Unleash the Hounds!!! (Part 1 of 2 in a series on How to Evaluate Choices Without Shutting Down the Creative Muse)

In many ways, the spontaneity of improvisational theatre compares with letting a pent-up dog off-leash.

For one, there’s a risk involved—no matter how well the dog has been trained, you’re simply not sure what’s going to happen. Even if your dog tends to stay nearby on its walk, you always have the uneasy sense you’ll end up having to chase her through the woods or into some snowbank late at night. She might poop on a neighbor’s lawn. He might snag a child’s sandwich. That uncertainty shows up in droves for an improv show too. Even with well-trained improvisors, you just never know what will happen. An entire scene or show could crash or go off the rails at any moment.

Acknowledging the risk, there’s also a palpable energy to taking a dog off leash. All that surge that had previously pulled against a collar rockets off into open space. The dog wants to sniff and search to discover new sights and smells. The world comes alive for the animal. As the dog’s caretaker, you get to see the strength, beauty and speed that normally stays under wraps. At the same time, you can improve your own health and happiness, getting to enjoy your pet’s companionship without needing the hassle and tension of constant control. The dog’s joy becomes your own, especially knowing that, once home, the beast will likely find a satisfied sleep.

And so it is with improv. Our creative mind that normally stays restricted gets to run around in free space. We feel the same lift of energy and curiosity as we discover unexpected possibilities and rewards. Our movements and ideas gain a quicksilver fluidity and flexibility. We make connections where we’d previously found dead ends. And we find a relaxed, easy joy that leads to a greater satisfaction at day’s end. With a free flow, scenes find range. Stories come alive. Our play gets better.

This is why beginning improv classes emphasize spontaneity right from the start. Most of us have learned tragically well—from parents, from school, from the workplace, from society—to keep a tight censor’s leash on our ideas. As a result, we remain disappointingly uninspired. To get into that more joyful space, we have to release the binding that holds us back: the fear of failure or embarrassment.

Keith Johnstone, one of the fathers of modern improv, suggests in his classic Impro that three primary impediments keep us from our natural creativity. First, we want to avoid appearing psychotic. If we seem sane, predictable and safe, other people will trust us, like us, and want to be with us. (Of course, in that case, we could ask if the “us” they know is actually us.) Students need to be given permission for the ‘craziness’ they carry inside—that we all carry inside in some way or another—so they’re free from the restriction of preventing its release. That doesn’t mean they need to share it openly all the time, but even to allow that it exists and that that’s OK.

Johnstone also suggested we hold ourselves back for fear of appearing obscene. What if our creativity leads us to overt or perverted sexual suggestion? What if our impulses suggest violence or cruelty? What if our prejudices and –isms get exposed? Indeed, what if? We don’t know to what extent these forces might be innate or conditioned. Either way, they do live within us and our fullest creativity involves making some peace with those facts. As Carl Jung suggested, our shadows, the hidden and unwanted parts of ourselves, become most dangerous when denied or caged. In the light of day, we can integrate or even befriend them. Again, Johnstone suggests, the instructor’s attitude makes a huge difference: “It does help if improvisation teachers are not puritanical, and can allow the students to behave as they want to behave….If it isn’t possible to let students speak and act with the same freedom they have outside he school, then it might be better not to teach them drama at all.”[1]

Lastly, Johnstone argues, we restrain our ‘first thoughts’ because we want to avoid seeming unoriginal. We’d rather strive for the clever, the witty, the strategic. Ironically, of course, such forced effort produces just the opposite: “Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.”[2] Usually, the more obvious and direct our choices in improv scenework—especially when specific—the more the audience delights in the performance. If a troupemate mentions that my character looks tired, I don’t need to have just come from wrestling a dragon or having unearthed an ancient tomb by digging with my bare hands. Maybe I’ve just finished a workout or climbed a set of stairs. Maybe it’s been a long week at work. The obvious fits just fine.

To some degree, such concerns have a value of their own. Pyschotics can be dangerous. Obscenity or oppressive comments can create discomfort or cause harm. Lack of creative range can actually prove boring. Fair enough. It’s interesting to note, however, that usually our concern about these possibilities is not so much that we will be that way but that we will be seen that way. In other words, we’re being driven by our fears about others’ approval and acceptance.

Either way, in the creative arena, such self-judgment isn’t helpful. In fact, it’s toxic. As with emotions, we can’t do selective blocking. If we shut down or wall off one channel, we limit them all. If I’m unwilling to feel fear or grief or rage, I’m unable to experience joy and love. If I seal off the seemingly psychotic, obscene, or unoriginal, I lose access to the creative and the inspired.

An improv teacher’s resolute, unflinching protection of a welcoming space helps to loosen that sort of self-restriction. Especially in classes and rehearsals–the equivalent of a fenced-in dog park–this effort means establishing safe allowance for whatever comes through. When working with spontaneity, I as a teacher say out loud “If something offensive or unpleasant comes out, I will take ownership of the repercussions. It’s not on you.”[3] The more vibrant, pulsating ideas can emerge and sniff around, getting to interact with other ideas in a boundaried arena.

In that safer space, we can acknowledge an error—or an offense—without getting crushed by it. As with the Circus or Failure Bow, we change our relationship with the unwanted from one of flinching regret to one of bemused engagement: generate a ‘dumb-ass’ smile, take a bow—Woo hoo!—and keep moving forward. Sometimes, the instructor might need to name a wave of discomfort or awkward moment. Ideally, that happens with a kindness and a curiosity rather than a judgment or condemnation. And the group moves on.[4]

Eventually, the group can take on this accepting presence as well, further fertilizing the soil from which good ideas germinate. As my colleague Lisa Rowland often notes, when we justifiably know our ideas will be accepted and celebrated, we’re more likely to come up with more ideas—and better ones too.

In short, when we move from a status quo disposition of rejecting or controlling our ideas—yanking them back into place so they stay in line—to one of celebrating and interacting with them, we move from a default “no” to a presumed “yes”. We loosen our desire for safety and welcome the possibility of adventure, allowing our ideas to run with greater freedom and fluidity than we could have imagined possible. Want the joy of creativity? Take off the collar of self-criticism. Unleash the hounds.

For Part 2 of this series, “Judgment vs. Discernment” click here.

[1] Keith Johnstone, Impro, p. 87.

[2] Johnstone, Impro, p. 88.

[3] Sometimes, we might even welcome what we fear. I have yet to try it, but I’ve been considering a beginner exercise where students generate a list of all the words they would feel ashamed of saying on stage and then using those words as gibberish dialogue for humdrum scenework. I wince to even consider writing some of these words—they’re taboo for a reason—and maybe I would just use the words that referred to body-related obscenity and leave out words that have an oppressive history as weapons. Or maybe it’s an exercise only for more advanced students who have already granted more freedom to their imaginations. However it played out, I imagine whatever words got used would lose much of their restrictive power through the ridiculousness.

 

[4] For a great illustration of this approach, see the second post of this series for a story about one of Rebecca Stockley’s experiences in class.