Wholesome Improv

The Heart of Improv, Part VI

This article is part of a series about improv. Start at the beginning here

Making Improv Safe for All Humans

We generally try to avoid scenes with overly emotionally upsetting content such as someone vulnerable/low status in the scene isn't safe, just because the audience will be worried about them & can put a burden on the scene to resolve that.

Suggested Guidelines:

1. don't play kids

2. think twice before introducing sexual content

3. we never do kids plus sexual content

4. we don't portray serious trauma like bullying, torture, abuse, racism, violence, because we're not in the right context to appropriately deal with the repercussions in way that psyche would need to feel fully safe

5. we make sure we don't ever endow someone with something we wouldn't want to play. If you don't know your teammate that well yet, err on the side of giving them a softball

6. take care of yourself in a scene, from within the character. If you don't like how something is feeling, chances are the audience feels that too, so turn it around and make it safe for you and the audience. You can do it in a funny way. "Wallace, stop obsessing about my butt and focus on this spreadsheet!"

Clues to How We can Promote Inclusion

-Choose to care about your scene partner. When/if they open up, are vulnerable or dramatic or absurd, don't gloss over that moment, but let it affect you and react from the heart.

"Wow, Gerald...I had no idea you felt this way. You really want those crackers, I see it now."

Give it a beat, give it space, time. Make eye contact. Don't do the easy thing - which is, walk away/diss/refuse connection.

-Be mindful of any power status/imbalance. Parent-child, Boss-employee, etc. What we choose to show in those relationships is important for all.

To clarify - scenes don't have to be overly enmeshed, gooey, or grossly unboundaried, that is groty & another version of not being safe.

But since we generally err towards creating distance, the guidance is to look into, are you distancing yourself from your partner, hence also your audience? Are you unconsciously communicating that this world is not a world where we can share our humanity? Are you accidentally reinforcing social hierachy, the ways that shame is used to enforced us to stay constrained and unloved? Are you reinforcing the age-old controller strategy of scaring us into compliance through constant reminders of the harm that can come to us at any moment if we're not defended?

Unconscious Unity Eroders

In Improv we watch out for the following types of things, which are unconscious eroders of unity in humanity:

-casual, jokey violence, especially to kids & other vulnerables, but really anyone. violence to any member of humanity is violence to us all

-edgy/shock-value sexuality, or otherwise borderline/taboo topics (absolute no go being kids or other vulnerables being violated or harmed in any way, pedophilia, incest, etc. Combining sex with harm, power imbalances)

-punching down (dissing someone who is "below" you in status -eg fat-shaming, otherizing mental illness, etc)

-marginalizing someone or their perspective, dismissing them or denying that they are valid in their point of view (even when they are playing an absurd character, that's when we need to show the MOST care, while pointing out reality-consequences to them)

-showing abuse, humans treating other humans badly

What We Radiate out to the World

Improv is one rare place where we can witness human beings at their best, cooperating, collaborating, joining together, setting aside all that might divide us, in order to cocreate something wonderful just because it's fun & joyous & poignant & wonderful & hilarious. Whatever we do as a team onstage, we radiate out to the world.

It is a good idea to consider what is it that we want to be radiating?

If we don't set our intentions, we may unconsciously reinforce aspects of our emotionally unwell society.

What I want to see on stage is…

-human foibles being lovingly dealt with, engaged with, even while acknowledging the absurdity that lurks inside of us all

-people who are in some kind of emotionally committed relationship, where the relationship itself is forever/not up for debate - they struggle together but they are in definitely it together

-insights into shared humanity, what's funny about the human condition/universal human things, versus jokes that objectify/separate people or categories of people

What about you?

This article is part of a series about improv. Start at the beginning here

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Thumbnail image respectfully borrowed from The Wonderful Things You Will Be, by Emily Winfield Martin.