Improv and Roleplay
Quotes from “Improvisation for the Theatre”
that may be relevant to Roleplaying Games
Neva Boyd, founder of the Chicago School for Playground Workers (1909) and a proponent of the modern play movement, used games and improvisation to teach language skills, problem-solving, self-confidence and social skills. Of her games she had this to say:
Playing a game is psychologically different in a degree but not in kind from dramatic acting. The ability to create a situation imaginatively and to play a role in it is a tremendous experience, a sort of vacation from one’s everyday self and routine of everyday living.
One of Boyd’s students was Viola Spolin, who imagined a new kind of theatre made up of games. Spolin was fond of saying that anyone who wishes to can play in the theatre and her book “Improvisation for the Theatre” (1963) became the classic reference text for modern day improvisation. This book is available online through the Internet Archive digital library and I highly recommend it.
In the first chapter, called “Theory and Foundation”, Spolin explains the principles that should guide the players through the exercises she lays out in the rest of the book. The following quotes were selected from this chapter because of their possible relevance to Roleplaying Games and therefore are deliberately taken out-of-context.
The game is a natural group form providing the involvement and personal freedom necessary for experiencing. Games develop personal techniques and skills necessary for the game itself, through playing. Skills are developed at the very moment a person is having all the fun and excitement playing a game has to offer — this is the exact time he is truly open to receive them.
Ingenuity and inventiveness appear to meet any crises the game presents, for it is understood during playing that a player is free to reach the game’s objective in any style he chooses. As long as he abides by the rules of the game, he may swing, stand on his head, or fly through the air. In fact, any unusual or extraordinary way of playing is loved and applauded by his fellow players.
With no outside authority imposing itself upon the players, telling them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, each player freely chooses self-discipline by accepting the rules of the game (“it’s more fun that way”) and enters into the group decisions with enthusiasm and trust. With no one to please or appease, the player can then focus full energy directly on the problem and learn what he has come to learn.
Very few of us are able to make this direct contact with our reality. Our simplest move out into the environment is interrupted by our need for favorable comment or interpretation by established authority. We either fear that we will not get approval, or we accept outside comment and interpretation unquestionably. In a culture where approval/disapproval has become the predominant regulator of effort and position, and often the substitute for love, our personal freedoms are dissipated.
Abandoned to the whims of others, we must wander daily through the wish to be loved and the fear of rejection before we can be productive. Categorized “good” or “bad” from birth (a “good” baby does not cry too much) we become so enmeshed with the tenuous treads of approval/disapproval that we are creatively paralyzed. We see with others’ eyes and smell with others’. noses.
Having thus to look to others to tell us where we are, who we are, and what is happening results in a serious (almost total) loss of personal experiencing. We lose the ability to be organically involved in a problem, and in a disconnected way, we function with only parts of our total selves. We do not know our own substance, and in the attempt to live through (or avoid living through) the eyes of others, self-identity is obscured, our bodies become mis-shapened, natural grace is gone, and learning is affected. Both the individual and the art form are distorted and deprived, and insight is lost to us.
Trying to save ourselves from attack, we build a mighty fortress and are timid, or we fight each time we venture forth. Some in striving with approval/disapproval develop egocentricity and exhibitionism; some give up and simply go along. Others, like Elsa in the fairy tale, are forever knocking on windows, jingling their chain of bells, and wailing, “Who am I?” In all cases, contact with the environment is distorted. Self-discovery and other exploratory traits tend to become atrophied. Trying to be “good” and avoiding “bad” or being “bad” because one can’t be “good” develops into a way of life for those needing approval/disapproval from authority — and the investigation and solving of problems becomes of secondary importance.
If we are to keep playing, then, natural competition must exist wherein each individual strives to solve consecutively more complicated problems. These can be solved then, not at the expense of another person and not with the terrible personal emotional loss that comes with compulsive behavior, but by working harmoniously together with others to enhance the group effort or project. It is only when the scale of values has taken competition as the battle cry that danger ensues: the end-result — success — becomes more important than process.
This total individual involvement with the object (event or project) makes relationship with others possible. Without this object involvement, it would be necessary to become involved with one’s self or one another. In making ourselves or another player the object (the ball), there is grave danger of reflection and absorption. Thus we might push each other around the field (the stage) and exhibit ourselves instead of playing ball. Relationship keeps individuality intact, allows breathing (room to play) to exist between everyone, and prevents us from using ourselves or each other for our subjective needs.
It is not easy to restructure one’s self and give up the familiar, and so some resist in it every way they can. Whatever the psychological reasons for this, it will show itself in refusal to accept group responsibilities, clowning, playwriting, jokes, immature evaluation, lack of spontaneity, interpretation of everyone else’s work to meet a personal frame of reference, etc. A person with high resistance will try to manipulate those around him to work for him and his ideas alone rather than entering into the group agreement. It oftens shows itself in resentment of what is considered a limitation imposed by the teacher or sometimes in referring to the game exercises as “kid stuff.” Exhibitionism and egocentricity continue as the student-actor ad-libs, “acts,” plays “characters,” and “emotes” rather than involving himself in the problem at hand.
Sometimes resistance is hidden to the student himself and shows itself in a great deal of verbalization, erudition, argument, and questioning as to “how to do it” within the workshops.
Evaluation that limits itself to a personal prejudice is going nowhere. “Policemen don’t eat celery,” or “People don’t stand on their heads in a situation like that,” or “He was good/bad, right/wrong” — these are the walls around our garden. It would be better to ask: “Did he show us who he was? Why not? Did he stay with the problem? Whose good/bad, right/wrong — mine, Jonathan’s, or yours?
Act, don’t react. To react is protective and constitutes withdrawal from the environment. Since we are seeking to reach out, a player must act upon the environment, which in turn acts upon him, catalytic action thus creating interaction that makes process and change (building of a scene) possible.
Keep the fine line between “emoting” and communicating always clear within the workshop by insisting upon concise physical expression (physicalizing) and not vague or stale “feeling.”
When “improvising” becomes an end in itself, it can kill spontaneity while fostering cleverness. Growth ceases as the performers take over.
Rote response to what is going on is a treadmill.
Improvisation is not exchange of information between players; it is communion.
Again, if you find any of these interesting, you can download the complete book from this link.
