The Improvisation Book E-Book

John Abbott

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

A practical guide to conducting improvisation sessions, for teachers, directors and workshop leaders. The Improvisation Book takes you step-by-step, session-by-session through a graded series of improvisation exercises. Starting with the very first class, it adds a new element at each stage until even the most inhibited students have gained a full vocabulary of improvisational techniques. 'a veritable treasure trove... Abbott's book is of real value in the training of actors; I'm enthused and excited about putting it into practice' - ReviewsGate.com 'distils a lifetime of experience and is set out logically and practically so that would-be actors can build skills from the very simple to the remarkably complex' - British Theatre Guide

Leseprobe

John Abbott

THE IMPROVISATION BOOK

How to Conduct Successful Improvisation Sessions

NICK HERN BOOKS

Londonwww.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Dedication

Author’s Note

Introduction

  1     Trusting Yourself

  2     Trusting Others

  3     Being There

  4     Atmospheres

  5     Adjusting the Scenario

  6     Emotions

  7     Activities

  8     Objectives

  9     Character

10     Consolidation

11     Listening

12     Building Together

13     Releasing the Imagination

14     Re-incorporating

15     Incidents

16     Interruptions

Appendix 1: Warm-up Games and Exercises

Appendix 2: Preparing the Cards

Epilogue

About the Author

Copyright Information

For Jane

Author’s Note

IWORKED AS AN ACTOR FOR MOST OF MY LIFE IN ALL AREAS of the profession. At one time I was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and at another time I was the vicar in Emmerdale Farm. I still get royalties and fan mail for my appearance in four episodes of Doctor Who in the seventies and I spent twenty minutes in front of the camera filming a scene for Four Weddings and a Funeral.

A high point in my acting career was touring The Tempest with Mark Rylance’s company Phoebus Cart and a low point was having to quack like a duck to sell toilet cleaner on Dutch television. Between a mixed bag of professional jobs I have been involved in quite a lot of poorly paid artistic and/or experimental performance projects, a few of which could possibly have altered people’s theatrical expectations.

Then I gave up acting and started teaching. As ever, the elders of the tribe pass on their survival skills to the younger generation.

I would like to thank all the students I have ever taught for their energy and enthusiasm in my classes. I experimented with some bizarre prototype Improvisation Cards, and my students always tried to make them work – they were even positive about some of my less-successful home-made games and exercises. Thanks for that.

I would also like to thank Amanda Brennan because she was the one who said, ‘Come and teach Improvisation at the Kensington and Chelsea College’ when I had absolutely no experience.

And, of course, special thanks to Jane Harrison, without whom . . .

Then, if it wasn’t for Nick Hern, this book would have been a confused mess. Thanks for such detailed work, Nick (and for the grammar lesson). Thanks also to everyone else at Nick’s place for their different skills, particularly Matt Applewhite who has kept me focused and on track.

JOHN ABBOTT

Introduction

IFIRST BECAME AWARE OF THE POTENTIAL OF IMPROVISATION when I saw Dustin Hoffman in the film Midnight Cowboy. There he is with his full-flight characterisation of Ratso, hobbling down a street in New York, smoking a cigarette and jabbering his streetwise scripted lines very truthfully and animatedly to Jon Voight. This scene is filmed with a long lens – the type that is like a telescope and makes it look as if the actors are hardly moving towards you at all. In fact, the camera is so far away that the people on the street aren’t even aware that any filming is taking place. Suddenly, just as the two actors are crossing a side street, a yellow cab lurches into view and jams on its brakes to avoid hitting them. Without breaking concentration, Dustin Hoffman turns round and hits the bonnet of the cab; his cigarette flies out of his mouth; he gestures wildly and shouts, ‘Hey . . . I’m walkin’ here . . . I’m walkin’ here . . . Up yours, you sonofabitch.’ The cab driver starts to shout back at him and Hoffman yells, ‘You don’t talk to me that way . . . Get out of here.’ He then turns back to Jon Voight, grabs him by the arm to keep him walking and says, ‘Don’t worry about that . . . Actually, that ain’t a bad way to pick up insurance, you know.’ And they carry on down the street. It’s a magic moment, because the audience senses that something real has just happened and that they have observed uncontrived, unrestrained ‘life’, and it is exciting and stimulating.

The only film Dustin Hoffman had made before Midnight Cowboy was The Graduate in which he played a character in his early twenties. Dustin Hoffman was over thirty at the time, having spent ten years or so working in theatres in New York. Some of this theatre work had used explorative rehearsal techniques such as improvisation, so when he appeared to be nearly knocked down by that cab in Midnight Cowboy, rather than abandoning the shot, his improvisation skills clicked into place: he kept in character; he carried on talking; he made up his own script; and as a result the scene took on a new and unexpected life.

The ability to improvise allows the actor to stay ‘in the moment’ whatever might happen.

Of course, we have all become used to hearing improvised dialogue in films even if we aren’t aware of it. The technique was explored during the sixties and seventies by the American actor/director, John Cassavetes, in his low-budget, independently produced films like Faces, Shadows and , in which he often used improvisation to create dialogue. More recently, the British director Mike Leigh has constructed his films by using his actors’ improvisation skills to create characters, invent dialogue and explore relationships from which he – and they – ultimately construct a plot. He has created some outstanding work using this method, including , and .