BOOK REVIEW: The Ultimate Improv Book

The Ultimate Improv Book is terrible. It reads like a bad training video, one made by an alien culture that’s attempting to wrap its mind around this thing humans call “improv comedy.” I would love to excuse this book for attempting simplicity, but even high school students don’t deserve such childishness. There is no intelligent conversation to be had here and more than a few bizarre concepts that I find to be destructive.

Take for example the author’s insistence that “adding complications to an already problematic dilemma is a wonderful source of entertainment.” While any good improvisor should know to “up the stakes,” The Ultimate Improv Book thinks all scenes should be a derivative of a waiter stacking too much food on a tray. Keep adding problems, they insist! Keep adding characters! The book also flies in the face of almost everything I’ve ever read on literature, screenwriting, and improv scenework by telling us to never start in the middle. The chapter on Characterization takes only three pages and breathlessly simplifies important concepts to Walk Different, Talk Different, Be Extreme. No time for forming emotions, motivations, relationships. The authors also take a moment to say, “It is up to the player to lie to his audience. If he pretends to be happy and cheerful and smiles and looks like he is enjoying himself, then the audience will like him better.” Are we to assume all improvisors hate their work? There is something to be said about stage presence. This isn’t it.

But here’s the truly awful part of this book. The Ultimate Improv Book tells you to PLAN IMPROV SCENES! They actually suggest improv teams use a “huddle” to discuss scenes before they are performed and that its OK to agree upon the ending beforehand (though they casually say its OK to just plan the beginning too!). When not using the “huddle,” our teachers also suggest creating pre-planned scenes, or “Flag Scenes,” where audience suggestions are inserted like mad-libs into highly scripted plot lines. This is trash. This is not improv.

The only thing I can recommend about The Ultimate Improv Book is it's Appendix Six. It's a list of other improv books. Good improv books.

BOOK REVIEW: Improv-ise

Mick Napier's Improv-ise is for the improvisor who's heard the rules, tried all the games, and still feels like they need more. They've hit a rut and need new eyes to see with. It's an improv book packed with a lot of good notions about how to handle one's self in an improv scene, although, to really get into Improv-ise, you should have some knowledge of improv already.

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Why? Because Mick Napier's book is steeped in bitterness toward the way improv is currently being taught (ie: Truth in Comedy). He begins by listing all the familiar improv "rules" and immediately tells you to throw them out. The "rules," he says, are merely the left-brain trying to overanalyze the contents of a good scene. Thinking about all the do's and dont's will murder you in a scene, and there are easier ideas which will result in better scenework.

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Now, as you may have noticed, I only ever type "rules" in quotations. I agree with Napier a lot on this point, but I see the potential in new improvisors grasping the "rules" before moving on to deeper thinking. It's why I like Improv-ise as a supplementary book.

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If it's your first, second, third book, whatever, Improv-ise still contains some wonderful approaches to dealing with the actual mechanics of a scene. Napier teaches you how to take care of yourself at the top of a scene (a crucial moment), choose emotional states for your character, support your partner (...by supporting yourself), and how focusing on the how's of your choices instead of the why's can create a roadmap for your entire story. It's great stuff for anyone who's thinking, "I know I should say 'yes,' ...but what do I actually do?"

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The final chapters also discuss many advanced techniques (how to handle three person scenes, how to vary choices) and a lot of good tips for people seeking a future in improvisation (God help you, you wonderful fools!). If that's not enough, Napier also takes a moment to explain the Laws of Thermodynamics and how they pertain to an improv scene. It's fun stuff and a highly recommended read.

BOOK REVIEW: Impro for Storytellers

Impro for Storytellers is the somewhat less philosophical, more exercise oriented version of the first Impro. Many people prefer Storytellers, though I personally enjoy the theorizing of Impro better. Still, as it is a sprawling improv book (nearly 400 pages, ye gods!), there is a lot to benefit from this volume as well.

Reading Impro for Stortellers is a bit like being a fly on the wall of an improv workshop, but the teacher is secretly informing the fly of all his reasonings. This can be a great benfit to new improvisors hungry for lessons but nowhere to learn. Johnstone describes his students' pitfalls (pitfalls a newbie will certainly recognize in himself/herself) and gives straightforward lessons on how to break them free from their constraints. There are copious amounts of exercises described in this book, many familiar to all improvisors and several you may recognize as actual FNI games. Besides some extraneous information on how to handle Theatresports and run your own show, it's all useful information to new performers.

Chapters on "Storytelling" and "Making Things Happen" will be a great boon to those who can't wrap their minds around the ideas in Impro. There are many great lessons on opening up your mind and spicing up your stories. The chapter on "Character" is also very useful. Most improv books have tons to say about scenework but little on character, so Johnstone's discussions here will be great for anyone who wants to break free from themselves on stage. Some people may find these ideas a bit too "theater-y," which is silly considering improv is nothing but theater, but you should take a gander anyway.

Storytellers may be a better start and more digestible than Impro, but I highly recommend both if you wish to pursue improv further.

BOOK REVIEW: Impro

Keith Johnstone's two improv books (Impro and Impro for Storytellers) are a bit headier than the straight-forward Truth in Comedy. It's what you might expect from a man who wrote a play called Moby Dick, in which a sperm cell grows millions of times its size and escapes a fish bowl to wreck havoc on the highs seas. In Impro, Johnstone is chiefly concerned with bringing imagination back to the adult actor's mind.

He does this focusing on only four main points: 1) Status 2) Spontaneity 3) Narrative Skills 4) Masks. While a long book for only four chapters, Johnstone's copious examples and exercises create a rich understanding of each topic and can really go a long way to opening up your mind onstage. Here's the rough break down of each:

1. Status - Johnstone explains how knowing your character's place on the "pecking order" can generate ideas. Whether you are Master, Servant, or seesawing up and down the status ladder, being aware of how others affect you (and allowing yourself to be affected) can make creating characters and stories much easier.
2. Spontaneity - Knowing that there are no correct choices in improv. We spend way too much time in real life struggling against our imaginations, so when it comes to the stage, break free. Be obscene, be psychotic, and strangely enough...be obvious!
3. Narrative Skills - How a story isn't just a random collection of events, but a collection of ideas that reincorporate what has already been created. Johnstone also illustrates the principle that most stories are merely routines broken.
4. Masks - Usually the most derided chapter, Johnstone gives examples of how he uses masks to open up actors and make them make larger choices.

Impro is a philosophical book, but there are plenty of handy exercises within and copious food for thought. The chapter on Masks will seem irrelevant and 99% of you will never really get a chance to explore the ideas within, but I can tell you it's all true. While not as direct as Johnstone's examples, playing the puppeteer in "Bored Morticians" is pretty darn close to mask work. Having even that slight barrier between the character and myself has caused some insane ideas, so don't assume this chapter is completely worthless. Impro is a good next step book after you think you've gotten the "rules" down.

BOOK REVIEW: Truth in Comedy

(every week I'll be posting improv book reviews. as FNI is usually a starting out place for many performers, we want to showcase some helpful guides for those who want to learn how improvising really works)

Truth in Comedy is THE improv starter book, my young Padawan. If you have even an inkling for knowing more about improvisation, all the basic information you need is found in this slim, handy volume. As stated in the introduction:

"The simple, basic rules laid down in this book will result in much funnier, intelligent, and more interesting scenes. Deliberately trying to be funny or witty is a considerable drawback, and often leads to disaster. Honest responses are simpler and more effective. By the same token, making patterns and connections is much more important than making jokes."

In twelve simple chapters, Truth in Comedy lays the foundation of honesty, trust, agreement, staying in the moment, scene building, and pattern recognition that is the key to all improv comedy. Comedy in improv doesn't come from jokes (one-liners and word play) but from staying true to human relationships and the humor that comes from personal interactions. While Truth in Comedy teaches you to fly unfettered toward the unexpected, it shows that even the most bizarre scenes possible must be anchored in real emotions, wants, and needs.

Each chapter is highly organized with clear examples given to illustrate each point. Using actual improv scenes from workshops and shows, Charna Halpern fully describes the do's and don'ts allowing you to see how following the "rules" make a scene grow and how the pitfalls truly short-circuit creativity. Comedians like Mike Myers, Bill Murray, and Chris Farley are named dropped throughout, but it is the teachings and philosophy of Del Close that truly paint this book. He is man, the myth, the legend of improvisation and you will know by the end why he was dubbed co-author of this book.

You will also be introduced to the long-form improv game, "The Harold," in this volume. While you won't find the particulars of this game too useful at FNI, the lessons of support and team building used to create the Harold can certainly be transcribed to the simpler scenework seen on our stage. You might not need those last two chapters now, but don't avoid them either.

Let me put it this way: if you've bothered to take time out of your day to read an improv comedy blog, you need Truth in Comedy. Here's the Amazon link. Scared of internet demons? Just go to the college bookstore and ask them to order it. This is the first book I ever read about improv and rereading it for this review still gave me a powerful charge. Do it!