The Congressional Impressionist

Sometimes my culturally conservative streak rears its head, and I get all huffy about the explicit language, sexuality and violence present in so much hip hop music.

Well, yesterday I came across the lyrics to “Candy Man Blues” written by Mississippi John Hurt in 1928, and I need to loosen up a little.

Well all you ladies gather ‘round
That good sweet candy man’s in town
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

He likes a stick of candy just nine inch long
He sells as fast a hog can chew his corn
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

All heard what sister Johnson said
She always takes a candy stick to bed
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

Don’t stand close to the candy man
He’ll leave a big candy stick in your hand
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

He sold some candy to sister Bad
The very next day she took all he had
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

If you try his candy, good friend of mine,
you sure will want it for a long long time
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

His stick candy don’t melt away
It just gets better, so the ladies say
It’s the candy man
It’s the candy man

We do so much improv from a skeptical, interrogative and questioning mindset. It’s not a mystery why. We’re told to “look for the unusual thing” and to ” play things real.” When things get weird, we’re told to ” justify” or sometimes even to “call it out.” These are all healthy things, but it leads to a lot of work where you choose not to know instead of choosing to know. It leads to scenes where you’re outside of it, not in it.

I feel like a few generations of improvisers here in NYC saw Curtis Gwinn say, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” in a show and get a massive laugh for it, so that became the standard approach. “What’s your deal?” “Why are you doing that?” “Are you an idiot?” I feel like we watched lines like these get strong reactions and missed how they’re really only setups, flare guns and markers to justify and make some game moves. Saying, “What the fuck is wrong with you!?” is like the visible tip of the iceberg.

You can choose to know what is going on without throwing justification or top-of-your- intelligence work out the window. Make the line, “What the fuck is wrong with you” internal - say it in your head - but then force yourself to use that reaction to generate a move. Just calling something out or reacting skeptically to something doesn’t become the move in and of itself. If it does, you’re outside of things. You’re waiting for some piece of information before you can become a part of the fun. That’s fine, but you don’t want to spend an entire scene in that mindset. You want to briefly have that skeptical reaction, add the information or justification you need, and then start playing.

Choose to know why things are happening, and make choices that satisfy the same justification/logic questions you’d ask as an audience member. In a recent Outlook of the Poet show, there were dozens and dozens of, “Whoa, hold on a second. What?” moments, but they were all instantly followed by a bold, clear choice and total acceptance by the group of that choice. Skepticism, criticism and an interrogative tone never became the move itself, but rather the signal there was something that needed attention.

I often see people play characters with big, but vague, unjustified behavior, or scenes with high energy, meaningless patterns. When I ask why that happened, the most common response is, “I assumed it would work itself out.” No! You have to choose to know. Someone has to make the choice. Someone has to take the “weird” thing and just make it recognizable, something everyone is on board with. It’s a muscle just like anything else. Simply do not allow your scene to progress without locking things down. Having a reaction like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” usually indicates there’s something that needs to be locked down so you can play with it.

No one wants to be the player who’s always external, always commenting, always sayings things are weird or messed up. It has an important role, but for some reason that approach has total dominance in a lot of the improv I see. If you’re a “What the fuck?” player that probably means you’ve got a good “unusual thing detector” built in, but now your challenge is to use your powers for good.

So go see a team like Roo Roo or Outlook of the Poet. Look for what comes after one of those aggressive, call out-ey lines instead of just paying attention to the line itself or the laugh it gets. At the same time, try some rehearsals where you keep the “What the fuck?” reaction inside your head and use it to get a smart justification into the scene you feel good about. Choose to know what’s going on. Be in it instead of staying outside of it and becoming the stick in the mud or the “unproductive straight man” - the guy who just calls things out or is skeptical/critical of everything without setting up actual game moves or moving the scene forward.

We all remember that first huge laugh we got by asking, “What the hell is going on?!” in a scene, but that’s a stand-alone laugh. Going in with a mindset that you know what the hell is going on can set up laughs throughout an entire show, and its a lot of fun, too.