Why an emphasis on non-narrative improv is better for students and better for storytelling.
I’ve never felt that I was making any of this up—not the name, Earthseed, not any of it. I mean, I’ve never felt that it was anything other than real: discovery rather than invention, exploration rather than creation. - Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler
There is nothing wrong with a narrative. In fact, if an audience gleans a narrative from an improv set, that’s great! However, over the 16 years of performing improv in Europe, particularly with the dominance of ‘Impro’ and a Johnstonian influence, we’ve (myself, Josh, and many of Berlin’s early adopters of the ‘North American Long Form’ approach, for lack of better words) noticed that much of the prevailing improvised entertainment and, by extension, improvisational education has been focused on a one’s ability to tell specific stories, beginning, middle and end. That, seemingly, the quickest way to satisfy our craving for a narrative was to plot it. And not necessarily on ‘yes, and-ing’, on being present, listening, agreeing and supporting.
There is a de facto acknowledgement of 'yes, and' as “rule number one”. (After all, you can’t be an improv theater if you don’t teach 'yes, and'.) But it seems like that tenet is quickly put on the back burner in favor of familiarizing popular plot points. And thus, outsized attention is put on the ‘7 plot paths’, the hero’s journey, the archetypal characters, the knight in shining armor always saves the damsel in distress and the Tarrantino movie is always about revenge, always has a stand-off and always has a lot of blood. In other words, students are being told that the way to improvise a scene is by replicating a story they know. And that a good improviser is one that has internalized the plot points of many genres.
What irked us was that the priority for so much improv in Europe was to tell a story and not to improvise it! And as a consequence of rushing to get folks to tell stories under the banner of improv actually impeded their ability to listen to their scene partner. To truly 'yes, and'.
Okay - I’ll take a moment to reveal what we teach at The CCB Training School to Level 1 students in the first minutes of their first ever improv class: rule number one is ‘listening’. Listen to their scene partners, listen to everything. Pay attention. It’s only when we listen to what’s going on that we know what to ‘yes, and’. It’s only after we listen do we know what to agree to and how to support it. And listening, like really listening, requires presence. Presence with your scene partner so you don’t miss anything they’re giving you. Present, meaning being there, in the moment. Nowhere else.
Conversely, plotting is thinking about the scene ahead and how it goes from point A to point B. It is definitionally opposite to being in the ‘here and now’. Plotting takes your attention away from what’s happening and forces you to think about where the scene needs to go. Rather than allowing it to go where it wants (jump into the river!).
I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible. - On Writing, Stephen King
So, if we aren’t present, if we are somewhere else, we stop listening, we can’t ‘yes, and’, we don’t know what to agree on and it becomes impossible to support. Without presence and listening, the cascading effects increase the likelihood that an improvised scene turns into a facsimile of a story at the best of times and a difficult to watch shouting match at the worst times (and, I’d argue, the latter happens most times).
Improv is a group sport. We achieve everything together through radical agreement. The moment one person decides to do something different is the moment an improvised scene crumbles. And that’s just it! Plotting is an individual endeavour. It is based on one person’s decision that “this is where the scene will go!” and forces it in that direction. No agreement from the group is needed and the results show. We, as improvisers, are simply bad at plotting.
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
-The Castaway, William Cowper
We, as improvisers, are good at agreeing. We are good at listening to each other (when we practice!). We are good at being human, being authentic. So, as improvisers, do more of that!
A narrative is good!
Narratives are stories and feel like they have plot, sure. But more than that, they show how characters are affected by action, leaning on our innate pattern-hungry brains that recognize scenes as digestible “this happened, therefore that happened” situations. An improviser achieves this not by plotting but by taking every moment step by step and treating it honestly: “Okay! This just happened, now what’s the truthful result of that?” A narrative unfolds from good improvisation, not despite it. Good improvisation focuses on listening, agreeing and supporting.
They do not do this by memorizing archetypal stories or recalling plot points. They do this by relying on power of good improvisation. In other words, they do this by thinking, let’s be frank, non-narratively. They spend their time focusing on things that are in and of itself not narrative elements— patience, emotional honesty, pattern recognition —all parts that come together to form a kind of narrative. A narrative being symptomatic of non-narrative improvisation.
It’s my feeling that ‘Narrative Improv’ is advanced level stuff and should only be taught after students truly understand how to ‘yes, and’ and only in constant acknowledgement of discovery over invention.