I feel back in love with this short-form game when I recently introduced it to my R&D cast at Sak Comedy Lab. It’s a variation of a Zones format (see here) where players are variously allowed to Speak, Grunt or Shut Up depending on where they’re standing.
The Basics
The stage is divided into three zones – generally a stage right, center stage, and stage left strip. Each zone is randomly assigned one of the three titular speech styles, and a location or premise is determined. Within the scene, players must honor the limitations of the blocking, and speak, grunt, or shut up, as assigned. (“Speak” allows normal dialogue, “Grunt” consists of utterances or non-word sounds, and “Shut Up” requires true silence.)
Example
The zones are staged and determined, and the players are given the inspiration of babysitting. Stage right is speak, center stage is grunt, and stage left is shut up. The scene begins within a babysitter (A) standing center stage, pounding on the locked door of their charge (B) who is sitting on their bed, stage right.
Player A: (trying the locked handle, again, to no avail) “Arrggghhh…”
Player B: (looking indifferently at their phone) “This is my room, and I don’t have to let you in here…”
Player A knocks again accompanied with another frustrated grumbling sound.
Player B: “How long are you going to keep that up?!”
Another knock and snarl. Player B, clearly annoyed, stomps their way to the door, and in doing so, crosses into the “grunt” zone. They unlock the door before confronting their babysitter.
Player B: (snarling) “Arrrrrrrrr!”
Player B continues to the kitchen, stage left, where they begin to (silently) make themselves some cereal.
Player A lets out a heavy sigh before joining B in the kitchen…
The Focus
Explore and enjoy the various gifts of each zone. This game demands the skillful use of subtext, staging, and emotional specificity.
Traps and Tips
1.) Set the stage. Literally. If you have it, arrange some furniture strategically before the scene begins. Perhaps there’s a chair to stand in for the child’s bed stage right, and a block stage left to represent the kitchen bench. (Even better, place items so that they span two different zones just to maximize staging potentials.) So much of this game involves justifying your staging, and it’s difficult to do this if the scene exists in a nowhere land with nothing to anchor each area. Similarly, it’s helpful for the players and the audience to have visible markers for where each zone transitions to the next (stools, cones, mic stands…). The easier these markers can be seen, the more dynamic and sharp transitions you’ll enable.
2.) Use normal blocking. There can be an (understandable) tendency to move to the area of the stage that will allow you to engage in the type of speech acts that you most want to use as the character. And, to some limited degree, this instinct can serve. But generally, the game and scene take off when you just move through the space as you normally would and then justify the speaking rules that are in play. Talky improvisers, in particular, can tend to just place themselves in the “speak” zone and largely stay there, which doesn’t really honor the spirit of the dynamic. If our babysitter, in the above example, just wants to talk, they’re likely to walk into the kid’s empty bedroom with little or no motivation. If they want to win over or connect to the child, then following them into the silent kitchen makes much more sense, even if it delightfully raises the verbal challenge.
3.) Throw the ball. Also, be especially mindful of generously sharing the focus between characters and zones. Just because someone is currently parked in the silent area, doesn’t mean that their character doesn’t want to respond, or isn’t tempted to do so. Allow room for these non-responses, just as you would for a fellow actor who is likely to articulate their next move. Don’t mistake the “speak” zone as an “always speaking” zone – you’ll want to be particularly careful here that others have sufficient room to make strong and meaningful contributions. On the other end of the dynamic, don’t mistake the “shut up” zone as an “unenergized zone.” Characters located here should have strong emotions and objectives as well – they are just choosing not to say them out loud for a reason you need to find and justify. Acting and talking over each other, like in any “regular” improv scene, won’t help you in the long run.
In performance
Played with patience, you can craft a delightfully nuanced scene with this seemingly restrictive overlay. Yes, there are times that you’ll justify first – coming up with a perhaps less-than-elegant reason to move into that zone of the stage so you can make that choice that you really want to make. But when you flip the switch and allow yourself to move more naturally from set piece to set piece and then work to find your verbal (or non-verbal) justification, the scene becomes more magical and enticing.
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Cheers, David Charles.
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Photo Credit: Scott Cook
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