A trick I have often seen improvisers miss is the importance of the location a scene is taking place in. This may be that the performers are stood putting too much thought into what is being said or the reaction of their scene partner, and placing these aspects into a bubble, or it may be that the performers don’t see the potential and value of the location to the scene.
Context is king, and when training as an actor, one of the first ideas you’ll likely come across are Stanislavski’s questions. There are variations of these, but very frequently, these begin with the idea of where am I? and when am I? as well as things such as who you are, how old you, who is the other person etc etc.
I’ve so frequently seen improv scenes where the where and when am I questions don’t appear to be asked by the performers and as such as an audience we don’t get those answers.
Now, does this always matter? If you have a scene that is about two people discussing a divorce, or a group of people facing the end of the world together, does it really matter if the scene takes place in a supermarket?
More often than not, I’d actually say yes. Of course, the drama of the relationship between characters is more likely paramount in the former scene, and the reality of facing an untimely death is more important in the latter. But what would changing the scene do to change the story and the way the scenes are presented?
Imagine a scene about two characters getting a divorce, and now in your minds imagine how the exchange between the characters would change if it took place in a supermarket vs in a night club or at someone else’s wedding. The location and scenario where the scene unfolds would change how the people react. You behave differently if you are behind closed doors with someone vs if you are out in public.
The location is important.
So, what can you do within improv to make the location important? Wouldn’t anything you say to establish the location just end up as clumsy exposition?
Maybe, but it doesn’t have to. Learning to slip in information in natural ways can feel a bit pointless in ways, as you arguably, keeping the focus on the relationship would be akin to trimming the fat and just keeping the important meat on the bone.
But, I’d say this approach is somewhat naive. I think a lot of improvisers who are in a scene that is heavily focussed on the dynamics of a relationship can find themselves overly focused on this to their detriment.
By establishing things such as a location, or time period it gives you choice and options. The dynamic of an relationship will be different in a different setting, and it just gives you more options of things to play with.
Sometimes performers will take scenes around in circles because they haven’t established enough things to allow scenes to naturally evolve. Instead, they just continue to hook onto the few elements they have. Giving your scene a definite location means you have the choice to include things that make the location unique. At a school the characters may talk different or moderate their behaviour. At a theme park you could include the element that the environment you are in is crowded and noisy. In a night club you have the idea that if characters have too big an argument that they may be thrown out by security.
Location is important. It changes the rules of any interaction compared to if a scene was set somewhere else.
Don’t ignore this important aspect and tool you have to build scenes.
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