Extract from the book

We're at the final proof-reading and interview-collating stage now (late, hopelessly late). Here's an extract which may prove interesting.

Being Andrew Willson

When Deborah was teaching high status competitions at the RADA Summer School, there was one student, Andrew Willson, a 20 year old American, who simply couldn’t be beaten. Everyone who came up against him looked either defensive and annoyed or low status and keen to please him. He always looked effortlessly in charge but likable. Eventually he retired from the competition undefeated and we replaced him with Saskia. Saskia had a much more difficult time facing the same opponents and I was encouraging the group to coach her. Another student, Pete Schilds, suggested that she try and be more like Andrew, so I asked him to coach her to be like Andrew. He side-coached her enthusiastically throughout the scene to do the things he thought he’d seen Andrew doing – “Slow down”, “Relax your hands,” “Pause before you answer” – but although Saskia tried to do these things she really didn’t change very much. So I tried, thinking perhaps the job required a more experienced coach or that she would better listen to my instructions because I was the teacher, but the results weren’t much better. Eventually I realised that we had an expert on “being Andrew Willson” in the room. Andrew Willson himself. So we asked him to coach Saskia.

Andrew’s coaching was different from ours. When the other person knocked at the door, Saskia hurried to answer it, and Andrew said “You’re not in a hurry. I’m sure they’ll wait at the door for a minute. You have all the time in the world.” When the other person swept past Saskia into the space, Andrew said, “They seem very eager to look at the apartment. Why don’t you let them do that while you go and relax?” When the other improviser started playing Saskia’s piano without asking, she became anxious and tried to stop them. Andrew side-coached: “Why do you care? I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He wasn’t telling her what to do. He was telling her what he was thinking!

Suddenly she slowed right down and relaxed. She smiled at the person who was busily looking into all the rooms and criticising them. She didn’t rise to their bait. Without being told to, she did all the physical things that Pete and I had tried to coach her to do without success. She had the thoughts of Andrew Willson who was naturally happy high status and so she seemed happy high status.

Saskia was instantly transformed and so we knew we had something good on our hands. But I didn’t know if it would work without Andrew. Could anyone transfer their status to anyone else by telling them what they were thinking in any given situation? It seemed too good to be true. I took the exercise to my advanced students who’d formed their own company “Dance Monkey Dance”, through our Level 3 workshop programme. Firstly I got them doing high status competitions. I asked Alexandra to coach Claire in the ways of being Alexandra if confronted by a defensive high status person played by Ece. Alexandra is known as a very positive, charming person who puts everyone at their ease, so I was keen to see how she’d react under these circumstances.

Before Charlotte even knocked on the door, Alexandra said to Claire “You’re really looking forward to meeting potential new flatmates but you’re also just really enjoying the experience of having random people come to your house.” The audience laughed. None of us could imagine feeling like this. When the doorbell went, Alexandra said “Tidy up on the way to the door,” but almost as soon as Ece was inside she said “Confess that you’ve just tidied up.” Suddenly we had an insight into Alex’s mind and some absolutely brilliant character traits. To tidy up and then confess to it is a lovely thing for a character to do – so human. The status cues were more subtle but still wonderfully obvious to the audience. When Ece’s character became rude Alex said “Okay you want to get rid of her now but don’t let her know that. Be nice about it.”

When James played Ed, he told him that he was annoyed by the intrusion of people coming to look at the flat but that he should try not to show it. When Claire turned up to look at the flat, Ed told James to be “very tired but enthusiastic”. Suddenly James had Ed’s physicality and a rather defensive low status manner. (This is unusual – people are generally happy low status or a more guarded high status). When James made a joke about Claire staying the night Ed quickly added “Oh no! Now you’re worried she thinks you want to sleep with her.” James said “My girlfriend will be here soon.”

What was interesting was that if the “coach” gave the improviser their real thoughts, they automatically know what to say and would not need to be fed lines of dialogue. They never stopped and said “What do you mean?” I think that’s because they were real thoughts. Not improviser/director thoughts. In other words, they were obvious and human. At the same time, they were hilarious and the audience’s reaction was a combination of “Wow! Is that how Ed thinks? I’d never think that!” and the laughter of recognition of those things we all think but never talk about. It was astounding how often there was a dichotomy between what an individual said they were thinking and what they asked the improviser to show. The scenes were a far cry from the presentational work improvisers often perform that audiences find so hard to relate to.

When Jo wanted to be Claire and vice versa we got them both up and developed a new game. When Claire wanted advice on how to be Joanna she raised her hand. Joanna, who was also her scene partner, would then give her a “Joanna thought”: “Come in tentatively but you want to make a good impression.” Claire would do so. Then Joanna would put her hand up and Claire would give her an instruction. “Apologise, you feel like you’ve messed up already and you should already have shown her the flat.” Joanna would start apologising.

We found this game was fun to watch and do and flowed much better than we thought it would, but the improvisers felt they had missed out on seeing themselves in a scene. So I told Joanna she knew how to be Claire now, so she could be in a scene without direction. If she needed direction she could put her hand up and Claire would give it to her from her seat. Malcolm then trained Ece to be him from his seat giving frequent direction with Jo only getting direction occasionally through a hand signal. We found once people had been trained to be someone else, they only needed direction when they encountered a situation they hadn’t been in before and didn’t know how to truthfully react.

We then did first dates scenes, crossing genders, to see if that would create interesting effects but Ed pointed out that all the set-ups we were using were situations where you would try and make a good impression, so we weren’t always seeing people at their most natural. We decided to get the improvisers to be flatmates on a Sunday morning. Ece instructed Claire to be her and James instructed Ed to be him. Ece said on a Sunday morning she’d normally be obsessing about something that had happened the night before and James said he’d be wanting to watch a documentary about the Buddha he’d recorded during the week. A very funny scene ensued in which Ece and James each coached their alter-egos to pursue their own agendas. As Claire talked more and more about whether her friend had implied she was an alcoholic the night before, James told Ed to “agree but not get drawn in”, “Put the DVD in”, “Press play”, “Turn up the volume”. Eventually Ece told Claire “you’re going to have to confront him now.” Throughout the scene, the characters both pursued their own action, their own agenda, until with perfect timing, they turned on the other and something happen.

What was interesting is that the improvisers in the scene, far from being hampered by the outside direction, seemed freed by it. They were imaginative, funny, emotional, physical and they were even able to reincorporate specifics from the platform. My fears that the mechanism of taking direction from outside voices would slow the action down were unfounded. It seemed to speed it up if anything. The improvisers looked very natural but each interaction seemed meaningful. I think it’s because it made the job of improvising a scene easy. You just had to listen to the voice in your head. It would tell you how it was feeling and you would base your actions on that. It was liberating as well. The voice gave them permission to do all sorts of things they may not have done otherwise.

Finally it was personally revealing and consequently very bonding. We all did it and were slightly surprised how aware we were of our own faults and duplicities. Claire’s “Rush to the door. You need approval,” or my “Tell an anecdote but then worry they’re not interested,” made everyone laugh – we’ve seen each other exhibit these behaviours before – but also bonded us. I would recommend that you play this game with any group who wants to learn about each other.