I Am Not A Drama Guy

An adventure in personality change

He reached into the sack and rummaged around cautiously, unsure what he might find.

Then his hands started wriggling up and down like spaghetti was slipping through his fingers.

‘Oh, it’s a snake!’

A grin blazed across his face. Delighted by the discovery. Amazed that his brain had produced anything at all.

Welcome to my first improv class.

A place where planning isn’t allowed and all bets are off.

In case it’s not already obvious: I am not a drama guy. Not. One. Bit.

I’d become interested in personality change after reading Me, But Better by Olga Khazan.

But this was just… silly.

I didn’t know it at the time, but six weeks later I was going to feel profoundly altered.

Just not in the way I expected.

Playtime’s over

The secret of improv is that behind the curtain it’s mostly just adults playing games.

Games with very simple rules. Simple enough that a five-year-old could join in immediately.

And yet most adults find them almost impossible unless that five-year-old is there to give them permission.

The speaking games were fine. Talking nonsense happens to be one of my favourite pastimes.

The movement games were another story.

Say your name and do a dance move to go with it. Right now.

If you’re anything like me, your brain immediately starts negotiating.

What should I do?

Plan. Decide. Act.

You just failed at improv. You’re supposed to do that last one first.

It’s an activity tailor-made to trip up engineers like me.

Not knowing is the point

By session three I was having fun, but also getting frustrated.

I couldn’t stop planning. Either that or I’d freeze completely and have no idea what to do.

The instructor, Aisha, just laughed.

“Perfect! Your character in this scene could just be really awkward. That’s actually funny.”

Hold up.

So I don’t need to match this drama-school energy?

Nope.

The mishmash of styles is the interesting part. You just have to stop trying to find something specific and embrace whatever is actually there.

That was the first real breakthrough for me.

Improv isn’t really about finding the perfect thing to say.

It’s about accepting the reality in front of you and contributing something back.

Anything.

If that contribution is standing there looking lost and confused, then congratulations: you’re now lost and confused. And on safari.

Happy Mondays

How many times in life do we freeze because we can’t think of the perfect thing to do next?

The inertia of our own personalities is so strong that we struggle to imagine acting outside our normal routines.

But by week five strange things started happening.

I was buying ice cream for the homeless guy on the walk home after class.

Calling old friends I hadn’t spoken to in years just because I felt like it.

Signing up for padel lessons.

Nothing else in my life had changed. I was just reacting to things that were already there instead of automatically ignoring them.

By the final session I felt fantastic.

Improv didn’t magically transform me into a different person.

But for a few hours every Monday we stopped treating our personalities like fixed objects.

None of the opportunities were new. The invitations were already there.

Improv just taught me to stop rejecting every offer before the scene had even started.