Gibberish

Gibberish is nonsensical, non-English babble.

"Gloshka moruque a mot?" "Tikatow too." "Nocka nu nu."

That's gibberish. You can do it right now. Do it. Yes, now, start speaking gibberish.

Good.

Now that you can do that, choose a character with a particular point of view: whatever you want. Speak a line of gibberish from that characters energy. Then respond, in gibberish, with a character who has a very different energy or point of view. Now you are doing a gib­berish scene.

Purpose

Speaking in gibberish allows us to eliminate the importance we usu­ally place on words. Notice that in gibberish, your emotional life is awakened. Practice a few gibberish scenes and you're practicing to put the how into your improvisation, that is, how someone says something versus what they say.

The following exercises are about unthinking character creation.

Solo Character Switches

Put a chair in the middle of the room. With a clock, watch, or timer in view, begin a character monologue. At the end of thirty seconds, without any pause at all, switch the character to something com­pletely different. I say without pause because I want you to have to catch up with your own talking and throw yourself off guard. You can do this for as long as you want. I have had students do it for up to an hour with sixty characters, each a minute long.

A variation of this is to write down character types and put them in a hat, such as "Russian dancer" or "crazy clown," and alternate between drawing a character type from the hat and making it up on the spot.

The chair in the middle of the room is there to offer variety of physical space. Have some of the characters on their feet and others sitting. Variety of character is the key. If you notice your last two characters were quiet, make the next one loud, for example, (This is a physically strenuous exercise, just to let you know.)

Purpose

This is about stretching your character skills, along with fearlessly initiating scenes. If you can condition yourself in this way, you'll get there quicker when you improvise with a partner. "Get there" meaning establishing a strong point of view and strong initiation.

Character Interview

Put questions that you might ask another person in a hat. These questions may vary from the personal to the workplace variety. Some examples might be:

"Where are you from?" "What's your favorite ice cream and why?" "What is a sad moment in your childhood?" "What are you reading now?"

Write about fifteen questions. After this, sit in a chair, hat close by, and launch into a character monologue. Let this go for about a minute, then "take questions." Pull a question out of the hat and answer the question as the character.

Purpose

This exercise will help you put yourself on the spot as a character. The more you vary the questions, the more you'll practice stretching yourself so you can better handle any variety of elements that come your way in an improv scene.

Styles and Genres in a Hat

Put twenty styles and genres in a hat. These can range from film noir to action film to horror to romance. Start a character monologue and let it get on solid ground for about thirty seconds. Then pull a style or genre out of the hat. Have your character immediately be affected by the style or genre.

Let's say your character is a mechanic. You then pull romance novel out of the hat. The mechanic character could immediately begin talking about his passion and love for cars. After you feel comfortable with simple styles and genres, you could challenge yourself and throw in book authors and playwrights. (This might require that you become more familiar with authors and playwrights, which is a good thing.)

Purpose

Styles, genres, and the distinct styles of well-known authors and playwrights are often used to inspire improvisation. Your under­standing of them will not only give you more tools to use as a scenic improviser, but will help you with an assortment of improv games as well. Learning different styles and genres also raises your reference level, and brings more theatricality and variety to your work.