To laugh a lot! To tremble, vibrate, palpitate! And above all, want to go on stage to play too… The improvisation troupe Les Marmottes de l'Improcalypse will meet the Improcalyptiques of Viry on Saturday, December 7. An evening not to be missed.
Imagine a hockey match, without the ice: we have a referee (in a large striped t-shirt), two teams of six players and an audience, because the audience participates in the game. The referee announces a duration which can go from a few seconds to a few minutes. He also chooses a theme (for example, “the old man on the mountain”) and a category. It can be “without words”, or “sung”, “neither yes nor no”, etc. The teams consult for a few moments, which allows the master of ceremonies to explain the instructions to the public.
The teams then offer a sketch, in two successive performances or together. When they have finished, the public votes with a card to choose the best performance.
The referee counts the points and sometimes applies penalties if he notices “faults”.
A coach to prepare for roles
The show lasts about two hours, at a brisk pace, with a series of skits. At the end, the referee announces the overall winner, but ultimately everyone is a winner, because everyone – including the audience – helped create the show.
It's quite a challenge to imagine a story, with its characters and its twists and turns in a few seconds, and to embody this story, to live its emotions to share them with the public. How to prepare for the unexpected? “These are techniques that we work on over and over again to get the repartee at the right time,” explains Pauline, the troupe’s coach. For one of the actresses, “It’s like a team sport. We rely on others to bounce back. We know that we can count on each other if we feel in difficulty.” For Romain, the president of the association, “You have to listen to your inspiration, to the slightest clues. It’s not the head that leads the body, it’s the body that leads the head.”
-The constraints announced by the referee boost creativity, and pleasure does the rest.
Leave the ego in the locker room
On a daily basis, actors take on multiple roles: they become plumbers, doctors, mothers, neighbors, etc. So many uniforms and so many masks which end up being heavy. So many emotions that we also store. An actress says that for her, improvisation is the way to relieve stress. Indeed, during the “warm-up”, the coach encourages the actors to move in a few seconds from the sulking teenager to the ecstatic child, or the transfixed lover.
When we abandon all the roles we endure on a daily basis, we become free to play at being whoever we want, including ourselves.
Is it difficult? “It depends,” temper the actors. Some people cannot free themselves from the weight of the ego. Others are ready to let go and then have fun with their new roles, for the duration of a skit.
