Anyway, we had a troupe + significant others barbecue and Andy Co-Dependent was determined to do drunk improv, going so far as to have an agenda and bringing an MP-3 of hilarious sound effects so we could try a game called, um, Sound Effects. Not that Andy Co-Dependent was the only one who wanted to do drunk improv. He was just the only one who was organized about it.
By the way, if you're waiting for some moral of the story, or how drunk improv relates to real life, I apologize in advance. I got nothin'.
In addition to Sound Effects and a bunch of other stuff, we did Bad Improv. I'm not being self-deprecating here; it's an actual game where you do a scene and break all the rules. It's hilarious in its badness if you understand the rules that are being broken. It looks like a bunch of idiots doing random things in reasonable proximity to each other to everyone who's not an improv person. Which would be all the Sig O's at the party. And of course, in this case, it was drunk bad improv, so it was even stupider. So all the improvisors were laughing our asses off at people talking on imaginary telephones, having interactions with non-existent people, calling everything "this" and "that" without labeling them, appearing from outer space, changing their relationships mid-scene, leaving the scene, denying every bit of information and on and on. Meanwhile, the Sig O's were sitting there, staring at us and muttering because bad improv just isn't funny if you aren't in on the joke.
So I guess I do have a moral to this story: if you are going to do drunk improv, only invite the improvisors. If you're going to include the significant others, just do what regular people do at parties and be loud, talk about annoying people and get semi-naked in the kitchen.
And to all the H2G Sig O's: thanks for putting up with us and being such good sports. Now stop complaining. There was plenty of booze.
By Sonnjea Blackwell
