Read Johnstone’s book, Impro. This book tells how improvisation is done. Once you really grasp the concepts of low and high status, you look for them everywhere. Seducing is something high does to low status, but rape is something low does to high status in an attempt to swap statuses.
Began training my own improvisational theater group, The Immediate Gratification Players, last night. Was amazingly and utterly impressed with the performance of people who have apparently never done improv before. I really am believing that it is a function of desire rather than so-called “ability.” If you want to improv, you can. That’s all. That’s my theory. We’ll see whether it stands.
In section we had to talk about an imagined piece of fruit that we studied. What a trip! Is this stuff really useful to us as actors? I can talk about a piece of fruit, sure. I can convince you that I actually have a piece of fruit. I can also convince you that I’m a Shakespearean actor, or a bum, or a dude from Texas examining fruit! So what’s the deal? What is being taught here? Ignore the world and concentrate on your fruit? Huh?
