Does dramatic improv work? I know just merely asking that will ruffle a few features from the world of people who practice the art of dramatic improv, but it’s an honest question. Partly because I want to get the discussion started, and throw out a thought here, but also because I’m not sure.
I know for a fact that improv can be used for some of the best dramatic performances possible. Take away the script and speak from the heart. There’s countless examples of actors doing this in film, and on stage, and directors who encourage and workshop actors to improvise and speak from a point of pure improvised emotion.
I have always said to my students that I believe improvisation to be the most important acting tool they can develop. It allows a performer the power of invention. It can sharpen you to become your own playwright and director and editor. When developing a character for a scripted film or play, I’d encourage any performer to work on their own and with their director to improvise your way through scenes and scenarios to find the truth behind your character and their relevant backstory.
But all of what I’m saying here is rehearsal technique and improv as a skill to aid scripted work. Can dramatic improv work as a performance type? If so, in what form? Improv broadly speaking, comes in two flavours. These are short form, which is improvised sketches, often played as games with rules and limitations for the performers to act within. The other type is longform, and whilst there are many formats, this can most easily be described as improvised plays or musicals.
To do dramatic improv as short form, would probably be a series of unrelated scenes, or perhaps a series of scenes that have some kind of theme that links them loosely together in theme. But for the scenes to fulfil the concept of being dramatic improv, they would have to set out to avoid much in way of humour. I think I’m correct in saying this, because if they were very humorous scenes, what would distinguish them from other short form improv shows which are frequently focused and advertised as comedy?
I’m pretty sure that if you watch most films or plays that are advertised as drama, there would still be some element of humour within them. The presence of humour doesn’t disqualify things from being dramatic after all. Real life is not a comedy, but funny things still happen.
But let’s say that you do have primarily dramatic or serious scenes, with only at most, a light sprinkling of humour, what do they need to be to be considered worthy of an audience. With comedic improv, the entertainment value is that the audience will get to see actors take on the challenge of creating scenes and comedy entirely on the spot. The knowledge that the performers are improvising is something which I believe is integral to the audience getting the most out of an improvised show. Without that context, half of what impresses an audience would be missing. So, I still believe that would be true with dramatic improv.
But if you were going to eliminate the element of spontaneously make something funny, or “clever” in a humorous way, what are is dramatic improv going to replace that with and offer instead?
I suppose the big thing would be that the idea of a short form dramatic improv show would be that it would be a collection of short stories. Each with a beginning, middle and end, and in some way offer something thought provoking, a twist, or examples of heightened moments that focus on big moments or dramatic or controversial themes that comedic improv dare not tread on.
When it comes to long form improv, I suppose all this would also apply, but probably it is the case that dramatic improv is more suited to long form than short form. Long form gives a performer more time with a character, and more time to explore relationships and serious themes than what short form could offer. If you look at themes such as grief, loss of innocence or becoming a parent, it may be harder to do these justice within a scene that is one and done and moved on from within three minutes. A whole play gives you time to explore these aspects of a character within the broader sense of a whole character where we may see who a person deals with grief whilst also maintaining a day job to support their family, and has to take on a happy facade to keep up appearances elsewhere in their life.
I think a big difference between comedic and dramatic improv is that the story with dramatic improv will usually need to feel something more in depth or important that what you may sometimes get in comedy. Of course, in comedic improv, you can have very big themes such as quests to save the world, winning back your love and solving bank heists, all of which sound dramatic. You do also have whole comedic improv shows based on things that initially sound frivolous, such as doing your taxes, the surprise birthday party and my mother is turning into a moose. With the moose suggestion, if you got that for a dramatic improv show, I guess you’d be starting off from a position that would be hard to avoid the temptation of comedy.
Imagine if you had a very serious approach to a suggestion that sounds silly. I think you’d find the more serious you tried to play something as absurd as a person transforming into a moose, the funnier it would be.
Another big challenge when it comes to dramatic improv is that you will all have to continuously work together to ensure that continuity is tightly maintained, and that things stay grounded. In comedy, you can get away with so much that I don’t feel you could in something that is supposed to be serious.
I’ve often commented that the TV sitcom Red Dwarf has such bad continuity between episodes that I have come to consider in my own mind that every episode is set within its own universe. I continually forgive its lack of consistency because it’s both science fiction and because it’s meant to be funny and I just consider that they don’t allow something like continuity get in the way of a good joke here or there.
On the flip side if you take something that isn’t supposed to be comedy, such as the Harry Potter franchise, and look at when they break continuity, and the fans go crazy at the lack of attention to detail. An example being what it did over the age of the character McGonagall in the Fantastic Beasts prequel films.
If dramatic improv is to be taken seriously, the performers in it have a harder task in protecting its status as dramatic improv. This comes down to maintaining a tone, building characters and story beats, and making sure there is still intrigue.
I think a mistake people make is thinking that dramatic improv has to be so serious and slow paced just to make sure the audience don’t expect it to be funny.
What are your thoughts on the world of dramatic improv? Let me know in the comments.
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Want to learn improv skills? You should check out the range of improv books from David Pustansky, who is the author of the popular Extreme Improv Big Book of Improv Games series of books. Available worldwide on Amazon and Kindle, you can find links to the books here
