THE ENDING

I’ve royally screwed myself over with this title haven’t I?

Crap. Bluh. Ugh. 

Starting with THE ENDING establishes a number of things:

A) That I am indeed a wanker

B) That you will spend the entirety of this post wondering what THE ENDING is

C) That you will imagine an infinite number of your own wonderful endings to my story. None of which I have managed to think of

D) That you will be disappointed when I fail at reading your mind and write THE WRONG ENDING. Why Floyd why could you not just write what was fabulous in my mind!?

E) That you will inevitably return to just accepting what I established in A).

Perhaps I should have called the title of this post – WORD VOMIT. Then I could have just finished this blog with the coined phrase:  “Crap. Bluh. Ugh.” – quote from earlier.

Focusing on the ending or ‘end game’ could be the death of this blog post as well as my love and skill for comedy. I always approached creative projects with an endgame in mind. Whether it was to create a web series with the humble end game of MAKE ME FAMOUS ALREADY or getting into an improv scene thinking: THE AUDIENCE MUST LOVE ME AND THINK I’M FUNNY BY THE END. But it’s that desire, that insanity that prevents me from getting it or deserving it.

The classic rule for improv is to agree right from the top of the scene. Sounds easy right? Well the desire to be funny can make it impossibly hard.

For example - Last Saturday my friend Jack told me to get in the boat with him and take a trip down the river. I agreed, "Yes of course!" and happily leapt in with life jackets and snacks. We were good enough friends to comfortably talk for hours about relationships, feelings, food and a lack thereof. The end game? Oh I didn't really have one. Maybe just to make it back to land, have fun and not hate each other by the end of the trip.

This is how the scene would naturally play out in real life if I did have a boat or a friend called Jack to talk about feelings and food with. Sadly I don’t so thank god for improv! And no one would pay to see that real life version of the boat scene anyway right? So let’s see my stage version debut instead:

My friend with no name asks me if we should take a boat trip. I tell him NO I hate boats and throw snacks at his face. (Yay I’m different with a strong POV and taking action as my character early in the scene!) We talk about the snacks for a few minutes (I did just throw them after all so they must be integral to the scene.) I say to my friend with no name that we can’t even go on a boat because we don’t have life jackets and I am a safe person. (Oooo conflict is so interesting!!) He pulls out some life jackets and I tell him he’s just holding air. (HAHAHAHA) Crazy right? He is looking pretty funny right now! (LOL) The end game? (THE AUDIENCE MUST LOVE ME AND THINK I’M FUNNY BY THE END.)

Weird right? I just became a monster and threw a million rocks at my scene partner because I wanted to be funny on stage. The end game? My scene partner would now hate me forever. I would be destined to live without a boat and friend called Jack. (We should have named him in the scene *IMPROV ROOKIE ERROR*). Humans are naturally defensive so one of our first reflexes is to say NO.  Making myself unique and different made me feel safer when faced with vulnerability in scenes. My excellent POV in this example of hating boats would make me feel safe on stage because I never had to get on the fucking boat. But that is the point. Improv you have to get on the boat with your friend and work it out from there. The end game cannot be to be funny – it must be to have fun in the boat on stage. Maybe just eat your snacks and talk about something of what it is to be human. You might get more laughs that way and if nothing else you won’t have wasted a whole pack of perfectly delicious invisible snacks.  

Improv teaches you just how badly you want to throw those snacks at your friend and invent invisible problems with the boat, river, life jackets – anything to prevent you from having to be the same or say anything truthful on stage. I actually think saying yes at the top of a scene does something beautiful to your brain. For one you have to leave your ego behind and get on the boat with your friend. And just like in a conversation where we ‘yes and’ each other constantly we build something together that is funny, truthful and without an ending. The fall never has to amount to anything because the audience would happily watch two weirdos on a boat agree forever. 

I think the best part of comedy is jumping and not knowing where you will land. This trip taught me to have fun on stage again because technique is nothing without fantasy in your eyes and the pleasure to be an idiot. At clown school in Paris I would leap and land in shit but my fall was made funnier though Gaulier’s insulting narrations. In Improv I learnt you don’t have to land you just keep getting back on the boat, eating your snacks and following the fun because the end game is ...