Being obvious

A confused audience won’t laugh. Make it easier for them by being super obvious. Is that obvious in itself? I obviously hope so!

In DNAYS’ show The Wunderkammer, we often find ourselves performing for audiences that don’t see lots of - or any - improv. While the show has taken us to festivals full of eager improv nerds, we just as often perform at non-improv focused venues, museums, galleries and education institutions. The show uses TED-style talks from guest academics, experts and enthusiasts as the inspiration for improv scenes. As such, we’re often handling both some pretty esoteric ideas from the talk, plus packaging them into a performance style the vast majority of the audience has never seen before.

With two tricksy concepts to wrap around, the main recurring note we give ourselves pre-show is to ‘be obvious’. That means pulling really direct initiations from the talk. One idea at a time, with care taken to establish the absolute fundamentals - who, what, where - before layering on any overt comedic idea.

Audiences need - and want! - to see the mechanics of the show. The same is true for shows that use audience suggestions. A purist might complain that this ruins the ‘magic’. I think it has the opposite effect. For a ‘lay audience’, being obvious and nodding to the opening directly ‘proves’ that the show is truly improvised. It brings audiences into the creative process and therefore invested in the outcome. Ultimately, a really obvious initiation and game makes the audience feel clever and funny themselves: that they too recognise and remember the thing they heard at the start of the show. It goes a really long way.

As improvisers you can earn the right for less vanilla improv moves later in the show, but until that point, you want to bring your audience along with you and assure them they’re in safe hands. If all they know of Harolds is old Kings and Neighbours characters, they aren’t going to appreciate a Sound-and-Movement or Invocation opening, putting it lightly.

Here’s some exercises and approaches to help keep it obvious in improv:

• Literally repeat verbatim a line from the monologue or opening. It doesn’t need any interesting new context or spin, just repeat it. Ideal if it’s an opinion or feeling, or starts with ‘I think/feel/believe…’

• Treat your scene partner like they’re…erm, let’s say, ‘intellectually challenged’ (The word used when I first encountered this from an American improv teacher was unfortunately rather more un-PC. You’ve heard it. The Black Eyed Peas used it, then knew it was bad so changed tack). Basically, use really simple words, short sentences, be loud, repeat yourself. It all helps keep a scene super simple, focused and obvious.

• If your show has an especially long opening where you might need to remember multiple initiations for a long time, try giving them a 2 or 3-word title. It might help boil down a game to its most basic points. So a long anecdote about putting broccoli in a homemade birthday cake might become ‘gross dessert’. This kind of thing is especially helpful in DNAYS’ Wunderkammer shows where we’re often trying to retain some pretty complex scientific concepts and WE ARE NOT SMART. In fact, its better for us to essentially be dumber than our audience. If your initiation feels a bit too complex with a few moving pieces, its probably not simple enough yet. Or there’s nothing there.

• If the audience laughs in the opening, that’s your best pull. Hopefully all your teammates will have seen it too, but don’t assume that. The audience is either going to expect that moment to come up in the show, and they’re going to have forgotten it and be absoultely delighted to be reminded. Have more than one initiation in your head so you’re not too sad when your brilliant casemates use the idea first.

• Set your scene in a really obvious setting the audience will definitely know. Lots of comedy is essentially unexpected behaviours in familiar contexts. I just tried to define comedy in one sentence. BIG MOVE. You’ll find an improv scene or any sketch really far easier to execute if the set-up location is . Audiences need to get the grounded, normal code of behaviour, in order to find anything else about your scene unusual or funny. Everyone has been to the doctor, sat in a restaurant, been in a car, on a date etc. They know how you’re supposed to behave in those settings, so you can crack on fairly quickly with something unusual.

So there you go, be obvious. Sounds dumb, is smart, will be fun.

ENDNOTES

I’m usually plugging something here. Let me plug this: going outside and enjoying the sunshine. Pop your phone down. Go for a walk or a little run without it. Promise you’ll feel better x