Ask Jim #3: Offer vs. Truth

No actual question today, but this is an explanation that I have given  more than once after I have steered to avoid the term "offer" in a conversation. Enjoy!

 

As most of you already know, I am a firm believer in finding the right terms when we are describing our art and its building blocks. Yesterday it hit me why I don't really care for the term "offer" when it comes to something that an improviser is giving in a line or an action in a scene. The term offer is supposed to indicate that you have put something out on stage to be used, but for me it also indicates that the other person could NOT TAKE THAT OFFER. In our work at JaCKPie we teach that everything that is said or done is right and that once it is spoken or acted on stage it is true.

 

So when are we offering something up to our partner? Never really. We are creating a truth or we are not. If we "offer" it, we might also be indicating by accident that we want it to be approved by our partner. But if we say it, our partner won't be approving or declining because our approach has pre-acceptance built in, and they are going straight past deciding whether to use it or not and moving straight to making something out of it.

I know some of you out there might think this is just semantics but I can't tell you the number of times I have heard "They didn't take my offer" said about someone's scene partner. The problem really isn't that they didn't take it, it is that the environment is still allowing for things not to be taken. If a person walks right by a truth in one of my classes or workshops, I stop them and point out what is already true... I don't indicate that if it was a better line then it might have been worthy of being accepted by their partner.

So the real problem, if we are working from a utopia of perfect acceptance, is not that people are not accepting offers, it is more that they weren't aware of the true potential or the bigger truth behind what was said or done. When we think this way we do not even give the player the subconscious thought that an OFFER might not be accepted and we indicate that you should pay very close attention, lest you miss a TRUTH.