Cartoon de Salvo: mistakes are our friends
Saturday, April 26th, 2008The Continuing Chronicle of ‘Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories’ on tour… www.cartoondesalvo.com
Six months ago I couldn’t do this; tell a totally different improvised story every night (incorporating live music). Now I can rely on something strange happening between the three of us and the audience every time we step out: from a shared starting point, we will knit a narrative out of nothing, will it into existence. I’ve been collaborating with Cartoon de Salvo, in and amongst other acting engagements, for five years now. But this show is a totally different animal to the others I’ve taken part in, one that brings a gleam of an excited smile to my lips, even as the palms start to sweat.
We’ve had adventures in exciting places, of course: Viking invasions in the north-east of England repelled by an ancient curse; a galley slave convict drama in the Pacific with native tribes and a disowned, illegitimate brother’s revenge. Most recently we had a tale with a swanky MI5 agent thwarting a Scottish smuggling den (‘The Last Laugh’), a tale of an English family refusing to let their dead patriarch rest in peace, and trying to bring him back from the underworld (‘Blossom Time’); and a story with a teacher and the rebellious daughter of the local Sheriff attempting a Wild West bank job – to be thwarted by a double crossing saloon-keeper (‘The New Road’). There seems to be a silent acknowledgement that these stories choose us as much as we choose them.
The three of us onstage all bring different tastes, and strengths, to the show. I think those differences are a virtue – as long as they’re underpinned, and this is key, by the fact that we learnt the rudiments of the discipline together, and know that, essentially, we’re in this together. It is exciting and rare to be in a production where the performers are all involved directly in building the show’s vocabulary, strengthening it, pushing it further. One of my particular interests as a jobbing actor (who improvises only sporadically in other areas of my career) lies in creating real characters, as rounded as possible, allowing the audience to witness them emerging and solidifying before their very eyes. Alongside the usual licence to entertain and be funny that comes with impro, we take the characters and their stories very seriously.
One of the most satisfying aspects of the show is that our mistakes end up being woven into the fabric of the story. One night a musical instrument fell to one side noisily during a chase aboard a freight train. This incongruous sound was instantly seized on by Brian, in character as the fugitive Sam Vincent, who found himself wading through a boxcar of melodicas to continue his escape.
In a different show we had established a landlord (me), his sole customer (Alex) and a stranger (Brian) in a sleepy pub – complete with carefully suggested bar tops, tables and drinks. Several scenes followed, none involving those characters again, before Alex suddenly switched location, morphing back into that customer character. We hastily scrambled to catch up and re-assume those same characters – but found ourselves on opposite sides of the stage from before. Brian knowingly referred to this, by enquiring if the pub had recently undergone refurbishment – allowing me to say that we were simply showing the audience the pub from the other side, like a film reverse shot.
Mistakes are often our best friends. Alex calling one of Brian’s characters by the wrong name became a gift throughout one show. The character in question was an uptight, self-important womaniser. Hearing him mournfully reduced to mumbling, ‘My name’s not Cameron… It’s Steve,’ his status crumbling around him, was repeatedly delightful.
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