Theater Talkback: Finding Inspiration in Improvisation

September 6, 2012, 4:13 pm

By DAVID YAZBEK

During the summer, ArtsBeat invited members of the theater world to contribute to the weekly Theater Talkback column, alternating with the critics Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood. Trav S. D., a historian of vaudeville, talked about the long bare-knuckles history shared between the boxing ring and the stage; Alexis Soloski, a critic and theater professor, highlighted unforgettable stage entrances; and the playwright Sarah Ruhl explained why critics were not invited to review her “Melancholy Play.”

For the final guest Talkback of the summer, the composer and lyricist David Yazbek (“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) explains why a totally improvised show ha s inspired him more than any scripted theater of the last decade.

I'm lazy and I own a hammock but I have to support my family. So I treasure anything that can serve as inspiration-inspiration to create, to write music and words, to enter the head-space in which the work flows naturally.

For the last year and a half, I've made of point of seeing the improv-acting duo TJ & Dave every time they appear in New York. Night after night T. J. Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi step onto a bare stage and, with no prompting or pre-conception, use their brains and bodies to create from whole cloth a one-hour play featuring multiple characters. Their work is often hilarious, sometimes very poignant and always revelatory. I emerge from each show feeling great and ready to make something myself.

Right after their last New York show, I tweeted that their performances have inspired me more than any theater of the last 10 years, and received a number of replies from theater type s implying some kind of sacrilege on my part. Here's the thing-I seldom find explosive inspiration in the theater. I like it fine; it just doesn't usually knock me into enthusiastic work mode. But T.J. and Dave are like jazz musicians at the top of their game. They clearly are naturally gifted, but decades of acting and improvising have honed their considerable storytelling tools so that they're fully equipped to go to The Place Where It All Comes From, the place that Buddha and Jesus and these days Oprah talk about-The Now.

I've known clearly for years that that is where all my best work comes from and that 9/10th of my life is devoted to avoiding getting there. But I also know that when I can stop distracting myself and get there - writing or recording music - I'm a complete version of myself, open to an infinite source of creativity, and I'm happy.

I'm always looking for a ticket to Nowsville.These days what gets me there has something to do with what feels genuine and truthful, art as opposed to artifice. I'm not finding too much of it in modern music: the posturing rock, the stale classical institution, jazz, which mostly has its head way up its own rear, as does most musical theater, which really needs to open some windows and breathe some outside air. Exceptions like Jack White are few and far between, and I'd go anywhere to hear music that thrills me in a genuine way.

Weirdly, TV has been a reliable source of inspiration for me the last several years. Lately, it's been Louis C.K., whose show is able to elicit sober introspection as easily as explosive laughter. He's using his deep craft and gut instincts to make these exquisite half-hour movies and he's almost always creatively in-the-zone.

When TJ and Dave dance on the pin-head of the Now, an entire audience is there with them, rapt. And I'm there, completely present, following the stories, being surprised by the characters a nd marveling at their skill. When Louis C.K. smashes us in the face with comedy that isn't merely distracting, we're all getting a giant hit of real art. Some of us will go home with that buzz and use it to help tap into our own creativity.

So I ask you this: Can theater provide that jolt of discovery and inspiration? I know the answer is yes, but where is it specifically? How about other art forms? What's your ticket to Nowsville?