Improv Nonsense

Brothers Hines lost Cagematch tonight to a very cool and funny Reuben Williams show. We won 7 in a row, which we never would have expected and it was terrific fun!

I want to thank everyone who watched us and voted for us. It has been some of the most fun improv I’ve ever gotten to do. I feel like even though I’ve been doing this 10 years, that I learned a tremendous amount in the last 7 weeks — all by being able to do these long sets in front of a great, informed, supportive audience.

But most of all I want to thank my brother Kevin! I always knew he was good at this but I don’t think I really appreciated HOW good until these sets where I’ve gotten to play with him for this long. It is the easiest thing in the world and it’s not because we’re brothers, but because Kevin Hines does not miss a trick. He hears everything and uses it. He understands everything. And he knows how to let a scene be the kind of scene it wants to be.

In these sets — for maybe the first time — I felt like I wasn’t thinking, that the callbacks would show up without forcing them (er, not forcing them TOO much anyway), that I could drop just the tiniest feather of an unusual thing and it would grow into the spine of a scene, that it was better to be a smart character than a dumb one, that it was okay at almost every moment to express my opinions that I feeling at that moment — that it would fit. And that’s because I got to play with an improviser who makes everything better. I knew he’d catch everything.

And he was big and brave before the show. I started getting greedy these past few shows and started requesting things. Let’s do a Harold, I said. And he said yes and ten minutes later we’re doing a sound and movement opening. Let’s do a big slow scene up top. He said yes and I’m performing acupuncture. Let me just say whatever I want — I’m going to just have conversations that I like. He said yes and I’m listing the last ten vice-presidents of the losing political party. We had plans for a monoscene where neither of us left the stage, and for a Harold in the Dark but we didn’t get to it. Still,even to have it on the table.

Three weeks ago we did a Harold, and although it wasn’t a great one — it was illuminating in a huge way. Without the ability to think ahead those third beats felt very real in a way I’ve never felt them. They felt like true third acts, revelations and climaxes that were interesting to me as we did them. And it felt brave to do it at all. I think I learned more doing that one Harold than I’ve learned in the last 4 years.

Tonight, our last show, I got to do what was probably my favorite show we’ve done. It wasn’t our most successful, but we both liked it. And I loved it. And that’s because we were much quieter and slow than we usually are. I’m usually a wordy player, and shamelessly so. I like listing things, I like dropping rambling monologues about stupid shit I’ve read on wikipedia. I like philosophizing and being overdramatic.

So tonight I asked Kevin if I could do a scene where I’d start with some physicality, allowing that my object work is sloppy and unreadable, and that he should just wait and that I would initiate — he just had to wait. My brother of course said yes because Kevin Hines is scared of nothing on an improv stage.

So we did an acupuncture scene, and he could tell when I pushing hard even though I wasn’t actually doing so. And we did a bakery scene where I dragged him into the oven. And we did a date in the old west where we road a horse up to a table on a cliffside and a bald eagle landed on my arm. And we drove the slowest train in the west. The games were weak and slippery, but the scenes felt very real to me. And I felt like I could have kept them going forever. It was the most effortless I’ve felt in a long, long time. It’s happening at the same time as some of my favorite Stepfathers shows ever, and it doesn’t seem like a coincidence. I’m tempted to say that it’s all my brother’s doing. It certainly feels like it.

I’m not saying they were anywhere near as good, but it felt like the shows I used to see Delaney and Dave do, or that I see Adsit and Gausas do. I AM NOT SAYING THEY WERE THAT GOOD. I am saying I got to feel that feeling I get when I watch those shows. I got to be the player I want to be. In front of 200 people at the coolest comedy theater on the planet.

And that’s because I was smart enough to get on stage with Kevin Hines!

A fantastic trip — thanks to Charlie Todd for booking us and everyone who voted for us. For realz, yo!