VIII - Alive and kicking
Exploring London's cemeteries and navigating improv's bittersweet dilemmas!
I’m pinching myself to check if I’m dreaming or there’s actually good weather in London. Those past days have been quite nice, ideal to walk and visit all those places still on the bucket list.
There are many gorgeous Victorian cemeteries in London, I’ve been to a couple of them, but I finally took the chance to go to Highgate Cemetery, stumbling into the graves of Karl Marx ✊🏻 and Douglas Adams 🚀. It’s cliché, but wandering among tombstones of the 19th century, overtaken by nature, really makes you think and puts things on perspective.
Do I want a grave? What should I put in my tombstone? My Steam profile card maybe? Are we really alive or are we a simulation? Aaah, well, we’ll cross the underwold bridge when we get there.
Happy pride month, by the way! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
🧠 The Improv bit of existential crisis
This week, I’m going to use this bit to share a personal concern, so I inviting you to be my therapist.
Sometimes I feel bitter because I’m not doing improv all the time, because I don’t push myself to go as many shows as possible or travel to more festivals. It’s annoying feeling like that. I mean, I consider myself lucky enough to professionally perform and facilitate, so I don’t have the same itch of stage time that people who do improv outside work has. Hence, at the end of the day, I enjoy spending time at home with my family instead of hitting improv venues. On the other hand, I feel I’m losing chances of networking and discovery of fresh perspectives.
I’d would like to hear or read from professional or avid improvisers that might have had those thoughts creeping in their minds. Pints on me.
🪑 A Playback Theatre (PT) tip
The other day I was thinking about the importance of attunement in PT. Playback actors have to “read the room” when listening to the sharing of the teller. For sure, some feelings and emotions might come up during the interview, but it’s on the actor’s hands to bring up those emotions, during the reenactment, just with the right intensity.
A newcomer to playback might feel inclined to make sure they got the emotion and it’s shown in the reenactment by overexpressing, making the teller feel disconnected. For example, “Well, I was angry but not that angry”, is something a teller might say during the conductors check after the piece.
So, make sure you listen properly and catch all the nuances!
🎭 The Theatre bit
Until the 15th of June, in London, the Shubbak Festival is taking place. The other day we went to see the play Return to Palestine, a collective piece directed by Micaela Miranda with members of the Palestinian troupe The Freedom Theatre.
The play tells the story of Jad, an American born Palestinian, who wants to get in touch with his roots. Using humour, we get a piece of the Palestinian culture and struggle.
Heavily relying on physical theatre, six actors build absolute everything, from characters to objects, on a very small white rectangle symbolising the confinement of Palestinian people in their own land, showing that even a tiny stage in a large room is enough to create art.
🗣️ Shout-out
The Robin Hood Improv festival workshops are open to book. The festival will take place from the 3rd to the 7th of September and I will mingling around. Check it out.
📆 What is coming up
This Saturday, 7th of June, I’m going to be playing again with Shuffle at the Hoopla Pre-Party at The Miller, near London Bridge. Get your tickets.
This Sunday, 8th of June, don’t miss London Playback Theatre at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. Get your tickets.
Acaprov’s usual monthly performance at Shoreditch Balls is getting close! On Friday the 13th you will have another chance to witness an a capella musical theatre piece created from thin air. Get your tickets.
📚 🎮 🎥 📺 The geeky dessert
I’ve said it before, but there’s so many good stories people are missing out on because of the type of media. Interactive narrative games are the contemporary counterpart of the “Choose your own adventure” books. While the american company Telltale Games consolidated this genre in the 2010s with critically acclaimed stories based on several popular franchises, I really enjoyed the original take on the genre of the Life is Strange series.
From a magical realism perspective (there’s almost always someone with unusual powers), the series tackles many kind of issues that led toxic gamers to label them as woke. Coming out of age, LGTBQIA+, mental health, violence, racism, class conciousness… those are themes we can find within these games.
Last week I finished my replay of Life is Strange 2, focusing on two brothers with Mexican heritage trying to get to Mexico after an incident due to police brutality.
At the moment of writing this, I’m going through Life is Strange True Colors, which I’m experiencing it for the first time while enjoying it.
✨ That’s all folks ✨
Thanks for reading Playing Back an Improvised Life, a newsletter by Ferran Luengo.
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Ferran Luengo