The City, there's so much going on'. Her posture was very straight, she made a couple sweeping graceful gestures. Confident, high status. Going into the scene my idea is that it would have a school setting, I dropped that, and put my character in context with the information Jeannie provided. It seemed to me my character was resentful of being there and of the big city mentality Jeannie was projecting so it seemed logical that the only reason I would be there given that information was that if we were siblings. I called her sis and the scene progressed accordingly. Older, sophisticated, sibling shares new found invigorating lifestyle with younger siblings one who is naively in thrall(Sarah) and another who is resistant even out right hostile(me).

The character choices were made within the first couple seconds of the scene, by the second line all of us knew the situation and the relationship dynamic. In order to create a character you have to be inspired and make choices, this is most effective when it is done incredibly quickly, in improv you don't have the luxury of a lot of time to decide who you are. If you take an inordinate amount of time to decide who your character is the scene will most likely have progressed significantly while you were making up your mind past a point where you can get directly involved. Or a lot of time elapses where nothing happens.

Quickly make physical and/or emotional choices that inform your character, this should be done while your entering a scene or in the first couple seconds. If you don't initiate the scene, adjust your preconceptions to put your character within the context of what has been established. At least that's what works for me.