rules of improv

I was watching the show Celebrity Apprentice last week (artificially created, overly dramatic reality tv, I know, but it has its moments) and on that particular episode the teams had to perform in an improv puppet show (for adults) with members of The Jim Henson Company. Interesting stuff. The cameras followed the team through puppet-making, improv lessons, and learning how to be part of a live show. Of course, the most fascinating part for me was seeing professionals (and amateurs) do improvisational theatre.

The rules of improv are pretty simple.  Don't think up a scene ahead of time; instead, be in the moment and react to what is happening. You don't have to be funny; place the emphasis on creating an interesting scene and a consistent character; funny will follow. Be specific and avoid open-ended questions which add nothing; vague questions end up putting the burden on your team members to carry the scene.  Make your team members look good; this invariably makes the whole scene better. But the NUMBER ONE RULE in improv is the rule of YES (and). Basically, it means that you never deny any situation or information that comes your way. Your response is always "YES, and....."  After you accept the situation, you add more information to it and build the scene.

For example, if a fellow actor says, "Your shirt is ugly," your first instinct might be to deny it by saying, "No, it isn't. I think it looks fine!" But if you follow the first rule of improv, you might respond with "Yes, I know. I lost my luggage when I landed in Vegas last night so I pulled this out of the lost and found box at the hotel's front desk."  Which story sounds more interesting?  The Yes scenario or the No scenario? Denying the situation suggested by the audience or contradicting what your fellow players bring to the scene not only shows disrespect for their ideas, but it brings confusion, undermines the integrity of the story, and most importantly, erodes trust.

Some of my reading this past term has been on the theodramatic theory of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Basically, he uses the model of drama as a way of explaining and illuminating the story of God engages with the world. In many ways, the rules of improv are very applicable here, especially the rule of YES. Balthasar positions our YES in the context of divine freedom: “Only after God has uttered his absolute Yes to man can man utter his absolute No to God: genuine atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon. This wide range in freedom, from a full human Yes and (at least the intention of) a full No, brings the tension of theo-drama to its peak." [1] In effect, Balthasar is saying that our freedom to say Yes or No is a result of God's free choice to say Yes to us. God is the ultimate improv artist! When we say Yes it means that we want to engage in his story. Yes is a response that demonstrates trust. Yes means I am a team player. Yes is the only way to move the scene (my life) forward in a cohesive way. Yes means I am committed to being a responder instead of pushing my own agenda. Yes means I have not pre-written my life's script, but am willing to take what is given to me and make something out of it. Yes means that I am the invited, not the author.

But don't forget the "and!" After the Yes, I am free to add what my character naturally brings to the story. It is necessary and integral to history that I add my "and." It determines the specifics of how the larger story will proceed.  It is what can make a whole scene come alive.  It is life in the beautiful here and now, this moment.

[1] Hans Urs von Balthasar. Theo-Drama, volume 2. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 123-24.

the photo: me posing in a cutout at the movie theatre. I denied this guy.

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ Consider but a sampling o

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim

outWORD by Matte Downey

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Names of God

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

comedic timing