Improv Nonsense: Accept Offers: Accusations/Complaints →
How about the very common case of a complaint or accusation? What if we see that as an offer?
Initiation: Bill, why are you so insistent to spend your whole paycheck on this meal? You need that money!
We discourage our beginning students from fighting, since it often stops the scene from moving…
I love this because it crystallizes, for me at least, the difference between fighting and quibbling, one of my favorite improv topics. Personally, I love fighting scenes, where two people have interesting but contradictory points of view. But most of what you see in indie shows and classes is not fighting but quibbling over the reality of the scene. Who said what to whom? Whose fault is it? What happened in the past, before this scene started, that might allow us to place blame on one character or the other? That’s quibbling, and it’s incredibly boring and frustrating to watch (and really, really unenjoyable to be a part of).
Accepting the offer of the accusation, however, can lead to genuine fighting, in which both improvisers adopt a rich point of view and stick to it. In Will’s example of the ideal response, you aren’t quibbling over the facts of the matter, you are accepting the accusation and making it your point of view. This allows you to ask, “If this is true, then what else is true?” Now you’ve both fully accepted the reality of the scene and adopted a distinct motivating philosophy. Now you can fight, and hopefully that leads you to a series of game moves that explore and heighten what’s funny about the fight (again, possible only if you accept the accusation and give yourself a point of view, rather than quibble over it and try to “justify” your actions as “normal,” thus robbing yourself of an interesting behavior/philosophy).
Maybe this is just me. But I’ve seen some hilarious scenes in which two improvisers are very clearly fighting. If you see a scene like that and ask yourself, How is this working when we’ve been taught that fighting is bad?, you’ll find that it’s because of what Will explains here. Similarly, I’ve been a part of some really awful scenes in which my scene partner and I were ostensibly “fighting,” and it’s because we were too timid to fully accept the accusations/complaints made against us. We were quibbling, rather than adopting a rich, fun point of view that allows us to ask, “If this is true, what else is true?”
Edited to add: You know, after thinking about it some more, I don’t think a scene can just be about verbal sparring. To fully accept the offer your scene partner is making, I think, you have to not just adopt it but live it. So, in Will’s example, you’re the type of person who loves food so much you’re willing to spend your entire paycheck on one meal. Think of what else that person would do and then do it. Don’t just talk about it. This is a trap I fall into CONSTANTLY. I have to remind myself to actually act the way I say I act. This still allows fighting; in fact, it’s a richer form of fighting, a heightened fighting, because it allows you to cause your scene partner direct pain and suffering, in the moment, and suffering, as Delaney often reminded us in his class, is at the root of comedy.
