Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the SoCap
Improv Comedy Podcast. My name is Ralph. Ralph
McLeod. I am the owner and artistic director
of the SoCap Comedy Theatre in Toronto, Ontario,
Canada. We are at 154 Danforth Avenue on the
second and third floor above the Black Swan Tavern.
Socap .ca is our URL. We do improv classes, shows,
events, corporate events, private events. You
can rent our space and do your own thing. You
can arrange a class for us to come and... you
know, uh, for a birthday party or a retirement
or something like that. Um, boy, oh boy, lots
of different things that you can do with us.
Uh, every podcast has a sponsor. Uh, this week's
sponsor is the Canadian designer, Tommy Go Figure.
Uh, Tommy Go Figure. I don't care. It makes me
laugh. That's, that's why it's here. Cause it
made me chuckle. So Tommy Go Figure. for all
your Neil Young tuxedo needs. Love me some Neil
Young tuxedo. Good stuff. Anyway, so this podcast
is about improvisation and for the stage and
also how improv can affect and better. Yes, that's
right. I use the word and better. You know, hey,
man, if impactful can become a word, so can better
to make your life better or different or try
different things. And that's what I want to talk
about today. One of those things that's that
that improv is really, really good at helping
to development, helping to develop. You can't
have something happen to development. That's
that's not right. It's it's a skill. There's
a lot of skills that improv will help you develop.
Probably skills that you didn't even think were
possible. Like, well, that's what we're going
to get into today. So if you have not seen the
TV show Seinfeld, I recommend it. Or if you've
seen it and don't like it, that's fine too. But
I did enjoy it very much. And there is an episode,
one of the... classics to me, I think, were the
classic episodes of that show. And if you don't
know the show, very quickly, Jerry Seinfeld,
the stand -up comedian, has three friends, all
with different quirks. And one of his friends,
George, is kind of a sad sack. And in one episode,
he's lamenting to Jerry that he's approaching
middle age, he's not married, he doesn't have
a job, and he's still living with his parents.
And that every choice he seems to make is the
wrong one. To which Jerry counsels him and says,
well, and if everything you do is wrong, then
the opposite must be the correct choice. And
George decides to do the opposite. And he immediately
walks over to an attractive woman at the coffee
shop and says, hello, my name is George. I'm
unemployed and I live with my parents. And she
turns around at him and looks at him like he's
the sexiest man alive. And she said, who are
you, George Costanza? And that's the beginning
of a romance. And so it works. It works. And
so that is something that you can definitely
do in improv. And in fact, I'm often counseling
my students to try the opposite. The opposite
of what? Well, the opposite of what you would
do in a certain situation. And I'll give you
an example that I probably use a lot on this
podcast because it's a good one. You know, a
person comes home and declares to their spouse
that they're having an affair. uh and then their
spouse uh their response is woohoo amazing uh
okay well let's see now why is that the opposite
well uh when when we watch drama there's certain
rules certain things that we expect and here's
an expectation uh that unless we've had a situation
ourselves in which we were excited to be told
by that our spouse was having an affair carrying
on an illicit relationship without knowledge
or consent or prior understanding. Our expectation
is that person who receives the information would
be shocked, saddened, angry, resentful, hurt,
spiteful. These are reactions that in our world
would make sense. And probably the vast majority
of us would react that way. And on stage, when
you're playing a character, or it's pretend,
you know, we're playing pretend, make -believe
with someone else. That's the reaction you will
see most often, is, what? Oh, no, say it isn't
so. But you can also do the opposite. And in
this case, woo -hoo, is kind of an opposite choice.
Instead of being upset by it, you choose to be
elated by it. And the only question here, of
course, for comedy purposes, it works because
the woohoo creates some dissonance, some uncomfortableness
because it doesn't make sense. So there's some
tension that's built into the audience that we
get a little nervous because they don't know
what's going on. And so they're looking around
like, oh, maybe I'm stupid. I don't get it. It's
not for me. I'm being pushed out. And then what's
required. is an explanation as to why the woohoo
happened. And that's what you fill in. You reply.
You add it. One of the characters adds in. It
could be the person themselves saying, woohoo,
hey, you're cheating. And now I get to cheat
too. Or you're cheating. Oh, I've been cheating
for a long time. And now I don't feel guilty
about it anymore. And when you do that, the audience
will laugh. because the mystery has been solved,
the dissonance has evaporated. Ah, I get it.
This can also be done by the other character,
too, who can say, oh, I see why you're happy,
because you've been cheating a long time, and
now you don't feel guilty about it. So anybody
can fill it in. But the point is, when you do
the opposite, it often will require a bit of
explanation. But... it is often very fun to do
the opposite, to do the unexpected. If A is true,
the opposite of A is probably also true. Meaning
that, you know, I have certain reactions to things.
And I, and I'm saying I and us, one, we tend
to have the same reaction, the same kind of information
over and over and over again. And I think many
of us get stuck. into thinking that's the way
it is. There is no other possible explanation
or response. I hit a red light. Damn, I'm upset.
I'm frustrated because I always hit red lights.
Or, you know, I really wanted this specific job
and I didn't get it. Rats. I'm depressed. I'm
upset. And the opposite allows us to think about,
well, that is one valid. response to this stimuli.
But there are other options. You know, we can't
choose what happens to us, only how we react
to it. And improv gets you a chance to go, okay,
well, I didn't get that job. Okay, so what's
the opportunity here? Well, I've got six more
months to go write my novel. You know, that's
a cliche example, but it is true. You have a
little bit more time to do something else. When
you're stopped from doing one thing, it allows
you to do something else. Similarly, you stop
at a red light. Ah, nuts. I hate that I have
to sit here for 30 seconds, whatever it is. Well,
what about the opportunity it provides? Oh, well,
I get a chance to practice being okay with disappointment.
Whatever. That is a thing. And it is a thing.
So everything doesn't have to be one way. We're
locked in a pattern. And that's one thing that
improv can show you is an alternative point of
view or an alternative way of looking at something
or an alternative strategy. And it starts to
expand your mind and give you more options. You
know, when we approach situations and we're not
stressed, we tend to see more options. That's
why they always say, if you write an angry email,
sleep on it before you send it. Because when
you write the angry email, you're stressed and
stress narrows our focus. Also, literally narrows
our focus, but also it narrows our focus in terms
of our range of options that we see as possible
options. Fight, flight, freeze or flop, right?
Or flop, I guess, is the fifth one now. But we
just see a range of a narrow range of options
instead of multitudes of options that do exist.
But we often are. because of bias and conditionings
and all these things, just see a relative few
options. And there are multiple options. I'm
not saying in every single case, but certainly
far more than I would wager almost everybody,
including myself, thinks about. I'm as guilty
of this as anybody. I'm not in any way some kind
of magical being that doesn't fall prey to my
biases and conditioning. I sure do. I tend to
recognize it often, though. after the fact it
was too late but for next time haha next time
i will figure it out anyway try the opposite
and just as the last little button on this especially
when it comes to fear um and fear you know rules
our lives uh there are two ways two very stereotypical
ways though that that human beings tend to deal
with fear uh one kind of person wants to control
the situation control the stimuli that's giving
them fear and another type wants to pretend it's
not happening make someone else responsible for
it run away from it pretend it's not it's not
happening um and i think there's a there's a
in psychology there's a thing called transactional
analysis and as a friend of mine who was a psychologist
said It's kind of like the, it's, it's a, it's
a, it's not a good theory. It's the, it's a good
theory, but it's not really working practice,
but I find it works in improv for sure. And I
see a lot of it in, in people on stage when they
are, you know, being on stage heightens your
level of anxiety and fear for everybody, unless
you've had just a lot of experience or you're
blessed in some way. But people tend to come
in those two conditions. They control their fear
or they abrogate it. And going back to this document
I read on transactional analysis, it's like if
you... The example they use is pretend you're
in your house and you look over in your neighbor's
yard and there's your neighbor and their spouse
and they're both naked out in the... in the in
the backyard uh if if that's something that would
unnerve you uh the two the two types of people
one will go down and yell at them put your clothes
on and the second person will close the shutters
and run away and pretend it's not happening those
are the those and those are very general and
very stereotypical and not true of everybody
but we tend to fall in that spectrum and that's
that's typically when it comes to uncomfortable
situations fear we tend to control it or we tend
to walk away from it and that definitely happens
on in improv i see that in in my students all
the time um where they will tend to be in one
of those camps or another there's an improv type
that are the writers they are the people that
come in and kind of dictate who people are what's
going on and they're in their own head and they're
inventing a lot And then there's the type that
will tend to, well, what do you want to do? What's
happening? Who are you? They'll ask a lot of
questions and will be reticent to make choices
about what's going on or how they feel. They'd
rather just live and let the other person make
these choices and then they'll go along. And
that tends to happen. But with improv, you can
do the opposite. If you're someone who seeks
to control all the time, you can let go and let
someone else run the show and vice versa. If
you're someone who likes to let other people
take charge, you can practice taking charge in
a place that's safe. So once again, improv gives
you a place where you can role play and try things
in a scenario that is safe with zero stakes and
to see what it's like. I've probably talked about
this before, but a lot of students will tell
me, Ralph, this is therapy. And I will always
hasten to correct them and I'll say, it's not
therapy because I'm not a therapist and I'm not
going to help you. I'm unable to help you with
your specific problem. However, I find that implant
is therapeutic in that you can come and you can
work out things from your life, which I have
certainly done. And you can, when you're role
-playing these things, make different choices
that you made at the time. If it's a situation
that you were with another person, some kind
of conflict scenario, you can play their point
of view. If you've been dumped and you're always
getting dumped, well, you can get on stage and
you can play the person who's dumping other people
or vice versa. You can see what that's like.
You can get a window into a different experience.
Empathy builds empathy. Anyway, try the opposite.
This is why I'm encouraging you. or at least
just be open to the idea that, well, this choice
that I made, that seems to me, at this moment
right now, a no -brainer. Like, I have no other
choice. This is the only way to respond to that.
Someone yells at me, the only way to respond
is to yell back. Someone yells at me, the only
response is to cower. No. Maybe. You know, I
don't know you, but I'm just saying that certainly
in my life, things that i thought were ingrained
and the way it was always going to be have turned
out to be in some cases the opposite uh or laughably
wrong or short -sighted um yeah anyway That's
what I wanted to talk about today. So try the
opposite. You know, because you might just have
a George Costanza moment. So that's once again,
that's been the Socap Improv Comedy Podcast this
month brought to you by the famous Canadian designer
Tommy Gofinger for all your Neil Young Tuxedo
needs. Take care. See you next week. Bye.