Back in my days ...
Okay, I figure it is time to be grouchy old people. Compare the activities of the group now to how it was done in your day. I figure it is never too late for a little cross-generational learning (evening though the ideal way to perform improv skits is hardly relevant to my life).
I'll confine my comments mostly to the comments section, but I would start out with these two:
Plus: Man, the video quality of the younger generation is SOOOO much better than back in our days. Crisp video is nice, but sound that can actually be understood by people not participating in the scene is a huge boon. That DVD with the three Za movies was great and I am wondering where the alums can get our hands on a copy.
Minus: The quality wasn't great, but we actually filmed most of our shows. Sitting back in my house is a VHS tape of the ten year reunion. I can remind myself of what happened, so I don't mutter to myself "I don't remember any of this" like Rich. Video taping the shows was also helpful in honing our craft. We could sit and watch tapes of the shows and try to find ways to improve our product (i.e., cut back on dead time between skits).
Okay, I've set the stage. Now y'all take over.
I'll confine my comments mostly to the comments section, but I would start out with these two:
Plus: Man, the video quality of the younger generation is SOOOO much better than back in our days. Crisp video is nice, but sound that can actually be understood by people not participating in the scene is a huge boon. That DVD with the three Za movies was great and I am wondering where the alums can get our hands on a copy.
Minus: The quality wasn't great, but we actually filmed most of our shows. Sitting back in my house is a VHS tape of the ten year reunion. I can remind myself of what happened, so I don't mutter to myself "I don't remember any of this" like Rich. Video taping the shows was also helpful in honing our craft. We could sit and watch tapes of the shows and try to find ways to improve our product (i.e., cut back on dead time between skits).
Okay, I've set the stage. Now y'all take over.
posted by (d)avid at 1/31/2005 06:16:00 PM
5 Comments:
I think Beastie is a step up from Limerick. It is more active and more clearly confrontational and gets the audience much more involved. High energy endings to shows are good. Standing around going "Da-daaa-daaa, dump,dump,dump,dump,dump ..." is kind of lame.
I thought the current incarnation of Beastie had two faults that are easily corrected. First and foremost, the reliance upon names inherently limits the skit. "I know a guy his name is Mike." There are only so many names the audience will give you. Why not ask something like, "Give me the name of your favorite 20th Century philosopher?" "Satre." "I have mad angst, so I read Satre." "Forget that dude, Hegel is smarter." "I don't like Prussians, I prefer Tartars." "Fools are whack, relying on barter." I think getting away from names (though my example was poor in that regard) opens up a range of possibilities. Allowing the first line to be flexible would help.
Second, two good people can run out of rhymes for a given word. Forcing each successive line to rhyme with the same root also means that the lyrics become nonsensical and increasingly forced. Allowing the two MCs to go back and forth would be more fun (though much harder to execute). Whereas a format such as...
Person 1: Rhyme A
Person 2: Rhyme A
Person 2: Rhyme B
Person 1: Rhyme B
Person 1: Rhyme C
Perons 2: Rhyme C
and so on ...
would allow people to go back and forth in an orderly way and really show off. If people are good, then the audience would go apeshit.
Having people beat box in the background wouldn't hurt either. It would force the participants to be a little faster on the draw. But, man, would that be tough. Peter is the only one from our generation who could do it well.
I liked the new structure of Roshomon better. In the old days, each one of the characters would step forward and tell their sob tale, while the other two plotted behind their back. The end result was that each scene did involve devious machinations, but it took a long time to get there (although every now and then a particularly memorable monologue would come about). The new version with only short declarations between scenes was much snappier. The basic plot of each scene wasn't consistent from telling to telling, but that is a question of mechanics more than structure.
Yup, I like the new Roshomon better.
For that matter, I liked the new Conscience Conflict better. Placing the angel and devil into the scene as characters created new possibilities that we never really fully explored. I guess it did take away the gimmick of the angel giving really immoral reasons for doing the right thing (e.g., you don't want to kill the whale because you'll horrify that mother with her child over there and there will be no MILF for you on this cruise) and the devil giving really virtuous reasons for doing the wrong thing (e.g., see that whale, it is the last of its kind and it is lonely -- you'd be doing it a favor by ending its life), but maybe that is just a question of mechanics.
Okay, score another two for the newbies.
In an ideal world, Rashomon would have very short intros to the different versions, and each version would contain essentially the same actions but given a different twist each time through. I think that's how the skit was devised, with landmarks established in the first version that the other two were supposed to base themselves around.
That said, whatever works.
I also decry the lack of show videotapeage.
1) I thought Chris's intro in Roshomon was a good combination of old and new. Maybe, the monologues grew longer and longer over the years and it became a pathology, but WB's extremely short introduction (couldn't have been more than three or four sentences) struck me as about right. And I think it is a matter of tradeoffs -- the longer the intro, the more time the two people have to scheme, so the scene is tighter. On the other hand, that monologue better be funny, because it can drag (and I watched a few Roshomon's before the reunion ... ugh).
2) I agree completely on the intro. In fact, the intro was typically the strongest part of our show, which is why there is an entire thread devoted to openings. Dean hazing night, Tenure or Fuck Off ... those openings got the audience into it. And as Randy can attest, it need not take a lot of time to plan. Pretty much every intro was discussed over dinner the night of the performance.
3) At the end of my senior year, we had purchased a couple of tubs full of random ass props and wigs and costumes. However, we only used them for Basement Tapes and random picture sessions. Using them in performances might have been fun. Never occured to us. Improv was all about mime. Combo Za, underdressed mimes.
4) One thing we did in virtually every show my senior year was have B&G drop off the pieces for a stage. We'd then make a stage that created a definite space in which to perform and created a visual separation from the audience. Ironically, the net effect was that people felt comfortable sitting right up to the stage, so the audience was a LOT closer and we could cram more people in. We then taped desk lamps to the front of the stage and hooked them up to a power strip, so we had stage lights. It made the end of scenes much more clean, lit the actors much better (improving our video tapes ... and they needed all the help they could get), and allowed us to set up for quick skits between sets with some element of surprise (like Suckle Me Elmo). Just standing around on the floor of Dodd with the audience halfway across the room wasn't quite as satisfying (but non-alumni shows probably have better draws ... Combo Zalumni, we're old). Score 1 for the geezers (and don't tell me it is too expensive, the newbies are awash in a level of cash that we could only dream of).
I'm not sure how people are calling out the letters in scrabble now. A complete mystery to me. The old style grab bag had the virtue of being clear to the audience what was happening. On the other hand, one had to be familiar with words beginning in vowels. The letters called out at the show were fairly "normal" letters, but I don't know what that means. Keep them "queer" letters out of the show!
Amen, brother Wreckin' Ball.
As for value judgements on the current folks reading the blog, while I think it is downright dispicable that they don't pay attention to the self-congratulatory musings of old people they gratiously hosted for a fun weekend. Why study or associate with peers or engage in hobbies, when you could be hunched over a computer anticipating the next thoughts on road trips from 1992 or Za groupies in 1995? Why back in my day ...
well, back in my day we pretty much ignored the advice of the older generation by heartlessly axing members, adding new skits, making Basement Tapes more polished and less twisted, and incorporating sketches into normal shows. We even shifted away from Chopsticks and Rolling Rock, stopped making new recruits ask for the Hot 100, and changed our name to the "Naked Peter Revue."
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