On behalf of Quipfire!, let me start out by thanking you for reading this article. Whether you are sitting at the breakfast table or on the toilet, thank you. We sincerely appreciate that you took a break from browsing egg donor ads to thumb your way over to the arts section to read an objective, unbiased article about Quipfire! that was written by one of its members.
With that out of the way, I want you, the reader, to know that I am not writing this article to publicize our Houseparties weekend shows tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. Far from it — I wish to give you a behind-the-scenes look at a how the group really works. U-Call IMPROV for reservations.
Few people know that we do a number of shows off-campus each year. In addition to our annual tour, we have led improv workshops for children. We have played high schools during seventh period as "Quipfire! Improve" because the secretary was a slave to spell check. We have also sold out to corporate America. Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson once compensated us with gift baskets containing dental floss, baby powder, Norwegian foot cream and maxi-pads.
But the show itself is nothing more than a product of preparation. We practice a lot, sometimes once per week. However, we do not use scripts. Honestly, we don't. This is because many of us struggle with polysyllabic words such as polysyllabic.
Rehearsal begins with the grueling "Six Characters in Sixty Seconds." During the course of a minute, each member has to portray six different characters, changing characters every 10 seconds.
Typically the warm-up features the usual suspects: the old woman, the stoner, the Englishman, the heavy breather (who simply breathes for 10 seconds) and the child of ambiguous gender. But occasionally, a nugget of comic gold, or at least pewter, surfaces. Like assembling a Mr. Potatohead, someone puts on a new accent, new face and new posture. And hilarity ensues.
From there, the group moves into the games that you would find at our standard show. Tommy, Will and Katie jump into "Rewind," where we do one scene in a variety of film and theater styles. Through the years, we have performed scenes in styles varying from Shakespeare to Teletubbies to a Mentos commercial to the movie "Friday" to its sequel "Next Friday."
Brian, Ellie and I bolt into a round of "Musical Review." Given nothing more than a title, we create a mini foot-tapping, show-stopping musical featuring lyrics that rhyme most of the time.
Jordan and Chris step up to the stage for "Excuse Me, But Could You Please Rephrase that Last Sentence or Clause?" They carry out a regular two-man scene, but are buzzed by another member of the group holding a Taboo buzzer when they give a line that displeases the person holding the buzzer. He buzzes them until satisfied with one of their lines and the scene progresses.
Naturally the games have changed and evolved over the years. For example, "Excuse Me . . ." changed rapidly once Hasbro invented Taboo. Many games have been dropped from our repertoire because they failed to fulfill us artistically or stunted our growth as improvisers. Plus, they were not funny.
Sometimes new games emerge from experimentation during rehearsal. In other cases, we pick up games while on tour. About a year ago, we were stuck watching improv tragedy, though it was billed as comedy, in San Francisco. Our Bay Area brethren played a game in which they took a random object from the audience and had three people give a monologue about it. Though the game bombed that night, we were caught by the idea behind it. And thus, "Object Subjective" was born.
After finishing a round of games, we break into long-form improvisation. Using one word or a set of words, we construct a sequence of scenes lasting anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. Everyone in the group participates in the long-from sequence, sometimes as characters and other times as pieces of the environment. For example, I once portrayed a cigar store Indian statue that Tommy used as a towel rack.
Currently, we are fiddling around with a brand of long-form in which two characters have a normal scene until a member of the group taps out one of the characters in the scene and a new scene begins. This format has lately produced a series of epics in rehearsal: The rise and fall of the e-whoring industry. Genius violinist Salvador Twinkle saves America from an invasion of child refugees from Cuba.
Long-form improvisation is incredibly demanding. The improviser has to be able to follow a variety of scenes that are held together by a series of overlapping themes, while also keeping the audience in stitches. Without the right balance, a long-form sequence can drag. But when done right, it's so great that afterwards you have to take a cigarette break before returning to the comedy.
Yes, the great John Belushi once called long-form comedy better than sex. And please keep that in mind as you plan your Houseparties weekend.
Josh Boak '01 is an English major from Canton, Ohio. He can be reached at jgboak@princeton.edu.
Quipfire!'s Houseparties show is playing today through Saturday at 9 p.m. at Theatre-Intime. U-Call IMPROV for reservations.
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