Impro by Keith Johnstone (September 2017)
Finally! After years of failed attempts to read this book – including last summer's especially embarrassing effort when I stopped reading like a petulant little child after losing my note card on the DC metro - this past September I checked out Impro, started reading, and got all the way to the end without allowing anything to unnecessarily curb my progression. Well done to me!
The book can be broken up into three parts. The first section was Johnstone’s personal reflection on the purpose of teaching and the challenges he overcame to develop this understanding. The second was a direct application of these ideas to his work as an improv teacher. A lot of what I'll write about Impro comes from these two sections (I will briefly address the third and final section a little later on).
I found the first section more interesting for its general insights and the second more directly applicable to some of the problems I’m currently interested in. One example of the latter grew out of his comments into status signaling. In improv, the way actors juggle status relationships among themselves, demonstrate how these dynamics are changing throughout a scene, and find ways to use the various status relationship to surprise the audience are all critical ingredients in determining the success of a given performance. (1)
In everyday life, these little status interactions are often referred to as trying to ‘gain the upper hand’ or ‘playing one-up’. There are many subtle ways to accomplish this. A common technique is to interact with the environment. A person who picks up the ringing phone or answers the door shows a command of the space befitting of high-status while the guest who asks permission to do basic actions like sit down, use the restroom, or have a glass of water is playing low-status. It is no wonder how a house guest opening the refrigerator without warning annoys certain hosts!
One trick I pulled from Johnstone’s thoughts into status signaling deals with how people link head movement with authority. The main insight was how holding the head completely still is a simple but highly effective technique for conveying high status. (Reader, my over-inflated head has not moved since I read Impro…)
The idea becomes obvious to me if I watch TV. The polished newscasters talk as if their heads are held in place by an unseen vice while those just starting in their careers bounce their heads around the screen like teenagers listening to the newest pop single.
But it doesn’t necessarily follow that everyone on TV should sit stock-still. I’m reminded here of how Frank Caliendo used to impersonate Jay Leno – the main trick was to keep moving his head every which way throughout the impersonation. Without being very familiar with Leno’s work, I’m guessing his comedy was based on playing ‘low status’ with his audience or the guests on his late night show. I would also not be surprised if I saw Rodney Dangerfield moving his around quite a bit while he delivered his famously self-deprecating performances. (2)
One up: There were some very clever insights into the art of storytelling. According to Johnstone, a good story should describe a routine interrupted. This logic suggests a common problem with bad stories is focusing too much on the routine. If a story needs improvement, forget about making the routine more interesting and instead consider ways to interrupt the routine already described (or implied) by the story.
A good story also reincorporates elements from the past. In a way, a storyteller is like the passenger facing backward in a moving train. Though things continue to move forward, the storyteller has no sense of what is coming up – the only things visible are what’s already passed. When the story gets stuck, the approach should be to look once more at what’s happened rather than groping aimlessly for what might come up around the bend. (3)
One down: Johnstone demystifies a couple of famous figures in the process of writing this book. Regarding Edison, he describes how the inventor found a solvent for rubber by putting it into every solution he could think of. Clever, but how many inventors wasted their considerable talents mimicking this ‘brute force’ approach? (4)
Pavlov also took a hit in my book (or blog, I guess, which is what this is) when Johnstone points out how the famed scientist did not humanely train every dog he took charge of in his famous ‘bell-and-salivate’ experiment. Some dogs, Johnstone mentions, were first castrated then starved for three weeks before becoming responsive to the bell.
I’ll be right back – I’m off to contact my local animal rights activist.
Just saying: OK- I’m back!
The final section of the book – the one I did not do much with - dealt with mask work. This topic did not resonate with me because it was so specific to a certain type of performance. To summarize the section quickly, I think what Johnstone does is explain the phenomenon I suspect many have experienced where the mere act of wearing a costume changes behavior.
I’m sure those interested in the mask topic will draw a lot from Johnstone’s insights, however, because I assume he covers the mask topic with the same depth and insight he demonstrated in the two sections I know more about.
Just saying, part two: I liked the thought about why people enjoy going to see ‘a view’, especially if it is a view unblocked for long distances (like the ocean or the mountains). For Johnstone, such an urge was perhaps a way people dealt with a feeling of overcrowding.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Not that I know anything about improv but here goes anyway…
As an example, consider a scene where a chauffeur is driving a passenger to a prestigious conference. The chauffeur here is by default in a low status position while his passenger is in a high status. Merely establishing this relationship makes the scene realistic. But if this is all the performance accomplishes, the audience will be left wanting.
The scene might become more interesting for the audience if the chauffeur finds a way to elevate his status. This could be done by giving expert advice to the passenger or revealing that he has been ‘higher status’ all along. Perhaps the chauffeur is driving as a side job to alleviate the boredom of being a world-class expert in the subject of the upcoming conference. The key here becomes how the passenger reacts to the shift in the status change. If the actor responds and plays off the new dynamic, the audience will likely find the scene more interesting than if there is resistance to the status shift.
What might happen if the actors retain the original status structure? The scene is likely headed nowhere interesting. At this point, the chauffeur could pick up a second passenger. Perhaps this new person is the first passenger’s boss. The resulting demand on the first passenger to alternately play low status with the boss and high status with the chauffeur would then create added opportunities to exploit the status dynamic in the scene.
2. Wow, what amazing predictions!
I mean, look, I insist I did make these predictions before watching the linked video clips. But I'll leave it open whether I would have left the predictions in if I didn't find the corroborating video evidence...
On the topic of high status, I found an additional scene to further illustrate the dynamic. In this clip, Leno pops in on Jimmy Fallon's show and delivers a few jokes in a guest monologue. Fallon returns right at the end (around the four minute mark) and adds a couple jokes of his own. When Fallon returns, you can see him use some of the high-status markers while Leno uses low-status tactics to confirm his return to a supporting role.
3. Footnote #1, revisited
The interrupted routine aspect might come into play in the example from the above footnote if the chauffeur took a wrong turn or picked up an unexpected passenger. (I think this is a fairly common type of scene that anyone familiar with improv performances will recognize.)
The reincorporation of past elements is a trickier skill. If the chauffeur in the above example picks up a new passenger, perhaps the actor will make reference to the conversation which took place before the new passenger entered the vehicle. If this reference places the first passenger in an uncomfortable position with the new passenger, perhaps the scene is going somewhere. And if the reference interrupts a regular routine of some kind or disrupts the status balance between the two passengers, well, then at the very least we’ve incorporated all the tricks I’ve talked about today, reader, and we all know how important that is...
4. Let’s work on our null hypotheses a little bit first…
Edison’s solvent trick reminds me of a comment about data science I heard while at dinner recently with a couple of software engineers – the problem with data scientists is many of them think if they make the haystack large enough, there will eventually HAVE to be a needle...
Hmmm...
Reader, if you think today is the last time I’ll make some reference to this use of the ‘needle in a haystack’ concept, well, I hope you are enjoying your first day on my blog! Do kindly subscribe to the emails, please, if you’ve enjoyed your maiden voyage on TOA.
