Not for the faint of heart or easily discombobulated, Backwards Interview demands a rarefied level of joyous reverse engineering.
The Basics
Improvisers begin an interview scene at its conclusion and rewind it beat by beat until it reaches an organic beginning, which also delightfully serves as the scene’s final moment.
Example
Player D: (stepping out from behind the studio camera) “Good show, everyone. And we’re clear.”
Player A: (turning to the studio audience) “I hope to see you again next week on That’s All You Need to Know. And that’s all we have time for tonight.
Player B: (shaking A’s hand rigorously) “The pleasure has been all mine.”
Player A: “It’s really been an honor finally getting to meet one of my culinary heroes.”
Player B: “Hopefully, you’ll get that pancake out of the lighting grid later.”
Player C wheels off a model kitchen bench as A and B stand and finish their demonstration. Player D flashes a “wrap other up” signal. Player A mimes catching a pancake in their flung frying pan.
Player A: “I’m not too confident about my technique, but here goes…”
The Focus
Small steps are key, especially those that firmly and clearly connect to what has just transpired. That being said, keep in mind that the scene essentially begins at the climax, so it’s useful to start with a major outcome or energy and then slowly make your way back from there.
Traps and Tips
1.) Think sentences, not paragraphs. Each choice should carry the weight of one beat in the story arc, whether this is a physical reaction, a piece of staging, or a line of dialogue. Just as you wouldn’t consider an epic fight as one moment but rather a closely connected series of escalating parlays, the same strategy applies to your words. If your character dramatically needs a monologue, be sure you start it at the bottom of the page and then work your way up one line at a time. This keeps the structure cleaner and enables smaller discoveries (and reactions from your scene partners) along the way.
2.) Think contained (at least initially). Unless you’re one of the handful of improvisers whose minds “just get” this generally torturous dynamic, it’s wise to keep the action focused. I like the interview format for this reason as it offers a comparatively digestible template of questions and answers – although these are now answers and then questions! If you tend to play in larger teams or ensembles, those not occupying the roles of expert and interviewer can contribute meaningfully in ancillary positions so as not to accidentally overwhelm or clutter the action. There’s no going backward (forward?) to justify dropped offers, so be wary of overloading the storyline. Speaking of questions and justifying, if the expert always provides answers as their verbal contribution, the interviewer will end up doing nearly all the justifying, so look for ways to playfully invert and complicate this basic pattern once you have a sense of the dynamic at play.
3.) Think movement as well. As difficult as the dialogue can feel, many improvisers really struggle (at least initially) with the physical component of the game. Give each stage direction its full value in the story progression (regression) and break these choices down into bite-sized pieces, too. A seemingly obvious tip is that characters will typically walk backwards for the duration of the scene, and any major action will need to be broken down into its constituent elements. So, if we know a pancake is eventually lost in the rafters, the team needs to gradually click back from that destination: cooking the batter in the pan, pouring in the pancake mix, melting butter, turning on the stovetop…
4.) Think emotion. Without any emotion, subtext, or strong character points of view, the scene will quickly devolve into a rather heady party game. Just as it’s useful to leap to a climactic action to close (start) the interview, it’s equally powerful to have a strong deal as your character. It’s a little odd to think about a status or emotion tilt in reverse, but in essence, there’s little difference: change is the common denominator. If our interviewer ends the exchange embarrassed after their terrible pancake effort, now we can slowly build to that, and perhaps the scene commences with a braggadocios vibe that magnifies the comeuppance in a pleasing way.
5.) Think about rehearsing. Obviously, part of the joy of this game is undeniably the struggle, but without a little previous unpacking and exploring, the scene will likely amount to little else than messiness. Some companies have rehearsals more deliberately and frequently built into their culture than others, but this game really benefits from some good old-fashioned drills. Be careful that this doesn’t become practicing “bits” to later recycle into the public performances but rather focuses on developing an agreed upon understanding of how time functions and the ramifications of this new directional flow. Sure, glorious mistakes will still occur on stage, but now (hopefully) they’ll be helpfully contextualized with a sense of how the scene “should” have honored the rules.
In Performance
There is a lifetime of challenge awaiting in this base model, so I reluctantly offer two potential overlays (and, in all cases, recommend setting the players up for joy and going out on a high, even if that high isn’t as high as you’d ideally like). If the team is on fire, there is something remarkable about them immediately running the scene forward after successfully reaching the first line of the interview. And, if the warped logic of this dynamic starts to make eerie sense, you can dispose of the interview concept entirely and just make it a Backwards Scene, a game that I very much love… in theory.
Cheers, David Charles.
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Photo Credit: Tony Firriolo
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