Like each other
Jay Sukow, and teachers in the past, always say to me “like each other.” Even if the characters are sworn enemies, you like each other. When I was a young improvisor, I would have chalked this up as utter nonsense. What’s the fun in that? How can a scene have meaning if people are happy with each other?
These days I take this advice as gold.
One thing that took me the longest to realize is that improv does not need conflict. Thousands of hours I’ve spent wasting on inventing made-up conflicts between characters. It was totally unnecessary.
Look at this non-conflict scene:
Copenhagen 2017.
A young man (Stefan Pagels Andersen) and his dad (Jay Sukow).
The young man comes house with the biggest guilty face.
Son : “Dad, can I move back in?”
The audience waits for a rejection line (conflict!).Dad : “Sure!”
It was the biggest applause of the night.
But… conflict works, right? Isn’t conflict the basis of good theatre or film? Yes! But traditional theatre and film are not improv. Improv is a different beast, it’s not about finding solutions.
Conflicts in the world of scripts are essential — it is setting up a problem so complex, that the audience can’t imagine the solution. The scriptwriters can reveal their plan slowly, to the audience’s delight. But improv has no plan. Improv is already interesting without two people in conflict. Nobody knows where the scene goes next, that’s where the tension comes from.
At times we create conflict because we are scared. We are scared that the scene is moving forward faster than we can control. We don’t know where it is heading. So we waffle and try to slow it down — under the guise of conflict, because that is “good drama”. From the simple “I don’t have enough money for this transaction” to the veiled “I don’t like you, because if I like you, then we have to do stuff.”
Liking each other is just fun. And easy. They get to do stuff they want to do! Hating each other is difficult. It builds up fake energy in an instant but it sucks up energy in the long run. If two people hate each other so much, why are they together anyway? Then you would have to think — invent, work — of reasons why one of them doesn’t leave the room. (Jay’s tip: if your partner wants you to leave, just leave!)
Enemies liking each other is comedy. Friends disliking each other is drama.
Liking each other is a comedy template — it’s (a) the “odd couple” scenario (where a device is used to stick at-odds characters together and the comedy builds as they gradually like other) or (b) the “peas in a pod” friends (they really like each other). The latter is like Dumb & Dumber — an overused reference in improv classes, because it’s like, d’uh, obvious example. But the nuances are lost in Dumb & Dumber because the nature of the film is absurdly jokey. Liking is already funny.
Here’s something subtler. Look at two of my favorite films with more similar tones: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Trainspotting.
Both are funny in their way. But Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a comedy. Trainspotting is a drama.
Lock Stock is four guys, bumblingly incompetent criminal wannabes, who like each other. Even if one of them does something stupid like lose £500,000 in a card game, it never really raises conflict between them. Instead they plan heists together even though they are newbies at crime. There’s a certain funniness in that they like each other even though this relationship is not good for them.
Trainspotting, on the other hand, are four proclaimed mates who share their junkie lifestyle. But there’s a sense that their togetherness is more a matter of convenience than actually liking each other. And as the plot moves on, it’s becoming more certain that this unlikeableness particularly of Begbie (Robert Carlyle) grew so much that this relationship is too toxic and untenable for Renton (Ewan McGregor) to move on with his life. This creates good drama, but it’s emotionally draining.
That made no sense. But hey, I’ve managed to sneak in two of my favorite films. You can pick a fight with me, but I will still like you.
Dedicated to Ronald Harvey.