Improv Obsession

I’ve encouraged many people to consider taking improv classes. I think they do a lot of things to better people, and Will Hines just posted about one of them, Better Conversation. Enjoy.

improvnonsense:

Improv can make you funnier, will likely make you a better actor, and could maybe even get you work. But one thing it will definitely do is make you better at having conversations.

You listen better, you speak to the heart of the matter more, you lie less, you speak more concisely.

But also, you will be better because most of the human race is so unbelievably bad at conversations. After years in improv, I can barely stand speaking to anyone who either isn’t an improviser or is someone who would just naturally be good at it.

Most people, in conversation, speak solely about themselves, and in a way that matters only to themselves, with no ability to sympathize for the other conversational party may think or feel. They listen to other people only for opportunities to speak about things they want to and once they get going cannot be dissuaded. They speak inefficiently and amazingly redundantly. They rarely laugh at what’s funny and instead only at what makes them nervous or at recognizable references to famous things.

Improvisers do all these things too but less often and they know enough to feel badly about it.

A few months ago I was on a shoot and we broke for lunch. I sat with a group of people including one of the producers, meaning he’s in charge and is not answerable to anyone and that’s probably a position he’s usually in. Someone remarked that the plastic utensils we’d been given were a bit shoddy. He breaks in:

“You know, my wife was yelling at me the other day for stirring my soup with a knife.”

We look at him. Someone says “oh?”

“Yeah! She’s like! ‘Hey, what are you doing? You can’t do that?’” I’m like ‘Why not? It stirs, doesn’t it?’”

And it’s clearly some story he’s told before, and he’s locked into it. And maybe he’s nervous and he’s trying to be nice so he’s forcing in one of his anecdotes and if I think of that way it’s endearing. But I am an asshole and all I can think of is: That has nothing to do with the shoddiness of utensils, or of our lunch, or about us! It’s not that good a story and leaves everybody currently sitting with you out.

“You could scratch the bowl,” someone says. “That’s why it’s bad.”

He looked at them. “Right. But I said ‘Come on! What’s so bad about using a knife?’”

Which did not answer the point.  All I could think was how locked in he was — he could not recognize that someone had asked a question that essentially deflated his story and he didn’t seem in touch with how no one was really encouraging him to continue. In his own bubble, broadcasting like a radio station.

He also remarked that until he was 20 he had no idea that Piglet in the Pooh stories was a pig. I found that interesting and wondered how he could not know that.

“Wait, yes he does — he looks like a pig,” I said.

“No he doesn’t. He barely looks like a pig!” he said.

“Okay. But he’s named Piglet — the type of animal he is is in his name. That didn’t tell you?” I asked.

He responded “Well, like how do you know what Goofy is?”

Except that Goofy isn’t named “doggy,” that’s just a reference to a conversation in Stand By Me, and that doesn’t answer my pretty reasonable question, and… I mean, the guy wasn’t thinking about what he was saying, he wasn’t listening to what was being said. He just had a story and wanted to tell it and didn’t really want anyone thinking about it. What is the point of talking with people like this?

But he’s far more typical of people’s conversation —- and it’s what I run up against when teaching 101 and 201 improv courses. MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT THEY OR ANYONE ELSE IS ACTUALLY SAYING.

Once you throw in trying to be funny, it’s almost impossible for most people to make sense. My youngest brother Brian told me a story about being in an elevator in Las Vegas with a group of strangers:

One of them was a woman holding a large stack of souvenir cups, and another was a woman holding an ice cream cone. A third person said out loud to the first person “Hey, got enough cups?” and everyone kind of laughed. Okay, fine, fine.

But then a fourth, presumably idiotic, man, blurted out “Yeah, but SHE’S GOT THE ICE CREAM!” and pointed at the ice cream and laughed. The whole car burst out laughing. Except for my brother, who remained stone faced because being raised in our family had schooled him to be an alienated snob.

I know that by pointing this out I am a cold unfeeling jerk, but it makes no sense to point out that someone was holding ice cream. It did not follow; it was not a joke. But it was a noticeable and strange thing in the elevator, and for a hugely high number of human beings — pointing at weird things (or celebrity references) counts as humor.

When I heard that story, I shuddered with the idea that that guy will take an improv class and I’ll have to explain to him that most of what he is saying does not follow what his scene partner is saying, and he’ll walk away complaining that UCB focuses too much on game.

How many conversations do you have, out there in the real world, in which people finish an anecdote just by making a face and shrugging? Or ones in which someone makes their point using a non-committal phrase like “and you can imagine what THAT felt like!” or “so, needless to say I wasn’t too happy with THAT.” or “let’s just say things ended there.”

How about we just say… what actually happened? Or what you felt about it?

There are even worse problems when two strangers try to complain about the government together. Or try to speculate on what their local sports team is doing incorrectly. Or when they have to make an official quote on behalf of an organization. “Ideas were utilized in a way that let’s just say are going to leave things in a not bad way” or whatever.

Guys, it is difficult for me to maintain friendships.

Me too, Will Hines. Me too.