Pimping is easy

This is my third or fourth attempt at blogging. But maybe I have something to write now. This blog should cover my improv, technology and cooking. Of course I forgot to incorporate cooking into the title. But since nobody is reading this anyway, who's to know.

I am not a perfectionist, but I can't leave well enough alone, always fiddling around and of course never finishing anything. So let's get to what's on my mind and see if this thing will work.

I've been doing improv for a little more than six months and it really fits into my nature of fiddling around, there is just so many things to work on at the same time.

The great thing about improv, is there are so may opportunities where the scene can radically switch between awesome and awful. There's no shortage of opportunities for self-reflection, doubt and regret. In addition every rule, tool and principle of improv is a double-edge sword.

"Yes, and" is one of the axioms of improv, it's the first thing they teach you. Agree with your partner and build on the statement/action/environment. And it works well when the initial idea is a good one, but when the idea is bad - it just kills the scene. Experienced performers can twist the "Yes, and" to a good idea, but it takes an incredible amount of confidence in your partner to recognize the shift.

The hardest part for improv is trying to figure out the difference between a "gift" and "pimping." In improv a gift is when one performer introduces an idea/object/gesture/environment which helps your scene partner. Pimping is taking advantage of your partner's "Yes, and" to force something quite difficult or out of character.

What I've been told about obvious examples are asking them to "read" or "sing" or talk another language on the spot. But that doesn't really seem "hard" to me as an improviser, nobody expects you to create a poem, sing a song or speak Chinese on the spot, but whatever the pimpee does, is going to get a laugh. And the pimp's reaction needs to stay consistent with the setup. If the Pimp says "That song was awesome, you need to sing it for me." Regardless of what dreck comes out of the pimpee's mouth, the pimp is going to have to love it (unless the pimp is just a total jerk, then you were going to get screwed during the scene anyway).

For me as an improvisor, it makes the scene incredibly easy. I don't (here's where I took a two day break - and it came clear to me).

The true drawback to pimping is while it gets the laugh, moves the scene it takes the pimpee out of improvisation. The pimpee is now "just" an actor. The Pimpee is just taking direction from the pimp - and while it can easily lead to a lot of laughs if the Pimp knows what he is doing. It could go bad really quickly where the audience laughs at the pimpee for freezing up.

Now of course there's the issue where somebody has to take control of a scene. But that's for a later post.