Deep Shallowness

I find myself frustrated on two levels after improv classes and performances. On one level, I'm upset if I don't hear laughs from the audience. On another, I'm upset if I feel I've sacrificed quality scene work just to get cheap laughs. And then I'm extra upset if I make that sacrifice and the laughs still don't materialize!

I want to be a mature and generous performer, creating solid characters and solid scenes, not being a slave to immediate audience response. But I'm realizing that, as with everything else, I can't just choose to be mature. I can make choices that foster maturity, but that's not the same thing. I'm also realizing that denying the desires and instincts that drive me won't help; I'll do better to acknowledge them and try to satisfy them properly, so that I'm not driven by them against my better judgment.

Here's what I mean: I like hearing applause and laughter; I like positive attention; I like approval from authority and being liked by my peers; and I want to feel capable and competent. I can feel all these at work in me when I go to improv classes and rehearsals, and step out on the stage. I can tell myself that the desires for laughter and attention are shallow, but the fact is that they run deep in me. And I'm no longer convinced that they're petty and should be uprooted and replaced by loftier preoccupations like Art or The Good of Mankind. My desires simply are what they are. They're big and unwieldy, but they could also be the magnets that pull me toward the true North of my vocation (which I can easily see serving the purposes of art and God and the good of my fellow man, without leaving me shrivelled and bitter). Often, trying to apply the improv principles that I'm being taught only goes so far in overriding these deep-running desires anyway. Not that my desires and these learned principles are inherently incompatible -- it's just that it can be hard for someone who's inexperienced (as I am with improv) to get them working together rather than against each other.

It's a lot like physical instincts, I think. I saw a documentary that said that our digestive system has so many nerves and wirings that it's almost like a second brain. Denying our stomachs was compared to denying our lungs after walking up a flight of stairs: We might be able to keep our breathing down for a while, but eventually we need the additional air. I also read that we're wired to make up for discipline in one area by cutting ourselves slack in another -- so someone might run three miles and then eat a big muffin. I imagine this crosses disciplines, too -- someone might be great about food and exercise all the time, for example, but hasn't taken the time to think about spiritual matters or isn't good at maintaining relationships.

So I figure the way to handle my nature's desires isn't to try to ignore them or just "discipline" my way through them, because that won't work. And it won't make me happy. Instead, I'd like to have them fulfilled in some healthy fashion, so that I'm free to make mature creative choices. I think that's what "generous" actors must be able to do. They're not so insecure and starved for the limelight that they can't step back and make their fellow performers look good. I was mature enough to do this as a musician, but I'm not there with improv yet.

I don't know what those healthy desire-fillers will be. If my own experience is anything to go by, the whole process will take a while, and I'll just have to be where I am while I'm there. I'll have to keep working to find the balance between applying constructive criticism and enjoying what limited skill I have already.

But I'm kind of excited at the thought of having these desires filled, somehow.