What's In A Name?
guest column by Celia Gurney
Editor’s Note (from Will): This is a guest column, written by Celia Gurney. She is a teacher at WE Improv who trained at UCBTNY and later founded an improv collective in Paris (France!). You can catch her onstage with her indie team In Retrograde. If you want to pitch a guest column, send me a few sentences of what you’d write about and what improv teaching/performing credits you have at will@wgimprovschool.com.
Please note that the following column reflects my opinions alone and not those of Will Hines! (See his editor’s note at the bottom.) Also, I love making a strong argument for the sake of debate, but I’m more flexible in real life. Whether you agree or disagree, I hope this will spark some engaging conversations about names in improv.
On my college improv team, one of the things that got drilled into us again and again was to name our scene partners. Naming each other (and remembering each others’ names) was considered as fundamental as establishing the who, what, where. Actually, maybe you could say it was part of the who. Without character names locked in, how could we speak to and about each other in a normal way? What if we accidentally called someone by two different names and it mucked up the story or we had to bend over backwards to justify it? We might look unprofessional!
We looked unprofessional anyway, but that’s beside the point.
In contrast, the LA improv scene seems pretty apathetic about names. I never see teachers or coaches call out a lack of names when noting scenes. Nor do they chastise improvisers for mid-scene name confusion due to poor listening. The who, what, where is defined as the location, activity and relationship, names be damned.
Well, names aren’t really damned, I guess. We do name each other here. Not always up top, and not in every scene. Basically, if we get to a point where in real life we’d use someone’s name, we slap on a name. But it’s not very intentional, and it’s usually dangerously forgettable. It’s just another filler word getting us to the next label, justification or game move.
We’re leaving comedy on the table by treating names this way. A good name can do so much for a scene or show! It can inspire a character choice, or fit an established character so perfectly it delights the audience. It can be fun for everyone to say (think of a bunch of unusual people rolling their eyes at a voice of reason named “Stu”). Though it shouldn’t be distracting, a memorable name can also help with callbacks and connections. You can reference an offstage character and feel confident everyone will get the joke.
Even worse than unintentional names, though, are real names. Yuck! Calling someone by their real name is as bad as labeling a walk-on. You don’t know what character choices that person was about to make! And now they’re practically locked into playing a character close to themselves. Even if they manage to resist the psychological pressure and play someone very different, they risk that becoming the game — or at the very least, the butt of a winky, ironically detached joke. “Wow Celia, your posture has REALLY deteriorated since I last saw you!” (Check out Suzi Barrett’s rant about “the scourge of ironic detachment” at 26:39 in this episode of Improv Obsession.)
The problems don’t stop there. Once one improviser’s real name has been used, it kinda feels like everyone has to go by their real names. Otherwise the rules of the world will look inconsistent.
Another risk with using real names is that the scene becomes inside joke-y. If it’s established that the character opposite me is my actual teammate Mariah, then I might decide to frame one of Mariah’s real-life behaviors as the unusual thing. Or I might put Mariah in her nightmare scenario (e.g. a bathtub filled with spiders). Or I might just make a lot of offhand comments about Mariah stuff.
Our other teammates and friends will think this is hilarious. It’s personalized comedy! An improv roast! Some of the audience might come along for the ride, especially if they look up to us or have crushes on us (don’t try to tell me that’s not a factor). But a lot of others either won’t get it or they’ll feel left out. We were supposed to perform a fictional, self-contained piece of comedic THEATER inspired by their suggestion. Instead, we centered ourselves. (See also: Proma Khosla’s critique of Only Murders in the Building Season 4.)
Yes, I know the UCB4 used their real names in improv scenes. But that was back when improv needed a rebrand as cool and casual. If anything, these days it needs MORE theatricality. Game-based improv is often criticized for being robotic, full of talking heads, and weak on characters. So let’s reinject some magic! Being intentional about names is a good place to start.
From Will, again: Okay here’s my brief rebuttal. I think the ease of using real names helps people, and it can feel friendly. That said, I love to read a well-articulated improv point of view! There was a time when I felt this exact way about picking names. And I'm all for making more specific choices in our scenes! thank you Celia! Let us (politely) know in the comments what you think!
Plugs, Ongoing
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Great essay, even if I disagree about the real names thing. To me, it's really just so I don't forget. I have never considered that someone might thing I am making the character the actual actor. Then again, I did a set last night (improvised teen mnovie) where my Mom called my sister "Doug's sister" because he couldn't remember what I named her. People liked it so we kept doing it.