From Spolin’s Games to Improv Today

Religion began with a single purpose; to connect humanity to the spiritual. Ever since its conception, religion has evolved and morphed. Some say it has been refined and some say redefined and re-interpreted. Nonetheless, it has spread through every culture by true and enlightened disciples and sometimes by new messiahs to become a tangle of philosophies and approaches.  All religions claim the same source, but have conflicting notions of the divine mystery. Many people the world over subscribe to one of the many religions and believe their way to be the true way. Some of their leaders present themselves as visionaries with a more direct connection to God. Some claim a sincere connection to God that you can avail yourself of and financially support. That is ultimately religion’s downfall.

Religion has been dragged away from a holy, spiritual path to more of an enterprise: An enterprise with ultimately, a good message to share, but how to scale and offer it up to the world?
Answer: Packaging & Marketing.

The same has happened with Improvisation.

Viola Spolin was called “The high priestess of Improvisation” for creating a system of learning based on games that spawned a theatrical movement in America known more commonly as Improvisation. It was and, in many circles, still is recognized as an important work for acting training, both traditional and improvisational. And it has many uses beyond entertainment as well, for it connects us in a deep way to: 1. Ourselves. 2. Each other and 3. Our environment.

Today there are many improv styles, teachers, and techniques far more popular and familiar to modern audiences. Forms like Theatersports, Comedy Sportz, Long-Form, Short-Form, Harolds, and Armandos are the creation of popular teachers like Keith Johnstone, Del Close, Mick Napier, and others. So how is it that Spolin’s work is no longer among them as a popular current and essential training method?

Improvisation has bloomed in the 65 years since Viola Spolin and Paul Sills, along with David Shepard created their groundbreaking improvisational theater tradition with The Compass and Second City.  Not only has it spread throughout the world, it has morphed and changed over the years to become an enterprise. The cause and the curse and the paradox? – Elevating a guru’s status.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, was a deeply spiritual leader groomed by the Theosophist Society in the late 1920s to be the next great religious thinker and New World spiritual teacher. Hundreds of thousands flocked to hear him speak around the world and the Theosophists rejoiced in having found and groomed the “New Messiah”. He was found young, and like the Dali Lama, absorbed in the teaching of many religious sages of every kind; Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish. He was a uniquely gifted student of the sages. But as his fame grew so did his spiritual wisdom. In 1929 he renounced his mantle by saying. “I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.” He withdrew from the spotlight, dissolving his movement, and spent the remainder of his life teaching and speaking, resisting the mantle of guru. Yet his teachings live on in books, tapes, and a foundation to preserve his ideas.

Viola Spolin saw a way into that ‘pathless land’ and did what she could to maintain that same approach. She wrote a book addressed to teachers and directors and improvisers. Her work and practice were predicated on eliminating authoritarian teaching and striving to penetrate the unknown through focus, playful spontaneity and games. Trying to see both teacher and student as fellow players.

“The Game is the teacher.” – Viola Spolin
“There is no teaching; only learning.” – Paul Sills

Sills and Spolin were true seekers. Subsequently their students and peers sought credit for advancing the art and laid claim to new styles in the development of Improv as a theatrical form. They established ‘schools’ of improv,

The Fork in the Road

Like religion, improv has become an enterprise, based only on a portion of the great idea. It has led to a world-wide movement of IMPRO or Improv comedy, seeing improvisation as a tool or a method to achieve a certain outcome. That has hobbled it as a philosophy encompassing the yet-to-be-known truth: A path to true creativity.  I do not wish to criticize the benefits this kind of improvisation can yield in these areas but instead, express the fact that there is a transcendent side to this work much overlooked and far more important.

My first epiphany

I vividly recall Viola Spolin’s response after my very first workshop with her where I had an unusual experience in the Mirror exercise. The goal of mirror is to become a reflection of the other player and lose sight of who is leading or following while maintaining a faithful mirror.  If both players ‘reflect’ without conscious leading, Spolin called it ‘following the follower’ and said this was an essential skill in improvising. It was surprising to me I could not ‘follow the follower’ despite my skill as a professional mime.  I was so disoriented by the exercise that Ms. Spolin took the time to address the class and said, “Now, you see this young man here? He had a ‘direct’ experience. He got to see his partner in the mirror, without using his ‘head’.” She then remarked on my inability to find follow the follower with my partner, “I suspect it’s the first time in his life he ever truly saw anybody!”

It was a profound truth about me that I recognized and appreciated. When I tried to thank her for opening my eyes, rather than saying “you’re welcome”, she whirled on me and shouted,

“Don’t thank me! Don’t flatter me. It’s not me! It’s the work! The work! Not ME! Oh… Get out! Don’t make me your guru!”

I was taken aback by her reaction. But now, in retrospect, I know she may have suspected that I might credit her with what I had learned from that first lesson rather than be responsible for my own experience. She did not want to be recognized as the source of my experience, but a participant or catalyst of it and said so in no uncertain terms. It is a subtle trap she tried to avoid. The game or experience had the power to change me, not her. For me to see her as the source of my learning sounded an alarm, I soon discovered, for good reason: Her work and practice was predicated on eliminating authoritarian teaching.  And yet the result of that is that her work in the hands of those who would build reputation from her teaching (she called them predators) has ignored this aspect. I feel it has diminished her prominence in the world of current improv study. For many a student did just that – take a few lessons and bought the book and as she put it bluntly, ‘hung out a shingle’.

Improv for sale

They aspired to build a reputation as a teacher of Improv and not Spolin Improv. It is a paradox I face as well, for I would like to preserve that autonomous experience of the game being the teacher but at the same time become recognized for doing so. Not so much to for success as an end-in-itself, but to promote an approach to that pathless land of enlightenment.

So, just like there’s religion and religious enterprise, I suppose there will always be improvisation and improvisational enterprise. One born of the other.

Gary Schwartz – North Bend, WA