Once upon a time, our hero was in an Improv show. In this show, a call went forth from the audience for "Molière" as a style for a scene. Not knowing Molière from a hole in the ground, our hero was want to not participate directly in the scene, but as no one else dove onto stage in the blackness, he did what any brave Improviser would do and said "Tell me something about Molière." The sentence he got in reply was "Rhyming couplets." So, armed with this knowledge, he dove onto stage and proceeded to do a scene (into which someone else eventually entered) that made the audience laugh even though it was more Seussian than Molière.
The problem occurs post show, when the audience was departing the theater and thanking the cast, and being thanked by the cast. Our hero's post show glow was shattered by someone saying quite bluntly that the "Molière scene" was totally wrong. Completely, totally wrong. The inadvertent tongue lashing made our hero feel pretty dumb... and while he's by no means a rocket scientist (gave that up for performing), he's not dumb. But feeling that way is a sure fire way to get him to clam up and get super-duper pissy.
Since then, however, whenever specific genres or authors are dictated for a scene, the ghost of "Completely, totally wrong" comes back and causes a total brain lockup. The cerebral cortex filter kicks into afterburner overdrive and completely shuts down all communication to the cerebellum, rendering our hero about as Improv savvy as over-buttered toast. Which is why, at tonight's rehearsal, what started out as a swimmingly fun night quickly came to a screeching over-buttered toast halt. Our hero felt dumb, and once that happens, it's all down hill.
me
L'Imposteur
Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing...
One doesn't become extraordinary-one decides to accomplish extraordinary things.
- Failing to be Fearless
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clayrobeson- February 11th, 2010
2010-02-11 12:05 pm (UTC)
It doesn't matter if you "got it totally wrong." You were up there, entertaining, without a net, doing somethign that 99% of your audience would never dare to do.
If Captain Moliere really wanted an accurate Moliere scene, when you asked for info about him, he should have steped up and supplied you with his dissertation on the subject.
Find out where the guy works, show up and then tell him that he's making all of his split second, spur of the moment decisions "totally wrong" and see how HE likes it.
He's a douche. Let it go. His comment is like milk off a duck's back.
2010-02-11 02:24 pm (UTC)
Also, Molière sucks.
2010-02-11 03:31 pm (UTC)
Any over-educated pretentious (in San Francisco? What?!) poncy douchebag who throws out "Molière" as a fucking suggestion at an improv show deserves what he or she gets. Remember my first show with the Jesters that got the extreme audible gasp from the audience? Suggestion: roses. My opening
salvoline: "Guns 'N' Roses fuckin' SUCKS." Which is the direction I would have taken it. Or "Mo-lay really pumps my nads..." (Shout-out to Judd Nelson, whut-whut!)Get out of your head. They had no right to do that. I say again, fuck that noise. Be you. You're a zillion kinds of awesome.
2010-02-11 03:41 pm (UTC)
I'm trying to work through why this is happening in my head. I *KNOW* what I should be doing, and how it should be working, but getting that to actually happen is a totally different story.
But it's the exact same reason why I have karaoke issues... I'm afraid of fucking up the established framework, so I hesitate.
2010-02-11 05:21 pm (UTC)
You know how computer geeks really hate it when movies get computers wrong? Yet all movies get computers wrong? Doctors hate it when TV gets medicine wrong?
Improv is going to be like that whenever an audience member is an expert on a subject and the cast is not. As experts, we often can't see past our own fluency in the subject.
2010-02-11 08:23 pm (UTC)
And you had some fun, until someone harshed on it! poo on them, you were doing the job to the best of your ability. I know you'll figure out how to get past this one :D
2010-02-11 09:37 pm (UTC)
2010-02-12 06:54 pm (UTC)
If some audience putz says, you got it "completely, totally wrong," a better response and a healthier mindset can be, "Quite probably, but 39 of the 40 people in the audience laughed, and I had a LOT of fun with it, too. So I'll take the double win. Oh, and thanks for giving me a realllllly good challenge. G'night."
So in a sense, his crude comment could actually be a gift.
2010-02-12 11:09 pm (UTC)
I've always had issue with trying to do playwrights, because I just don't KNOW them that well. I didn't study drama, and it seems that everyone in Un-Scripted has more of an educated theater background than I do. This, for me, became the proverbial "I'll do this, and I'll get through this, and I'll be one step closer to being cool with doing playwrights."
But it didn't work out that way. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I understand all the "you could look at it this way"s but truth be told, it just made me less confident, and nothing is going to change that till I get off my ass and do something about it.