Shana Merlin's Improv Blog
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Tuesday, March 09, 2010
March Newsletter Article
| Feature Article What's the First Thing You Think of When I Say... by Shana Merlin  I sometimes joke that my improv name is "Sheila." For a long time people would call me "Sheila" in improv scenes because my scene partner would look at me and think "Shana," but then remember that we aren't supposed to use real names in improv scenes (we should be playing characters) and so they would start saying "Sh.." and turn it in to "Sheila." It's a small example of a problem that arises in an art form where you respond spontaneously to your scene partner. My scene partners just see short, brown haired, glasses-wearing Shana. And in the moment it's hard for them to see anything else. So improvisers often end up pigeonholing each other. Despite these problems with snap judgements, improv also presents opportunities to help people overcome stereotypes. Improv is one of the most accessible art forms. There's a very low cost of entry. And it's incredibly empowering because it's an opportunity for artists to tell whatever stories they want. It is immediate, and easily adaptable to different audiences. In fact, the origins of American improvisation start with Viola Spolin in the 1930's teaching acting and directing for the WPA and seeing the need for theater games that could cross literacy and cultural barriers in Chicago. So American improvisation has it's roots in the working class and with multiculturalism. Yet this pigeonholing persists. I've definitely had it happen in shows when I start a scene playing an old man, and then get endowed as a frail young woman. And I see it happen with my students: the big guy in class is always referred to that way. Older actors are endowed as parents instead of romantic leads. A man playing cross gender is assumed to be playing a gay character. Of course most of this is just honest mix up that happens all the time when you are improvising. Offers get dropped. People are misunderstood. People go for the familiar/cheap/easy laugh. I tell my students not to beat themselves up over stereotypical things that happen. But I ask them to start to become aware of it and open themselves up to the possibility that in improv anyone can play any character at any time. The good news is that I find this typecasting fades with time when people get to know each other and play together. Just like in the real world, when we become familiar with someone, their stereotypical features tend to fade away and you start to see them as a more complicated person with many dimensions. And soon enough, these possibilities open up on stage, and they are no longer pigeonholed by their peers. There are shortcuts to this process, though. This year I went to my first International Improv Festival in Amsterdam, where there was a big focus on the different cultures and styles of improv from different countries. On the first day of the festival, we had a get-to-know-you workshop unlike any I had been to before. We weren't just getting to know each other, we were also laying out the stereotypes, biases, and misconceptions we might have about each other. The workshop was led by the spectacular Marijn Vissers, a larger than life Dutch man with a shaved head, except for a heroic curl on his forehead. (A product of a long ago bet in a bar where his friends said they would give him a bunch of money if he let them shave his whole head. His pals started shaving him, left the curl in the front and kept their money.)
t was great because it was such an improv solution to a problem. In my improv classes I tell my students to expose their mistakes, because they are funny and a sign of openness and vulnerability. It's counter our normal instincts which are to avoid risks and cover mistakes. But I had to learn this lesson all over again for myself in the diversity workshop. Instead of being extra careful and sensitive about our cultural differences--working hard to prevent failure--we got to make lots of mistakes quickly (on some lower-risk issues) so we could start to play with the cultural gaps between these teams from Sweden, Turkey, USA, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands. By acknowledging the uninformed, shallow, judgmental parts of ourselves, we were able to transcend them for a moment. Shana Merlin |
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