Tag: gaming

Clown School Day 18: You Must Play the Game

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero misquotes Shakespeare.

“This above all: to thine own game be true.” —Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3.

It’s very easy to forget the game.

But the game is the most important thing.

Some performance is only game. Tennis, for instance, is only game: and look how much money that earns.

The Rehearsal

My scene partner and I rehearsed today. We lacked pleasure because we had forgotten the game.

The original game was simple: I make my partner lick a thing. Like when children find a bug and dare each other to eat it.

It wasn’t fun anymore. We knew it was coming. We knew he would do it. There was no tension, no conflict.

So we changed it.

Now, we begin with a eulogy for a piece of the space: “We are gathered here today to say goodbye to the power outlet.”

Then we play rock-paper-scissors.

The loser, as a ritual of farewell, must lick it.

As the scene escalates, so do the lickables. The floor. The bottom of a shoe. The teacher.

We didn’t have a game. Now we have a game.

The game? Rock-paper-scissors.

But with stakes!

The Farce

In Improv class, I realized the rule applies to everything.

We played a farce: a train compartment. One person enters, perfectly normal except for one grotesque tic. They repeat it. Then a second person enters, takes pleasure from that game, and — after a long time enjoying their tic (longer than you think) — adds their own tic, heightening the first. Then a third person. Then a fourth.

The game is simple: take the game from the person before you, heighten it through your play, and pass it on.

Simple is nice.

Simple is hard.

You have to feel the scene. Is it falling down? Are you talking over the game with “train compartment” nonsense? Are you heightening or dominating or smothering?

When everyone played the game, the farce appeared by itself.

When someone forgot, everything froze.

The game makes the show. Always has. Always will.

The Handstand

This morning, I flipped upside-down.

My first handstand (wall-assisted), then onto a peer’s back, who rolled me forward, turning us both into a ball.

A new game: gravity as partner.

I’d forgotten the joy of inversion.

The Father

My father arrived in Étampes today. He wants more than anything to see a class.

I’d love to have him: to share my play space. The school forbids it.

No visitors, no cameras, no phones. We even sign a “no recording” oath, like monks taking vows.

Why so strict?

Because clowning is vulnerable.

I’ve seen people bare grief. I’ve seen them make absolute fools of themselves (and not the good kind).

Once, a student scraped his false teeth along the floor before popping them back in. The room gasped. Disgust and horror.

Once, I yelled at the teacher. Their instruction felt like trash; maybe provoking me was the point.

This isn’t for YouTube. This is for us.

The school protects its game.

It keeps the outside world out, so the play inside can live.

The Lesson

The game is everything: the lick, the tic, the flip, the secret room.

When you forget the game, everything dies.

When you play it, life appears.

Protect the space so you can play the game.

Then find the game.

Release all else.

Play the game.

And when you lose it, start again.

That’s what makes it a play.

Clown School Weekend 2.2: What’s in a Game?

JulianLeave a comment

That which we call Our Hero, by any other game, would play as sweet.

What is a game?

A game isn’t one thing, but a cluster of traits that, in sufficient combination, make us recognize something as a game. None of these are necessary, but enough of them is sufficient to make something a game. Some of those traits are:

  • Competition and/or cooperation
  • Ability to win and/or lose
  • Use of toys, equipment, and/or pieces
  • Play
  • Fun and/or pleasure
  • Turns
  • Rules
  • A self-contained world, protected from life’s other elements
  • Practicing skills useful elsewhere

The trouble of defining game is the trouble of defining any abstract concept: when we say “X is a game,” we mean it has enough of the qualities we associate with games for our brains to light up in recognition. Hence our endless debates, like whether a hot dog is a sandwich.

Games vary across cultures because the pleasures of play vary too. At clown school, we seek a joy that’s light and friendly; in sport, the joy can be vicious, even cruel. Have you ever watched a professional tennis final? They’re clearly playing a game — but not playing games.

Defining abstractions always circles back to the Supreme Court’s test for pornography: we know it when we see it. Still, shared language demands some definitioning (now a word). And that task grows harder as meanings and technologies evolve: even “simultaneous” doesn’t mean what it once did.

I like games. Always have. And by that I mean: I like whatever fires my neurons to say that’s a game. I like them better than mere activities; give me competition or a timer, and I’m in.

So:

  1. Games are hard to define.
  2. Games share recognizable traits.
  3. I like games.

I recently stumbled upon a definition for game by the philosopher Bernard Suits: “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” Elegant, but too narrow. It fits golf or chess, not politics or dating, where the obstacles aren’t unnecessary, just chosen. I don’t think “dating is a game” is metaphorical; I think it’s a real diagnostic description of how people behave in the world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested that definitional meanings work by family resemblance rather than rigid borders. I’ve always respected the man; nice company to stumble into.

Maybe that’s why I love games: they’re how we practice living within constraints — voluntary or not — and still find joy.

Life, after all, is the longest game we play.

Game on.

Clown School Day 6: Putting the Text on the Game

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero attempts to cohere the visual-auditory media 🧐

Should the game be a visual metaphor for the scene, or should it be an unrelated game?

My suspicion is the former. A coherence between the game and the dialogue makes for richer depth of audience experience. It does, however, bring increased danger of “playing the text”, which is bad.

The scene is Taming of the Shrew, Act II Scene 1. The scenario is: Petruchio (me) commences his wooing of Kate (my classmate). The game is… well, that’s what we’re deciding.

We want the game to be not so on-the-nose as to be boring (ie “playing the text”). I also want the game to be sufficiently related that the visual experience parallels the auditory experience.

My partner suggested catch. I think it’s a sufficient, satisfactory choice, a serviceable game. I wonder if we can elevate the experience by mirroring the text more. Dodgeball instead of catch, for instance. Or we line up a row of soda cans behind us and have to defend them while the other throws a ball to knock them down. These games mirror the text: verbal prods à la dodgeball; or Petruchio attempts to knock down Kate’s defenses → Kate fires back → we repeat.

It’s fun to watch people play a game. It’s fun to watch multiple communication media cohere. I think ideal theater is both.

—

My roommate received five zeros today. The most zeros I’ve seen. Brutal.

When he strode onto the stage, the teacher said, “This guy never understands anything.” Then, after he spoke one single word, the teacher banged the drum to kick him off stage. He walked back to his seat. She said “You get zero. No: zero is too good for you. You get double zero.” He said, “I understand it now: give me another chance”. She said, “It’s Monday, so I give you another chance”. He returned to stage. He spoke one word. She banged the drum and bestowed upon him three more zeros.

An hour later, I saw him at home. He told me he understood what he had done poorly. Her zeros had taught him. He went to the bar to socialize with friends.

In April, my final presentation received a zero. The one thing I had practiced for three weeks: when it came to my final performance, zero. “First zero of the day”, my teacher told me.

Somehow, being first didn’t help.

Maybe that’s the game: collecting zeros until you crash. And the moment you give up: you receive your first one.