XVII - Tips and tricks
Preparing for my Georgia trip, offering fresh improv tips, and tackling Playback Theatre basics.
Greetings, dear readers. You caught me preparing myself to travel to Batumi, Georgia, to attend the International Playback Theatre Camp. It is a country I’ve never been so I’m quite anxious about it, specially because there has been a bit of political turmoil in that nation lately.
Anyway I’m happy to be one of the aces in the poker of guest teachers this year there, and I’m looking forward to meet new playbackers and reconnect with others. Let’s see if I find time to write the newsletter! Hopefully. 🤞
Before diving in, I hope you are having a pleasant summer so far. 🙂
🧠 The Improv tip
Ideas are a double edged knife in improv. I’ve recently heard Jamie Moyer saying “People don’t go to improv to see your clever ideas, but your clever responses”. That statement is quite insightful. Of course, though, we need ideas. We need an egg to see the chicken.
That’s when the discovery comes along, of course, depending of what kind of improv we are doing. What I’m saying is that there are better floating devices, other than ideas, that will keep you from sinking when you decide to dive into a scene. Emotion, character, action and goal.
Emotion. Pick an emotion and just get on the stage. Definitely will create a substantial interaction with your scene partner. You will find out together what is going on. This is the easiest choice.
Character. Pick a voice, a body stance and commit to it during that scene. Not only you’ll have a strong persona to play with, but also it can lead to game of status. This is the option that might be the most underseen because requires a physical commitment that most improvisers, without acting training and/or big playfulness, are still struggling with.
Action. Just get on miming an action, an activity that you can sustain. That will contribute a lot to the world building on the scene.
Goal. Set a mental goal for your character. It can go from “I need to be touched on the shoulder” to “I want to be loved by my scene partner”. Those are a couple of examples, but there are infinite tasks that we can set for ourselves to find a drive and a purpose that will help you navigate the scene easier.
Now you know, don’t feel pressured to bring an idea into a scene. Just bring yourself.
🪑 The Playback Theatre tip
This week, I want to focus on the very basic Playback Theatre form of fluid sculptures. I’ll take this opportunity to address some of the common mistakes made by newcomers to playback.
For the non-playbackers in the audience, a fluid sculpture is a short form used to play back a brief sharing from the audience, which can be their current mood or a short anecdote about their day. It's built sequentially, as each actor, one by one, creates and loops an "offer" consisting of a repeating movement and sound, word, or short phrase that captures an element of the story, always from the tellers perspective.
As simple as it looks, there are very common mistakes that I’ve observed during my years of teaching playback. And, again, I’ve been there and I’ve done that. Here’s the top three.
Interacting with each other. Actors should build upon each other without ackowledging and interacting with the rest. Every single actor holds the teller perspective.
Hidding the face and/or adopting closed positions. This happens way more often than you can expect. The face is the mirror of the soul and the audience must see them. Actors’ bodies need to be open towards the audience, including their faces.
Orbiting the sculpture. Every now and then you find someone whose offer is to run or move in circles around the rest, becoming a focus for a sculpture they are not really part of. A sculpture should always feel strongly connected and needs to be able to be pictured on a pedestal.
There might be other minor things, but avoiding those three things can lead to a good text book fluid sculpture.
🎭 The Theatre bit
Last week I read Ultramarins (Overseas) from the Valencian author (yes, yet another one) Paco Zarzoso. Set in a little village by the sea, a father and his middle aged daughter, both travelling performers, stay at a boarding house where they meet a peddler. Through the relationship between this trio, we find a melancholic discourse about the purpose of life and the burden of decisions.
I’ve worked in a couple of productions with Paco and he’s such an inspiring playwright. Playful but sober, down to earth but oneiric, vulgar but poetic. Ultramarins is just one of the many pockets in the peculiar universe that is his brain.
📆 What is coming up
8th of August - ACAPROV (London, UK). The monthly a cappella improvised musical is getting close. Get your tickets!
9th of August - Stories That Shaped Us: A Playback Theatre performance (London, UK). True Heart Theatre will be listening the stories of the Hong Kong community in London. It’s going to be bilingual in English and Cantonese and it’s open to whoever wishes to attend. Information and tickets here.
3rd to 7th of September - Robin Hood International Improv Festival (Nottingham, UK). I’m looking foward to go back to Robin Hood’s city to enjoy five days of improv. I’ll enjoying some workshops, the shows and I’ll be in a couple of acts. Information and tickets here.
📚 🎮 🎥 📺 The geeky dessert
Lately, my gaming habits are quite nostalgic. I feel drawn to revisiting titles that I enjoyed during the past decade. To recall simpler times? Honestly, I don’t know. The last one to get the digital dust removed was Dead Space 2.
To be fair, it’s not a very long game and the pace is very well adjusted by the developers, the extinguished studio Visceral Games. The atmosphere and the sound design helps to build tension masterfully. Plus, praise to the sick minds designing the horrifying creatures.
Science fiction horror is a very niche genre that I absolutely love despite having me jumping on my butt and on the verge of constant anxiety attacks. The Dead Space titles are cult classics, at least the two first entries, that any fan of the genre must experience at least once.
✨ That’s all folks ✨
Thanks for reading Playing Back an Improvised Life, a newsletter by Ferran Luengo.
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Ferran Luengo