Viola and the Predators

Teaching the Games

Teaching is a cleansing. - Viola Spolin.

While in Viola’s workshop, I taught mime at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was earning a living as a mime.I was eager to teach what I was learning from Viola. After all, I heard the best way to learn something is to teach it. She would get angry every time I brought it up. She insisted I not teach. I grew impatient and wanted desperately to communicate what I was learning to others.

“I don’t want another student who spends a few months in workshop with me then hanging out a shingle.” She barked. “They have no idea what they’re doing!”

By the time I encountered Viola, she had been teaching for twenty years. Many former students did indeed go out on their own, armed with her book and a notion on how to play some of the games. They were not steeped in the work or aware of the profundity of the underlying philosophy. Certainly not to the degree that made Viola feel comfortable. Over the years, this became like the game of telephone. Everyone who taught what they thought was her work came up with their own games and variations to distinguish themselves apart from Spolin.  To Viola’s great distress, many missed the idea of non-authoritarian teaching at the heart of her work. (Lemming, 2011)[1] 

“And they never even think to write me a letter.” Viola complained. “If you go out on your own I won’t have anything to do with you! You’ll just be another predator[2].”

I heard the bitterness in her voice and promised her I wouldn’t teach until she gave me permission. I resolved to not be a predator in Viola's eyes. I think it is one reason she chose to mentor me.

Mollified, Viola told me “A teacher must be vigilant! Teaching is a cleansing!”

I had no idea what she meant for a long time, but as I continued to play and eventually assist her in workshops, I understood that I didn't know what was truly involved in coaching. But time passed and I continued my study with her. I sat by her side and watched her coach all of us into brilliant work. She would sometimes call out a coach like ‘Slooowww motionnnn!’ and remark to me as an aside, “See what that did for him!” or she’d call out another phrase. ‘Use your where!’ or ‘Give and Take!’ and she’d lean over to me. “That didn’t penetrate.’ I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was watching her practice the art of sidecoaching.

I watched and learned what the proper word or phrase at the right time can do for a player. Knowing what to say, having a sense of timing, and throwing in the sidecoach just at the moment it is needed is an art I began to absorb over time. Both by playing and watching others play.

Four years went by and after many workshops, having played in most of them and assisted her in others; I began to absorb her approach to sidecoaching. Viola finally allowed me to teach.

 “You should teach children and you can teach your mimes.” She told me.

She wanted me to teach children because they’re the best group you can work with. They show you what they need immediately, without artifice. I was allowed to teach mimes because I had a great facility with space object work and Viola thought they would benefit from my experience as both a mime and improviser. (see my article “Out of the Head and Into the Space”)

Teaching children is eye opening. They respond so easily to the games with gusto. After all, Viola’s work came out of teaching and directing children and I could see why children were her laboratory.

Their resistance to the focus is easy to spot and, with a good background in having played the same games yourself, you can easily select and play and coach those games that change their behavior. It is very exciting to see what game or sidecoach dissolves resistance in children. I think it is because their nascent adaptation to the approval/disapproval syndrome is easy to spot. Egocentricity, lack of focus, timidity, fear of failing and other ills caused by conforming to a reward based learning system can be countered by selecting appropriate games and presenting them in a non-authoritarian way.

I recommend teaching children as a starting point for any Spolin sidecoach. Adults can fool you and it’s harder to dissolve the resistance in some cases. It takes longer with adults because there’s more to un-do!

"Never be the benevolent dictator. It's hidden authoritarianism. And don't be a know-it-all." - Viola Spolin.

My only caveat: Continually cleanse yourself of ego and desire. Be mindful of your own approval/disapproval syndrome. Have Fun and create fun for others.

But if you have a strong desire to teach. I say teach! But don't be a predator! Nod back to your source. Make your own strides and discoveries too. But never lay claim to an idea you got from someone else as yours! It's good for the soul.


GS North Bend

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[1] This dilution is described brilliantly in a review of a memoir of Second City by Walter Lemming in his article, Amnesia and the Laugh Track:  Mike Thomas, The Second City Unscripted. It chronicles the devolution of Second City since the departure of Sills and Spolin in the early 60’s. Lemming makes the distinction between “Improvisation” a la Spolin and “Improv” what it has come to mean.

[2] Over the years she simply referred to those who borrowed and changed her work calling it their own, as ‘predators’ and watched the reinterpretation of her work become packaged into a comedy formula. The distortions became popular, giving rise to institutions like Second City, The Improv Olympic and countless others. Sidecoaching gave way to ‘notes’ after the fact, or calling “FREEZE!” to stop the action and redirect it. Both techniques leaving the player stranded without the essential support that good sidecoaching provides.