We are taught, correctly, to support our teammates onstage, and off. Even if the reasoning behind their choice might not be clear to us in the moment, we are taught to embrace it, add to it, and make that choice the best version of itself it can be.
Sometimes this seems impossible.
You will be in a scene, and your partner will say something that seems crazy. Something that stops the show dead. Something inappropriate.
Inappropriate. This word covers a lot of things, and we can disagree about what those things are, but anyone who has seen a few improv shows will know what “inappropriate” feels like.
You will look at your partner, who you know to be a decent person, and you will think, “How could you say something like that? What kind of person are you?”
Let’s assume that this isn’t a pattern. Your partner is not a creep. And yet, there you both are, in the scene, dealing with the choice they made.
This is a good time to be kind – and to remember that someday you will be the one who made the terrible choice.
Most of us do our best to honor the audience and their teammates with the choices we make onstage. We try not to be mean, or obvious, or crude. We want to delight the people around us and surprise them, and astound them if all goes well.
Sometimes all will not go well.
In order to surprise people, you’ll need to take risks. You will need to reach blindly into the dark corners of your mind for an idea. You’ll need to make the non-obvious choice.
Sometimes you will be wrong.
You will discover that you have lost the audience. You expected laughter and were met with silence (or shocked gasps).
At this point, your job is to figure out what happened, and then make it right. Perhaps your character needs to die a painful and humiliating death. Maybe your next character should have the opposite worldview of the character you’re playing now. It might be that you need to turn out and monologue a bit to provide some context. Pick a solution, and get to work.
If you are lucky, your teammates will respond with kindness and will help you win back your audience. They’ll help you because they know that you will help them when it’s their turn.
http://www.halfcircleofdeath.com/2018/05/30/it-will-happen-to-you-someday/
