Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Fullfilling Absurdity
I may have one too many "L"s in the title, but I wouldn't know cause my spell checker here doesn't work anymore. Oh, there is still a spell check button, but it does nothing. It is kinda just a tease at what I know I need. Sometimes I still go and click it hoping...waiting...sighing loudly.
Last night's show sucked ass. I was at least in it more, but perhaps that shouldn't matter. Sometimes I feel like I am out there all by myself with this team. Like last night I wound up in a three person scene right away(ideally opening scenes in our formats only have two people). Most of the time in these three person scenes everyone is doing so much you often have people talking over each other and missing stuff. Not this scene though. It moved like molasses down a log on a cold winter's day. When I finally forced a realtionship and issue it was obvioulsy too late and uncommitted on my part. At least I did something though, a marked improvement over my last performance.
I know I am better than the work that I do with this team, but this is supposed to be my chance. Who knows if I will be on another ImprovOlympic team, so I should make the best of this, even if I do not produce my best work with them. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but I definately have a hard time playing with them in their style. I like exploring more realistic and grounded characters. I enjoy taking my time and building a scene slowly at first, if need be. Sure some of them come together right away, but the ones that really take a few seconds to marinate before they start rolling always seem juicier.
This whole dream of improv and what I am doing here seems to become more absurd everyday. Not that it hasn't been absurd ever since I started down this road, but as my passion and excitement for the performaces decreases my awareness of the absurdity of it all increases. I let all this bother me as if I am actually in complete control of where my life goes from here. Perhaps nothing is more absurd than that.
If someone finds the map to my life, please return it to me.
Last night's show sucked ass. I was at least in it more, but perhaps that shouldn't matter. Sometimes I feel like I am out there all by myself with this team. Like last night I wound up in a three person scene right away(ideally opening scenes in our formats only have two people). Most of the time in these three person scenes everyone is doing so much you often have people talking over each other and missing stuff. Not this scene though. It moved like molasses down a log on a cold winter's day. When I finally forced a realtionship and issue it was obvioulsy too late and uncommitted on my part. At least I did something though, a marked improvement over my last performance.
I know I am better than the work that I do with this team, but this is supposed to be my chance. Who knows if I will be on another ImprovOlympic team, so I should make the best of this, even if I do not produce my best work with them. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but I definately have a hard time playing with them in their style. I like exploring more realistic and grounded characters. I enjoy taking my time and building a scene slowly at first, if need be. Sure some of them come together right away, but the ones that really take a few seconds to marinate before they start rolling always seem juicier.
This whole dream of improv and what I am doing here seems to become more absurd everyday. Not that it hasn't been absurd ever since I started down this road, but as my passion and excitement for the performaces decreases my awareness of the absurdity of it all increases. I let all this bother me as if I am actually in complete control of where my life goes from here. Perhaps nothing is more absurd than that.
If someone finds the map to my life, please return it to me.
// posted by Justin @ 7:29 AM 
Comments:
<< Home
I read this post this morning when I came in, half lit. I had so many wonderful questions (if I do say so myself) but then found the OI website on your side bar and it answered them for me. Even my T-shirt question (do you get t-shirts for being part of OI). Although, I can't see the t-shirt up close I imagine them to be olympic rings with various happy faces and other "comedic" doo-dads in the rings. Am I right?
What do you mean by absurd though... absurd that you chose this? absurd that your talent sky rockets above the other OI folks you are on stage with? absurd that your spell check doesn't work? or absurd that your roommate turn girlfriend got her free tshirt from the improv theater and has never shown up on your blog again? Oh and out of pure curiosity... what is an Inprov dudes dream come true career wise?
What do you mean by absurd though... absurd that you chose this? absurd that your talent sky rockets above the other OI folks you are on stage with? absurd that your spell check doesn't work? or absurd that your roommate turn girlfriend got her free tshirt from the improv theater and has never shown up on your blog again? Oh and out of pure curiosity... what is an Inprov dudes dream come true career wise?
What friggin' t-shirt are you talking about? I am so confused. I never got any t-shirt. The ImprovOlympic symbol is not as complicated as you assume. It is mereley an exclamation mark with that little squiggily circle as the dot. I suppose the circle could be construed as an 'o' and the symbol upside down is a nice 'i'.
As far as your more difficult questions go, I will do my best to explain better.
Yes, I do find it absurd that I chose this. Its kinda like deciding you wanna be a major league baseball player "cause that looks fun". Its kinda childish and unrealistic.
And, yes, if in fact my talent did "sky rocket" above those I was on stage with, that would be absurd as well, cause that would mean I am on a team with some deaf, mute, mutant, comma patients.
The spell check thing is not so absurd. Things that look inviting and easy often don't work for me.
I guess it probably does seem silly that MB hasn't shown up here lately. Not to worry, she is at this moment at home in my bed sleeping. She's not been feeling very well, so I allowed her into my "fortress of solitude". I am sure she will not disappear anytime soon.
An improv dude? Ha, that sounds so cool. I wish. As far as career wise I guess I could do as well as Mike Myers, Chris Farley,Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Tim Meadows, Andy Richter, or even the lowly Andy Dick(all IO alumni). Most of my dreams though culminate in being on a really good team at IO for an extended run, creating something new like a theatre or show, or even doing a review at The Second City mainstage one day. I would really just be happy knowing that I did the best work I could do while I was here though. At this point , I don't feel that way, unfortunately.
Again I ask, what t-shirt?
As far as your more difficult questions go, I will do my best to explain better.
Yes, I do find it absurd that I chose this. Its kinda like deciding you wanna be a major league baseball player "cause that looks fun". Its kinda childish and unrealistic.
And, yes, if in fact my talent did "sky rocket" above those I was on stage with, that would be absurd as well, cause that would mean I am on a team with some deaf, mute, mutant, comma patients.
The spell check thing is not so absurd. Things that look inviting and easy often don't work for me.
I guess it probably does seem silly that MB hasn't shown up here lately. Not to worry, she is at this moment at home in my bed sleeping. She's not been feeling very well, so I allowed her into my "fortress of solitude". I am sure she will not disappear anytime soon.
An improv dude? Ha, that sounds so cool. I wish. As far as career wise I guess I could do as well as Mike Myers, Chris Farley,Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Tim Meadows, Andy Richter, or even the lowly Andy Dick(all IO alumni). Most of my dreams though culminate in being on a really good team at IO for an extended run, creating something new like a theatre or show, or even doing a review at The Second City mainstage one day. I would really just be happy knowing that I did the best work I could do while I was here though. At this point , I don't feel that way, unfortunately.
Again I ask, what t-shirt?
re: t-shirt
while i was looking at the site there was a pic of the front of the building. off to the side were some far away, behind glass, t-shirts. in my mind i designed a logo. when i get access to a scanner (after i leave the jungle in 2 weeks for christmas back home" i will design such a logo and send it to you via blog-sphere.
re: deaf, mute, comma patients. (is it coma or comma... it would be funny if a deaf mute was in a punctuation mark.)what i want to know is if they are in a comma how would you know they are deaf and mute... and is it bad that i would laugh anyhow? that is my profession shining through though, i suppose. am i really thick (not a weight directed comment) in the fact that i don't understand the answer to this question? :D
cool long answer justin
B
while i was looking at the site there was a pic of the front of the building. off to the side were some far away, behind glass, t-shirts. in my mind i designed a logo. when i get access to a scanner (after i leave the jungle in 2 weeks for christmas back home" i will design such a logo and send it to you via blog-sphere.
re: deaf, mute, comma patients. (is it coma or comma... it would be funny if a deaf mute was in a punctuation mark.)what i want to know is if they are in a comma how would you know they are deaf and mute... and is it bad that i would laugh anyhow? that is my profession shining through though, i suppose. am i really thick (not a weight directed comment) in the fact that i don't understand the answer to this question? :D
cool long answer justin
B
See that way, even if they do manage to awake from their comma during the scene, they still are unable to really contribute. They just look around really wide eyed and make loud mumbled noises. Laughing would be very appropriate, because even though I was trying to make an example of a bad scene, I failed in that as well.
If you are still confused, shoot me an email and I will try to explain more.
Post a Comment
If you are still confused, shoot me an email and I will try to explain more.
<< Home
