Offer, Accept, Block, Yield:: The Poetics of Open Scene Additive Improvisation
Yanis Garrett · UPT. Syiah Kuala University Library (Syiah Kuala University) · 2010
Chapter 1: IntroductionIn this chapter, the research area (1.1), aim (1.2) questions (1.3) and limits (1.4) are defined, within the broader philosophical research framework (1.5). Subject of the ResearchThis study looks at theatre improvisation.It uses a single case study of an Open Scene Additive Improvisation (OSAI) performance in order to examine the way nine of the Impro 'Poetics' derived by Keith Johnstone (1981) are currently being used in OSAI's contemporary practice.These Poetics (Offer, Endow, Justify, Advance, Extend, Reincorporate, Accept, Block and Yield) have become a ubiquitous part of contemporary drama improvisation parlance, yet they remain unstudied from an academic perspective. Additive improvisationAdditive improvisation relies on the principle of give and take that lives at the centre of all communication, transposed to a fictive reality cast on stage.Johnstone calls his method 'additive' 1 because it allows each improviser to 'add' to the contributions (or 'Offers') of previous improvisers without contradicting those earlier Offers.In this way improvisers balance the group-individual problem: they build the Scene through collaboration on stage 2 , and yet assert their characters' realities freely and independently.Additive improvisation is thus accretive in nature, building up realities, situations, locations and characters over time through individual contribution, and weaving those elements through the vectors provided by the narrative and character objectives.However the 'play' that is created is multi-authored: the narrative has no single 1 Johnstone, 1981, p.27. Johnstone's term for this form has also been referred to as 'pure' improvisation (by himself, 1981, p.27; O'Neill, 1995), 'spontaneous' improvisation (Foreman, 1998), Improv (the American favoured term, eg see www.improv.com),or its later incarnation as 'Theatresports' (Pierce, 1991; Johnstone, 1999; Young, 2001). 2 a kind of ongoing fictively-negotiated dramatic consensus, a negotiation that becomes in some measure a part of what every Scene is 'about' © ygarrett 2007 / MPhil Research Thesis authorial voice, since no improviser has overall steering of the scene.In response to previous Offers, different improvisers will tend to steer the scene at different times.3 OSAI's accretive quality follows from the fact that what has happened previously becomes established as part of the scene's reality and history, and thus the Scene thereon must proceed from those initial Offers 4 .An improvised theatre piece is limited by the system requirements of everyday human interaction: open conversations have a history within themselves and have their own internal organisation and structure, and as a corollary, exist in the participant's memories as they progress 5 .Thus memory plays an equally if not more crucial part in the creative construction of a Scene.6 Additive improvisation is Johnstone's way of reflecting these accretive, self-regulating features of normal conversation, to recreate and replicate its naturalism 7 within the Scene 8 .The 'improvisation' part of Johnstone's additive improvisation calls for personal creativity and spontaneity from the actor.The longest chapter in Johnstone's seminal work (1981) is dedicated to examining the well-springs of the creative unconscious 9 , and many of his exercises are aimed at exploring this level of the mind and facilitating its creative expression on stage 10 .Johnstone asserts that successful improvisation should not aim for a neat final product, but be used as a method for actors to get past socially imposed psychological blocks, which negate or shut down what is deemed challenging or unsafe to one's normal sense of reality 11 , namely, the active imagination.Within the safe confines of an Impro theatre stage, actors are free to 3 It would be an interesting and highly rewarding study to examine exactly when and how this is done, that is, who takes over the steering at what points and to what extent, and then how that is relinquished and the 'baton handed on'.However space and the parameters of this study do not allow that investigation to be made here.4 1981, p.97 5 Tannen , 1990 6 The balance between memory and creative spontaneity is urged as a topic for further study in the field of OSAI, but is not examined here.7 Johnstone eschews strict naturalism and realism (1981, p.26-7), and reinterprets Stanislavski's meaning of these terms, in order to privelege the free play of the child-like imagination (1981, p. 46-7).This seems a logical position, since the imagination is also part of human 'reality'.