Because Kettlebells are Hard to Mime

Everyone’s opposite is different.

This is the idea behind one of the exercises we did recently in improv workshop. My troupe has company workshops every Thursday evening. We’ve recently decided to add a bit more structure to them by having specific teachers cover particular topics each month. In February, Tom taught us about creating interesting characters. One technique in particular stuck with me.

He started out by giving us a stereotypical situation. The first round, for example, was a parking attendant giving someone a parking ticket. Our challenge was to first summon up the stereotype of the person giving the ticket. Then, we were to play the opposite of that. The idea was that while everyone’s stereotypes are very similar, everyone’s opposite is different. And it seemed to be true. We had a “nice guy” attendant, who felt bad about giving his friend a ticket. We had a cowardly attendant, who totally caved when the car’s owner returned. We even had a pious attendant, who prayed before putting the ticket under the windshield wiper.

It was a wonderful idea, and it carried over to other scenes beautifully. I got to be a doctor for Medicines Sans Frontiers who had no bedside manner or compassion.¹ I played opposite Jeannie’s helpful DMV worker, who I was convinced was trying to set me up for something. And when I was given “librarian,” I thought of my friend Judd and started doing pushups on stage.²

It was fascinating exercise, and I want to give it a try at the next show I’m in.

¹ I was told afterward that I was too nice, because I used anesthetic when I cut a tumor off of someone’s face.

² It’s a good thing I’ve been working out. Also, I got to use the line, “You can’t learn things from books.”

Comments

[Jon Edwards]

I completely forgot about that exercise. That's awesome. I want to try it out in roleplaying. Your posts have inspired me to think about going back to improv.

Do you mean "kettleball" or "kettlebell"? I use kettlebells to work out.