You are born alone, you die alone and you manually enter your credit-card details into the comedy-school website alone. That’s what I told myself when, shortly after my 27th birthday, I signed up for an improv class.
I had been feeling anxious and indecisive. It leaked out of me in different ways: I spent nights clobbering myself for past mistakes. When asked to speak publicly, at panels or literary readings, I would subject myself to a grueling preparation, practicing until the words dissolved in my mouth. Around me, my closest companions were getting engaged, moving to other countries, progressing in their careers, while I was so afraid of making a mistake that would damage my future irreparably that I couldn’t choose between chicken or shrimp at lunch. If all the world’s a stage, then I had stage fright.
My friends suggested therapy, but my insurance didn’t cover it. I decided on improv — modern comedic improvisational theater, which happened to be developed around the same time as exposure therapy. What better way to get over decision paralysis than total immersion, squaring off with the unknown for three hours a week? It wasn’t doctor-ordered, but self-prescribed. The thing was, I had never particularly enjoyed improv. I often found it unfunny. And I held the snooty writer’s belief that if you were going to inflict your work on others, you had better sit yourself down and edit. But maybe the real fear was simpler: What if I couldn’t hack it?
I signed up for a beginner course that ran eight weeks. I had recently started a full-time job, so the only time slot I could manage was 7 to 10 on Monday nights, during the coldest New York winter in eight years. As I walked to SoHo, where the class was held, I felt sweat seeping through my socks. I realized I was voluntarily stepping into the very maw of humiliation. The class was on the second floor of an icy Italianate office building, and the room had padded walls; there was no cellphone service. Our instructor, a veteran comic, was about 6-foot-3, far taller than the rest of us — imparting an instant feeling of submission.
He led us through a few games. Games in improv aren’t games in the traditional sense, because there is no possibility of winning. Some have names like “big booty” and “synchronized clapping.” Most remain nameless. An example: Two people gradually build a scene, using identities and locations and situations. First someone might say, “I’m a rat.” Then, “Well, I’m a chef.” Then: “I’m trying to escape,” followed by “And I’m trying to kill you.” Around the middle of the course, we were introduced to what was called the Game. Different improv schools have different teaching styles, but the Game is the heart of the practice: It is the conceit of a scene — the central intrigue, the organizing gimmick, the joke. And you have to find it. In order to do that, you must be completely present with your thoughts and those of your partner. Instead of trying to kill the rat, say, maybe you are apologizing to the rat because you didn’t mean to forget your anniversary. The Game is then that the rat and the chef are dating. This is a bad joke, sure — but the point is that being bad is better than being boring. Decisions are supposed to be quick — they propel you forward into more exciting decisions. You must always respond to your partner’s offerings with “Yes, and. … ”
Because of the late hours of the class, my troupe was largely made of people with busy days; they were recent divorcées, hospital workers, mothers. But who we were in the confines of reality was unimportant. One woman had absolute mastery over physical comedy, while another told us that she practiced accents in the mirror every night. Someone could do a Candace Owens impression on command, another was Dorothy Parker-quick. Every Monday, I dragged myself to improv, and every Monday night I skipped home, ribs aching from giggling.
Then came the holidays. I missed a class, then another, and another. I became convinced that I had simply missed too much improv to continue. I already was terrified of the expansive nothingness of our enterprise; now, suddenly, everybody else knew much more about that nothingness than I did. My traitorous mind offered the solution: Just quit. But I went anyway.
The class had indeed progressed from little games to proper scene work, but the instructor still called on me to do a scene. How could I possibly succeed, I thought, if I still didn’t really know how to do improv? Up there, with everyone watching, finally liberated from the idea of creating something good, I actually did. I quickly found the Game with my scene partner — which happened to be a vague impression of my mom trying to use A.I. I heard laughter, and then it was over. The instructor looked at me beatifically. He seemed to be saying with his eyes, knowingly, “You idiot, you’ve been doing improv this whole time.”
The reason you can’t win an improv game, I realized, is because there are no correct answers. The only time you fail is when you avoid making a decision at all. The wrong choices are often the funniest. It’s walking off the plank — after confronting your lifelong fear of drowning — and finding yourself in the kiddie pool. With improv, I shed the burden of expecting the universe to provide a perfect answer to my imperfect life. I’d have chicken for lunch today. Yes, and shrimp tomorrow.
Nicolaia Rips is a writer and editor from New York.
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