Improv on the Holodeck

On page 38 of Hamlet on the Holodeck, Murray states that, “to be alive in the twentieth century is to be aware of the alternative possible selves, of alternative possible worlds, and of the limitless intersecting stories of the actual world.”

This quote reminded me of an improv show I went to on Sunday night. Three of the skits/games in particular stood out. The first one was a game in which there are two different two-person scenes going on, one being frozen while the other is in action. After awhile, the active scene stops and the frozen scene starts up again, using the last line from the formerly active scene (did that make sense?). Although that line remains the same in both scenes, both scenes were entirely different and used it in different ways. Game two was called “new choice” in which two people act out a scene, while the host periodically says “new choice”, forcing them to go back and change the line they just said. This in effect changes the course of the scene, leaving the audience to follow the new direction while still wondering how the scene would have played out if the original line had been kept. The third game was one in which two people are acting out a scene until they are forced to freeze. While they’re frozen, another person must step in and replace one of the actors in the scene, putting their body into the same position as the person they replaced. It was interesting to see how much the addition of this new person could change the scene. Although the actors were positioned in the same way, the meaning of that positioning totally shifted. Though Hamlet on the Holodeck discusses this kind of narrative in new media forms, it was interesting to me to see them played out in a theater format.