The Non-Dilemma of Improv Characters

I have a big problem with the way improv is perceived in most communities. I may be walking on thin ice here bringing this up, but I have decided it’s time to share this. I’ll be eagerly waiting for all your passionate opinions (hate mails?) and I’ll gladly read them, learn from them, and then reply to them all.

So… When I first learned what improv is, I was already a theater practitioner, but I didn’t even know improv existed in this form. Naturally, I was looking at it from the lens of it being a theatrical art form. Now, what does that exactly mean in this context? Let me tell you. It means that there is this thing called theater to which people go to watch actors perform a play. For this to work, there were a few assumptions that have to exist on the parts of both the audience members as well as the creators and performers of the theater piece.

First, there was the suspension of disbelief; a non-verbal, non-binding agreement between the performers and audience members that basically says that the audience members will put their logic on pause during the time of the performance and they will not look at the actors as people standing on an elevated wooden platform in a dark room with other people looking at them. Instead they will believe that these actors are the characters they say they are (provided they do a good job, of course), they will believe they are in the locations they say they are, and they will believe they are doing what they say or show the audience they’re doing.

Second, and related to the suspension of disbelief, when the audience members believed that the actors are playing characters - just like when watching movies, for example - they believed that the actors are not representing their own ideas, values, beliefs, etc… In fact, it’s exactly the contrary of that. The multiple years of actor training, in the multiple schools/philosophies that each claim are the best are so that the actor is able to play characters that are as far away from who they are as possible. Even all the awards that actors receive in film or theater are constructed to praise how well an actor is able to play a character that is far from who he/she/they is/are.

And I approached improv with the same exact mentality. The only difference is that we were making up the characters, story, dialogue, directing, sound, music, lights,… on the spot. I started an improv troupe and organization in Beirut, got trained by some of the best improvisers in the world, performed non-stop for years and eventually I started training people on this same thing. And honestly, we were doing fine. Until, I decided to start touring with my shows and attend more and more festivals and trainings. (No. I am not going to say it. I am not going to say “until being ‘woke’ became the new way the white man relieved himself from years of accumulated guilt resulting from colonization, oppression, and other forms of discrimination”. I am not going to say it because I’m not that sophisticated or political. I am not going to say it because… well, because it is not true for everyone. I’d rather focus on what is true for everyone. So instead, I’m going to say…). For some reason, American and European improvisers started to become extremely worried about not appearing racist or discriminatory in any way on stage.

Of course, at first, I agreed with such a noble pursuit. However, it didn’t take long before I started noticing that this was starting to be at the expense of real characters that exist in life ceasing to exist in the stories we tell. I couldn’t understand how we could tell stories from real life, especially in the current world, without having racist characters, for example. I didn’t understand where the suspension of disbelief went. I didn’t understand why the audience might think that this is the actor being racist instead of knowing for sure that this is someone playing a character. I know what the nerdy improvisers in you are thinking (other than the arguments to defend what they think is an attack at their woke views. Really. It’s not. Humor me before you get all worked up); they’re thinking that improv is different. In improv, the line between who the improviser really is and the character they’re playing is blurry. Most improv groups address the audience - especially in the beginning of the show, but also throughout - as themselves. And then it becomes really difficult for the audience to keep switching their suspension of disbelief on and off. And that’s true. Unless you’re doing a good job in jumping into a character or unless you have a pretty clear… mmm… I’ll dare call it “ritual”… as you go in and out of characters. 

I am certain that you don’t think that I’m defending the real racists in the improv communities who just take their racism with them on stage. And I think you and I can both know very well when a person is being a racist or when they’re PLAYING a racist. The challenge is to translate that to an audience who doesn’t know the technique (getting that audience to improv shows, as opposed to improvisers watching other improvisers most of the time, is a totally different topic that I’m eager to reflect on in a different post). And the best way to address that challenge, I found out the hard and long way, is to actually be good (AND STAY GOOD) at the basics. Just good ol’ improv. I spent the remainder of my career until now training people on how to play politics on stage, how to play racists, how to play not being woke without losing all their audience and following. I found myself, no matter how hard I tried to reframe the lessons learned, reframing skills that help us be good improvisers. So if you’re a good improviser, you should be playing characters well. You should be telling stories well. You shouldn’t be worrying what a racist character is saying or who is playing which character. And if you’re playing good improv and telling your stories well and you still end up feeling that your story was racist or the audience feel that your are racist, then I think you are either really a racist and you chose to tell a racist story, or you didn’t do a good job in playing the characters or telling the story. For example, why didn’t people call Steven Spielberg or Ralph Fiennes racists after “Schindler’s List” was released? Or why was Edward Norton praised for the way he played Derek Vinyard after “American History X” was released? I can hear you resisting to answer “because we were not woke enough back then” and I am proud of you. I will be even prouder of you when I come to your next show and see you playing an asshole whom I viscerally hate on stage, while I actually love you when you’re… you.