{"id":432,"date":"2015-11-03T14:35:18","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T14:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/impro.org.uk\/?p=432"},"modified":"2017-07-28T17:05:21","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T16:05:21","slug":"the-improvisation-borderline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impro.org.uk\/the-improvisation-borderline\/","title":{"rendered":"The Improvisation Borderline"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Improvisation Borderline<\/h2>\n

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\"IMG_3638-1024x682\"What\u2019s the difference between a performance that is improvised and one that is not? It\u2019s the script, obviously. Yet actors quite rightly object to us supposing that their performances are fixed. Part of their art is to make any performance appear spontaneous. And, of course, if it is live, then it is \u2018in the moment\u2019 and in some sense unpredictable. It should (and will) seem to the audience as if the performance is freshly minted, as if these words and actions were occurring in this particular pattern for the first time.<\/p>\n

As audience members, we are thrilled to be caught up in the moment. It\u2019s an insult to say that an actor is \u2018phoning it in\u2019, that is as if they were not present in the room. But still, we all know too that the playwright wrote the script, that the director gave it a certain realised shape, and that the actors rehearsed (with the director, and maybe with the writer) to create the production, which is thus almost entirely predictable, evolving only through further incremental discovery as the run continues.<\/p>\n

In an improvised show, by contrast, there is typically no playwright, no script, no director and no rehearsal. For the audience, the excitement is partly seeing creativity in the moment, perhaps with acceptance of a bargain that there will be a greater messiness or lower production values. We are trading polish for excitement.<\/p>\n

At a subtle level, the improvisation question is not answered by the script, rehearsal or the repetition of circumstances, but by the application of immediacy, responsiveness and adaptation to whatever is new or challenging about the situation.<\/p>\n

Cheers, Paul<\/p>\n

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