Abudhabiabudhabiabudhabi!

This was the chorus to the song the little Australian girl sang on the flight from Dublin to Abu Dhabi (“abudhabiabudhabiabudhabi!”).  Her commitment was impressive, and I admired her persistence even when her mom, who laughed at first, asked her to stop.  Maybe her mom didn’t have faith in the fact that something that is repeated to the point of irritation will, eventually, become funny again on a whole new level.  The Abu Dhabi song did come to an end, but we’ll never know if it had the legs to emerge as a fully embodied bit, one of those jokes that never ends and only become funny because of its endlessness.  Oh, well.

Now I’m waiting for the flight to Islamabad.  A theme emerged over the course of the flight.  Here are two illustrations:

And this:

The Bob Woodward book speaks for itself.  I’ve heard more than a few people call our current president an “improviser.” He refers to himself as such.  It’s clear from all accounts that he is impulsive.  He is not, however, an improviser. I’ve said this before: improvisers serve the scene and aspire to make each other look good.  They accept the gifts of the moment.  They try to keep their egos in check because their focus is on discovering and exploring relationships.   And, yes, most of us feel fear on stage–or before we step out on stage–but if we’re decent improvisers (in all senses of the word) we don’t use fear to intimidate our scene partners and to dominate the show.  Intimidation is a fearful stance.  It kills most possibilities.  It’s violent and depressing.  Enough.

Here’s the second theme, posted again because words can’t do it justice:

This is an ad for a “Nuclear-Hardened Bunker [offering] Full Luxury Resort Living”  that was in the Etihad flight magazine. There seems to be a problem with priorities here.  I laughed, grimly, but after reading Fear with all its revelations of tweet-jousting and crass indifference to a nuclear holocaust this didn’t seem all that funny. The constant drumbeat of aggression and grievance and retaliation is exhausting. Naturally, I thought of Joni Mitchell and her prophetic song “The Three Great Stimulants.”  Some lyrics from the chorus:

Call for the three great stimulants of the exhausted ones/Artifice, Brutality, and Innocence.

This may be a stretch, but I did think about improv and these three stimulants, how each contributes to sickly and shallow scenes. One of the wonders of improvising is that we get to discover alternate realities in the moment (I’m too-often a pirate in scenes, but in real life I get sea sick quickly).  It is “artificial.” Our scenes do require artifice if we’re going to step out of our daily lives.  But improv isn’t based on lies.  I had a beginning student who was a good  improviser and always said, “I love to come to class because I get to lie.”  This rankled me because I don’t see real improv as “lying,” and I had a hard time convincing her that good improv is based on being truthful.  You have to be true to the moment, true to the emotions that emerge from the relationship, true to the game.  This isn’t just hair-splitting.  When we “pretend” on stage it comes across as false and embarrassing. Everyone knows we don’t mean what we’re saying, and to ask people to swallow lies is insulting. The audience may laugh at us, but they won’t laugh with us, and so we’re just creating more separation, more division, more exhaustion. We need to honor the emotion that is happening in that moment, just like the Australian three-year-old who committed to the Abu Dhabi song. It’s a real experience.

Improv isn’t about hoodwinking your audience or your scene partner. If you want to do that, you may as well apply for a position at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

As for “brutality” and “innocence,” well, this came to mind: leave your violence and disrespect at the door.  Improv can be a projective test on stage.  What we’re dealing with in our personal lives tends to inform what we do in our scenes (again,  not artifice).  I’m sure I’ve taken out my anger on a scene mate or two (or three) in the 29 years I’ve been improvising, and I’m ashamed of this. One of the reasons I keep the improvisational mindset at the forefront of my classes and (I hope) in my performances is that this mindset diffuses brutality.  The improv mindset is based on curiosity and deep listening, being with another person in as supportive a way as possible.  We’re responsible for what we bring to the stage, for being deeply present, and if we proclaim innocence (thank you, Joni Mitchell) as a way to bully our cast mates and get away with bad behavior, then we’re missing the point entirely.

This is ponderous.  Look!

And now I’m back in Islamabad, happy to be here and feeling excited (and fearful) about the upcoming workshops I’ll be conducting.   This headline greeted me when I stumbled downstairs for breakfast.  I hope it’s not prophetic like Joni Mitchell.  Time will tell.