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Head in a Deep Fryer

I remember several years ago, while touring, going to an improv show.
The style of play can be summed up by this little snippet

setting: a fish and chip shop
A: There’s a severed head in this deep fryer.
B: Isn’t it your wife’s head?
A: (unfazed) why, so it is.

Now, this complete lack of emotional response is pretty much always
good for a laugh (there’s a rather fun game called ‘stiff upper lip’
that plays on this), but like so many things that are always good for
a laugh, you’re really selling all your narrative stocks for a quick comedic gain,
rather than letting them grow for the big (potential) pay off.

Whenever I see a scene where people remain unaffected by big events (and as often as not ‘people’ is really me) I always think to myself ‘that was a bit of a ‘head in the deep fryer’ moment’.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under improv teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Head in a Deep Fryer”

  1. Jill Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 5:13 am

    “An even OLDER woman with an even BIGGER jockstrap” is short-hand for unnecessary third person entrances – so evocative to me even though the scene it’s drawn from pre-dates my improv career.

  2. Matt Says:
    September 4th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

    I still remember the scenes that gave birth, in my mind, to the terms “beached” and “anchored”, even though I wasn’t at the audition where the former took place. I believe you were MCing the scene where Dan A and I fell prey to the latter, though.

  3. Ben Whitehouse Says:
    March 5th, 2009 at 3:48 am

    Well to play devils advocate if player a is a sociopath “Why so it is.” is a pretty accurate character choice.

    “Now the Isn’t that your wife’s head” He’s the guy you have to watch out for. If there is a head in the deep fryer, well I doubt your first instinct is to identify the person but more freak out.

    And to be fair, his wife NEVER SHUT UP!

  4. improbable Says:
    March 5th, 2009 at 3:59 am

    I hadn’t thought of that before, but yes the first player is just as bad as the first.

    In terms of choosing to play a sociopath. I’m cool with that, but my suspicion is that it wasn’t a choice so much as a default setting.

    It’s like blocking;

    A: Do you want a coffee?
    B: I’ll have tea.

    B might be making a character choice (in which case ‘great!’), but in a fearful player it is more likely to be them trying not to be controlled.

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