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A Two-Person Improvisational Exercise Search

by Lewis Magruder
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Pages
Introduction About

In the two-person scenes study class for intermediate-level actors I teach at Miami University (in Observations
Ohio), I have observed that many of my students begin the course thinking of acting as
Stop surviving: an actor’s manifesto
something limited to taking up opposition to the other—arguing, finding fault, putting down,
getting the upper hand, fighting, and so forth. While these actions do sometimes figure into Letters
what characters do, they are poor substitutes for what makes a character compelling—need,
Letter to Actors
desire, emotional vulnerability, and depth of humanity. While I have no concrete evidence as to
the origin of this tendency in young actors, discussions with students have led me to believe Book Reviews
that it stems from two sources: 1) they have learned in previous classes that drama is conflict,
and 2) they have interpreted that lesson to mean that an actor’s job is to display, or indicate, Resources

conflict. The challenge of the course, then, as I see it, is to help my students move beyond Action List
indicating conflict—what I call playing the problem—to discover within themselves deeper,
Archive
richer dimensions of behavior and interaction.
Characters on Demand

Context Creating Their Own Stories

The Hero’s Journey

To begin to meet the challenge, I first talk with my students about well-known characters they
A Two-Person Improvisational Exercise
have encountered in one of the pre-requisites, the department’s course in script analysis.
Acting and Nursing
Hamlet is one such favorite. Another is Betty from Cloud 9 by Caryl Churchill. I ask them to think
about what kind of dramatic journey either of these characters would have if the actors playing From Conception to Performance
the roles limited their choices solely to opposing the other characters. Of course, the notion of Teaching Theatre Terms
imposing such limitations on two such characters seems ludicrous to my students. But, as
Using the Mask
outlandish as it seems and for the sake of making my point, I pursue it: Is Hamlet only
Master of Two Servants
interested in opposing his uncle for having killed his father and usurped the throne? Does his
character not have other, more compelling objectives in heart and mind? If so, why doesn’t he Volume Two
act expeditiously and kill his uncle at that moment he happens upon him in an attitude of Volume One
prayer? Furthermore, if the character is only acting out of a sense of opposition, why does he
deliberate so long and so carefully about his uncle’s guilt? In the second act of Cloud 9, does
Betty divorce Clive simply to oppose him or his way of life, or does she divorce him in order to
liberate herself from his patrician notions of marriage and to challenge herself to think and feel Categories
and live for herself? Which choice is more dramatically compelling? Which choice gives Betty a
Actors on Acting
more interesting emotional voyage in the play? During the discussion, my goal is to help my
students see that, if they free themselves from the notion that acting is limited to opposing the Editor
other, they will undoubtedly discover other, richer actions that unleash the humanity
Teaching Acting
embedded within the character.

Working in the Business

The Exercise Observations

Next, I give my students an improvisational exercise that goes some way in helping them
recognize playing the problem in their own work and learn how to make adjustments in their
choices so as to avail themselves of more dimensions in character. It is my adaptation of an Archives
exercise I learned from Prof. Manuel Duque, at Pennsylvania State University, where I did my
Masters of Fine Arts. He, in turn, had adapted it from an exercise he learned during his time June 2015
studying with Sanford Meisner[*]. The exercise is for two actors, who work together to imagine
May 2015
a long-standing relationship of significant emotional depth. Siblings, lovers, and married
couples are good examples of this. Sometimes roommates can work, depending on the length
and depth of the relationship. Whatever the choice, what’s important is that, while the
relationship is imaginary, the actors should make use of their own names, ages, sensibilities, Calendar
worldviews, and so forth, thereby making truthful and purposeful use of themselves in a set of
imagined circumstances. Next, the actors imagine a situation in which one of them, Actor A, is November 2015
inside the room, a specific place agreed to by the actors beforehand, and occupied in a an
M T W T F S S
activity connected to his or her own life circumstances, such as meeting a deadline for a job,
packing up to move the next day, or preparing for an important meeting. The activity must be of 1
a physical nature and have stakes, meaning importance and urgency. Studying for a test the
next day does not work! Finally, Actor B knocks on the door, with an urgent desire or need of his 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

or her own and that can only be satisfied by Actor A taking some action. In the exercise, we call 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Actor B’s desire or need by a simple term, “x.” From this basic set-up, the actors allow the
improvisation to play out. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29
Here is an example of a set of given circumstances that I created for the exercise:
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Two brothers, Joe and Ed, have been, until recently, in business together. In fact, it’s the family
« Jun
business they inherited from their father. It was discovered about a couple years back that Joe
was using the business as a bank, borrowing money and paying it back when he could. He had
run into some hard times and needed the help. But, rather than trust his brother, Ed, and ask
for help, he borrowed the money on the sly.
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After the ensuing confrontation, Ed insists that Joe sell his half of the business to him so he can
Stop Surviving! An Actor’s Manifesto
run it on his own. He doesn’t trust Joe anymore and feels that, after what’s happened, he
deserves to have the business on his own. Joe, out of remorse and guilt, agrees. At least he can TPJ Observations
move on with his life in some other direction and feel okay about giving his brother what he
Something Rotten! A TPJ Observation
wants.

However, without Joe, the business falls off. Out of pride, Ed refuses to go to his brother,
forgive him, and ask him to come back. But, with debts mounting and creditors calling and the
Tag Cloud
bank threatening to withhold even overnight loans to cover payroll, Ed realizes he needs his
brother back. In fact, he has only until the end of the next day to convince the bank that he’s
made necessary changes in the business to fix the problems. The bank president has told Ed
that if Joe comes back on board they’ll hold off shutting him down. About Retina

Meanwhile, Joe has put into place some plans for his own business. In fact, today, in just about An elegant, versatile, nice and simple blog theme
a half hour, just across town, he has an important meeting with some investors. He knows featuring custom background, custom header,
they’ll be there, waiting for him. At about this moment, he hears a knock on the door. He custom menu, flexible header, featured images,
knows his brother’s knock when he hears it…. sticky post, fixed-width, theme options, widget-
ready, threaded comments and translation ready.
Observations: You can easily use your own Logo, Text and
Background. The Theme can work for various
There’s a long relationship, a deep history between Joe and Ed. different niches.
The stakes are high for both sides. Joe is on the verge of starting a new life, with a new
business. Ed needs his brother back to save the family business.
Ed needs “x” for specific reasons, not just some vague sense of “brotherhood” or “old Meta
times” or “family”.
Joe has truly moved on. He misses his brother, but understands his responsibility in all of Log in
this.
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The “x” is attainable.
The “x” is something only Joe can give to his brother. No one else will do. Comments RSS
There is a time constraint. Now matters.
 For two actors to take this on, more details are needed. This is only a scenario. For WordPress.org
example, what is the business? How hard did Dad work to build it? Did Joe and Ed grow up
learning the business and working in it? Does having worked together, with their father,
making this business what it is, shape much of their brotherhood? Where’s Mom in this
picture? What’s the new business Joe has going? How hard has he worked to sell his new
business idea to the investors who are awaiting him? And on it goes.

My role during the improvisation is to stop the action when I pick up on anything I sense as
coming short of truthful, purposeful behavior, isolate and describe whatever that thing is, and
give the actors insights into improving their choices. At first, or even for quite some time, there
is quite a bit of stopping. I have learned to do this with a sense of humor and to keep the
exercise moving. In fact, upon stopping students, I congratulate them with a smile or a pat on
the back for having given the rest of us something to notice and learn from, in essence turning
what they at first perceive to be a failure into an opportunity for success. Common reasons for
stopping the action include objectives in need of higher personal and emotional stakes,
relationships that are vague, independent life activities that are not physical or of enough
importance, engaging in generalized anger not connected to the objectives, indicating, and
using opposition to the other as a poor substitute for having and pursuing one’s own objectives.
The exercise is challenging, to say the least, but students rise to the occasion.

Two Examples

Of all the lessons the exercise yields, I would say that awareness of the tendency to play the
problem is one of the most powerful in helping to improve student acting. The following
example occurred in a class of seven pairs of students. This particular pair was the first to do
the exercise. On average, I work with each pair for between thirty and forty minutes rotating
through all the pairs three times. In this round, the student in search of “x” practically dragged
herself through the door. She seemed to be carrying the weight of the world. I resisted the urge
to stop her then and there. After a few more moments of tedious and inactive silence, her scene
partner observed that she seemed “down.” With a heavy sigh, she began to describe just how
down she was. As far as I could gather, she could have addressed her remarks to anyone, so
little did she notice or take in anything that her partner was doing. In effect, she was not
interested, so wrapped up as she was in showcasing her own pain. To her, he was a mere prop.

At this point, I stopped the interaction to ask the student what motivated the behavior, that is,
the sighing and the weary shuffling from the door to the table. She recounted some of the given
circumstances that she and her partner imagined and that produced the emotional and
physical state I observed. I supported her effort to take account of the conflict embedded within
the give circumstances. But, I explained, doing so is not the equivalent of employing an action in
the pursuit of an objective. In fact, there is a good chance that she can become so mired in the
conflict as to fool herself into thinking that she is doing something dramatically compelling,
when, in fact, all she is doing is showcasing just what a difficult and trying situation she is in.
This, I say to them, is “playing the problem.”

Much to her credit, the student took this in and made herself available to my coaching. This
does not always happen. I have experienced situations when students need time to absorb the
notion that what they have thought of as successful acting up to this point in their lives is
maybe not so successful after all. I have learned through some trials and errors when to allow
students the time and space they need to consider what for them is a new set of challenges
they were not aware of before.

But, in this case, I had a student eager to make adjustments. I asked her to try coming through
the door again with one adjustment, which is to trust that the conflict would emerge without
her having to indicate it in any way. She tried this several times with varying results. The first
time through she broke into a fit of giggles. She shared just how self-conscious she felt. I
suggested that maybe she felt that way because I had taken away from her the familiar routine
she had come to rely on in her acting. The next time through, she went straight for her
objective, literally demanding of her partner that he yield to her need for “x.” My observation of
this was that, in her intense and direct bid for “x,” she had actually ignored a significant portion
of the given circumstances involving her relationship with her partner, treating him more as an
object rather than as her brother.

I could sense her frustration rising. I guessed it came from a strong desire on her part to make
progress or experience a breakthrough. I re-assured her that she was, indeed, making lots of
progress, whether she realized it or not. After all, she had let go of playing the problem as a
substitute for action and she had begun to see herself as an agent of action rather than as a
focus of audience attention. I asked her to do it one more time and see what happened if she
looked for her next tactic in her partner. After all, within the parameters of the exercise, he is
the sole source of “x.” I received a look I am now quite familiar with. It was a look of disbelief
that one’s tactics would in some way come from someone else. “How can my tactics come from
him? How can anyone’s tactics come from someone else?” This is something I chose not to
answer with words, at least not early in the exercise. Instead, I encouraged the student to find
the answer to her questions in the doing of the exercise.

Eventually, over the course of the next two rounds of doing the exercise, she brought her
attention to her partner. In doing so, she began to let go of playing the problem. If she stayed
alive to the present moment and to her partner, she might begin to discover the many
compelling actions available to her. Gratifyingly enough, during this and subsequent sessions, I
observed her finding and employing such tactics as taking her partners feelings into account,
listening and observing him actively, acknowledging his needs, struggling to balance his needs
against her own, working to find a way forward when one does not make itself apparent, and
more. I want to emphasize that this does not happen in one or two sessions. This may take a
semester, as is the case with most students, even longer.

Another example of this comes to mind, not from the exercise itself but from rehearsing with
actors for a production of “Art” by Yasmina Reza. This is a play about the demise of a fifteen-
year friendship between three men. Two of them have plenty of resentments stored up; the
third is caught in the middle. It is hard work to convince the two actors playing the first two
roles to resist unloading their resentments by attacking each other with bristling sourness at
every turn. If that is all we see them do, we will never believe that there has been a friendship of
fifteen years, nor will we care about its demise. Nor will the characters, for that matter, who
would be only too glad to be rid of each other. So, for the play to work, something else has to
happen. I suggest to them some actions they might consider, like struggling to keep the
friendship intact, trying to understand each other, trying to exercise patience with each other,
doing what they can to process their feelings and make another effort at understanding the
perspective of the other, trying to forgive and accept one another no matter how hopeless it
seems. These are actions that would lift the interaction up from a mere squabble to something
more like an awakening to the complexities and difficulties in relationships. Does this mean,
then, they never attack each other out of sheer small-mindedness? They do these things too,
but only at specific places when the obstacles, i.e., the resentments, overwhelm them and they
lose sight of their better selves. Do we need to see the small-minded side as well? Of course we
do. These are human beings we’re portraying. They have all the weaknesses we recognize in
ourselves.

Student Questions

Along the way, my students ask good questions about the work. I think their questions, and,
perhaps, my responses go a long way in helping to further describe the value of the exercise.
One question that comes up frequently, usually in the early stages of the exercise, has to do
with the overall goal of the improvisation. Why, they want to know, would we undertake an
improvisational exercise that seems better suited to a playwriting class. After all, much of the
challenge of the exercise is imagining the relationship and the detailed given circumstances that
fuel the action. My response is that, as actors, given a text to explore, their responsibility will be
largely the same as it is in the improvisation. Because text only supplies so many given
circumstances, actors do well to keep filling in more until they have enough to be able to
connect personally and emotionally with the character and the situation. So, the actor’s work is
not strictly interpretive, but inherently and collaboratively creative.

Another question I find helpful in understanding the value of the exercise challenges my
supposition that playing the problem is, indeed, a problem. After all, drama is conflict. So, why,
my students want to know, is playing the conflict problematic? Doesn’t playing the conflict help
communicate to the audience the drama as written by the playwright? My answer is that, yes, a
dramatic situation is a situation with conflict at its core. Furthermore, I go on, the given
circumstances will yield dramatic conflict as a result of the collision of the characters’ opposing
objectives. The actors do not need to make this happen by any means—adopting oppositional
attitudes toward each other, attempting to manipulate the interaction into one of conflict, or
indicating conflict. In other words, the characters are not usually in on the conflict as imagined
by the playwright. They are only in on the pursuit of their own objectives. The rest, if trusted and
played truthfully and purposefully, takes care of itself. These last few sentences are light bulb
moments.

There are exceptions to this and these exceptions lead to another question raised by my
students. Some characters do create and welcome conflict. Think of Iago, for example, or the
villains in revenge tragedies, melodrama, musicals, or opera. Examples abound. My response to
my students is that, in these cases, the playwright has set about writing a piece that examines
the perverse side of human behavior. These characters pursue objectives that are, in and of
themselves, oppositional. But, I caution that, even in these examples, the opposition is not
merely an indicated emotion and calls upon the actor to find that part of the human soul that
motivates the opposition. Dracula needs the blood of his victims, condemned, as he is, to an
eternity of emotional and physical hunger. So, the insight gained remains the same as before:
Don’t fall into the trap of reducing the role you’re playing to a mere function of serving as the
other character’s obstacle; instead, do the creative work that will allow you to discover your own
character’s path and depth of humanity. “Trust the given circumstances and penetrate them
fully,” I say to my students, “The conflict will emerge.”.

Concluding Observations

As might emerge from the examples above is the idea that there are actually two
improvisations for every round of interaction between two students: the first is the
improvisation they attempt and the second is the improvisation that happens between them
and me as I engage with them and attempt to isolate and describe what I believe is obstructing
their way toward doing something truthfully and with a purpose. I think it is important to
acknowledge this with the students so that they see me not as an authority figure who makes
judgments, but as a fellow explorer in the journey. This goes a long way in diminishing some of
the inevitable apprehension and creating the kind of safe and accepting space necessary for
failing and learning. What helps even more is to acknowledge that much of what I have to share
with them is based on my opinion of what makes good theatre. I encourage them to be on the
lookout for those opinions and to bring them up in class discussion after each round of
improvisation.

I do not think it is a good idea to allow the improvisation between two actors and myself to
become a class-wide critique. For the two students whose interaction is under the microscope,
this can feel overwhelming and even cause them to shut down. So, I establish boundaries about
this at the beginning of the first time I stop a pair of students. I explain to the class that they will
have an opportunity to ask questions about the points I raise when I open the floor to them.
Even then, I caution, they should refrain from offering critical appraisals of each other’s work. I
go on to point out that most of the learning in the class comes from the observing. This is true, I
think, because the objectivity afforded by being outside of the interaction. To reinforce this, I
create an assignment in which the students keep an ongoing blog of what they learn from
observing their classmates in improvisation.

There was a time not so long ago that I would limit my introduction to the exercise to a bare
minimum. I would offer no observations or examples beyond that. I felt that this would
challenge and engage them. What I learned along the way is that only a few students are ready
for this approach. In a class with different levels of experience and talent, I need to give them
more information. Still, I am aware of giving them too much, over-explaining to the point of
interfering with their learning. I am still working out just what the right balance is. During my
most recent experience in using the exercise in the fall of 2012, I gave my students the same
explanation, observations, and example I provided at the beginning of this article. Then, I put
them in pairs to come up with their own given circumstances. Afterwards, I had them share
those given circumstances with the rest of the class. This gave everyone in the class a chance to
ask questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the given circumstances for each pair. I
was curious to see whether some of the student pairs would create given circumstances that
mirrored my example with Joe and Ed. Except for one student, who thought he was supposed to
mirror my example, no one else out of a class of 14 did so. In talking with one student about it, I
learned that the given circumstances for Joe and Ed are for older, middle-aged people and,
therefore, not likely to be copied by my students. I had unwittingly struck upon a solution.

While I believe I came closer last fall to finding the right amount of explaining and setting up for
the exercise than I have at any other time, there were still some given circumstances that had to
be re-worked once the students began to do the exercise. I think this is an important part of the
learning. In fact, I think it is important not to correct too many weaknesses in the given
circumstances before they have done their first round of the improvisation. This way, they can
discover those weaknesses with each other and with me and experience just how much more
effective the improvisation is by re-working the given circumstances. Through this, they learn
that deep commitment to vivid and motivating given circumstances, which, of course, include
their scene partner, is an effective place to begin their journey.

[*] Sanford Meisner (1905-1997) was one of America’s leading acting teachers. He began his
career in the theatre in the 1930s as a founding member of The Group Theatre, which was
instrumental in transforming the American theatre by mounting original American plays that
reflected in honest, unvarnished ways the difficult life of those times during the Depression.
Beginning in 1941, when the Group Theatre dissolved, Meisner began to teach acting at The
Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. There, he combined what he had learned during his
time at The Group Theatre with the acting theories of the Russian director Constantin
Stanislavski to develop acting exercises designed to elicit truthful emotional responses. Over the
course of his forty-eight year career, he taught some of the most accomplished actors of his
time, including Robert Duvall, Grace Kelly, Diane Keaton, and Peter Falk.

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