Kinda a weird headline, isn’t it? If a bee stings you, be stung. If you don’t already get what I mean by this, do read on, and allow me to elaborate. I promise you, very quickly, this will be advice that you’ll find very useful in the world of acting, and as especially for the focus of this article, which is improvisation.
I want you to imagine that you’re taking part in an improv scene, and the suggestion given by the audience is that you are performing a scene set at a picnic.
A picnic is most likely to happen in warmer weather, and a picnic is usually an outdoor activity. Something that is common when having picnics in the summer is that there may be the presence or risk of the presence of bugs. Ants, flies, beetles, ladybirds and in particular…bees. Bees stand out from the others, as generally speaking, the others are just annoying creatures that you don’t want to crawl or land on your food. Bees, however, pose a risk of injury to you.
Bees can sting you, and this sting can hurt, it can give some people allergic reactions, leave you with a lump, and perhaps a bee’s stinger stuck lodged in you, and be a really nasty experience. I, myself have been stung by bees twice in my life, and both times it really hurt and ruined my day.
So, why do I mention all this? And what does any of this have to do with improv, and how does this translate into useful advice in the world of improv and acting?
In acting, and in improvised acting, you may be familiar to the concept of ‘acting is reacting’. Your character receives some news. Your job is to demonstrate the reaction to this news. Another character says a line of dialogue to you. You have to demonstrate the response. But a big question as a performer is what should the responses be?
A great way to sum up an answer to that question is, if a bee stings you, be stung.
There are probably only five realistic options for how to react to a bee stinging you. These are:
Ouch!
Ouch followed by anger.
Ouch followed by tears.
Ouch followed by anger and tears and maybe panic in case you’re allergic to bee stings.
Ouch followed by an allergic reaction to the bee sting.
I list these in a jokey way, but it’s just to highlight that a bee sting pretty much leads to a universal response. Pain, followed by negative emotions. Here’s five examples of reactions I wouldn’t expect from someone who had been stung by a bee.
Giggling and saying ooh that tickles.
Gaining superhero bee powers.
Falling in love with the bee that stung you.
Being able to see a flashback of the bee’s life flashing before your eyes.
Starts singing the national anthem of the beehive people.
Now, some of you may read that and think these are all fun ideas of what you could don in an improv scene as a reaction to a bee sting. Sure, you could od these, and I’m sure you may get a few laughs for singing the bee national anthem, or by becoming Bee-Man, but that isn’t the point here.
The point is to respond to what your scene partner gives you.
If your scene partner happens to be a bee, and it stings you. Be stung.
If your scene partner is a person and the scenario is that they break up with you, react to that with something appropriate to what they gave you as well.
Be sad, be mad, be desperate, be jealous or suspicious. Your audience will understand these reactions. They may even relate to them.
If, however, your scene partner breaks up with you in the scene, and you react like you’re happy, or you don’t mind or indifferent to it, the audience will now need more explaining and exploration as to why you’re behaving that way.
It creates a disconnect.
Disconnects take your audience out of the scene. Disconnects put more pressure on your scene partner to feel out what the scene will now be about and how they can react to someone who doesn’t seem to react in a way that follows expected human behavioural patterns.
If your scene partner announces they got a new job or promotion, what are your options in how to respond?
Maybe you’re happy for them. Perhaps you’re jealous of their good fortune.
You’ll notice with each passing example, I’m making the options for how to react less obvious than a bee stinging you. Not every scenario is as cut and dry as the bee sting.
So, which direction do you pick when the answer isn’t as obvious? Are you pleased for their promotion, or are you jealous? Or what is option number three or four?
I’ll tell what the option shouldn’t be. They announce their promotion and so you start chopping down a tree…I mean, you could, but within the vacuum of what I’m describing of this scenario here, there would be no call for that action.
It would be a disconnect.
Doing scenes is often like a choose your own adventure novel. Something happens, and you have a choice or sometimes multiple choices to choose from. But there’s rarely unlimited options.
How about, if you’re playing a scene where you get stung by a bee, just start off, by being stung.
Do you have it in you, to react to the scenario of a bee stinging you, with something the audience would recognise as being a person stung by a bee?
Maybe.
I’m sure you’re thinking you could do that, but would you do that? And if you did that, how many people do you think you could convince that you’re actually going through the pain and suffering of an actual bee sting?
For some reason a lot of improvisers feel the need to make every given opportunity something weird and abstract.
I think some of this comes from a place of the idea that they have to choose an interesting option.
Others may fear that they cannot convincingly portray the most truthful response. Maybe acting in the way everyone would understand and relate to would be too exposing.
How many of us have watched a movie, and we’re immediately taken out of the story and the characters when they do something which we don’t believe a real person would do?
Why did they go alone in the haunted house? Why didn’t they call the police? Why would they cheat on their partner with the horrible person? Yeah, these things could happen, but for the most part, things like this are what make audience members question the characters, the plot, the script etc.
I’m not saying don’t ever choose the weird or abstract choice for the sake of making a scene quirky or funny. Do it. But not always.
And I’m not saying don’t play a character that would make different choices to what you would make in real life. Do play characters that make dumb choices. Play characters that make choices that are for plot convenience.
But also play a character that when they are stung by a bee, actually just gets stung. A character that gives a truthful response and reacts in a way that the audience can recognise.
In improv there are always a million choices you can make to react to your scene partner’s dialogue or actions, but many times less choices that will fit and make sense in the context.
Being able to react with truthful responses that the audience will be able to instantly understand and recognise is infinitely more challenging than being random for the sake of being random. I challenge you all, start off by practicing the art of reacting truthfully in your scenes.
Or to put it another way, if a bee stings you, be stung.
You can get loads more improv articles in the improv section of the site, and don’t forget to check out all our Extreme Improv videos on the Extreme Improv Xstreamed YouTube Channel and see Extreme Improv live on stage with all details on the Tickets page
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
