A Conversation with Rob Mello
by Kevin Mullaney
Originally Published on May 26 and September 4, 1998

Rob Mello was a member of the ImprovOlympic house team Mr. Blonde. He directed Naked, a ground-breaking, two-person improv show, which consisted of a single one-hour scene. He taught a class at ImprovOlympic which employs Sandy Meisner's repetition exercise as a tool for improvised scenework. [Repitition is a deceptively simple exercise where two actors repeat a word or phrase back and forth. The word only changes when one actor's behavior or emotion affects the other.]

Kevin Mullaney. How does Meisner apply to improvisation?

Rob Mello. It trains you to be totally in the moment and work organically off your partner. Repetition is an exercise is an exercise designed to cut to the purity of the moment, of what's really going on. You see, by repeating what's just been said you take away the head work. You get to impulses, and I don't mean trained impulses that we trained improvisers acquire-heightening, game moves, etc. I mean raw impulses-emotional impulses. If you say "angry" and I repeat "angry" back, and we volley that about for a bit, one of us is going to tap into what that anger did to us. I might say sad or turned on or whatever.

KM. Have you had success working with improvisers on this?

RM. I think I've had really good success. I've seen people who were really struggling, they couldn't even do a basic Harold scene, come in and working this way be able to do a beautiful, thirty-minute scene, because they didn't have the pressure of doing the funny funny and here's my big wacky character.

KM. What quality do these scenes have that you don't see in your typical improv scene?

RM. They are much more organic.  [The students] use more of their emotional pallette.  They are more honest, more grounded, they're simpler but better.  I think their funny but in a higher quality way.  They tend to not be as jokey.  They tend to be more character driven. Meisner teaches you how to do a relationship scene, and a relationship scene is this: You do something to me, and that makes me do something, and that something makes you do something, and so on. It took me a long time to figure that out. I'm convinced no one has a fucking clue as to what a relationship scene is. They think it means the characters have to be married or brother and sister, or something.

KM. Why don't you improvise anymore?

RM. It's not satisfying. The only time that improvising is really satisfying me, in the way that it is mostly done now with the Harold, is if I need some attention and want someone to clap for me and laugh at me. It's rarely satisfying in any other way. I did improv and then I did theater again and once I did theater I wanted that same satisfaction that, "Wow, I really just did something cool. This was really rich and layered." And then to go back to and do improv, it's like eating Chinese food.  I love it, but it's not really satisfying. I love the Beverly Hillbillies, but its not Chekhov.

KM. Has that mainly been a change in perspective or mainly what you see people doing with improv?

RM. Both. In the words of Matt Besser, I think the movie destroyed improv, because now you don't even have to do a scene. If something doesn't work you just cut away, you cut to five people on a roller coaster and you do your roller coaster bit. You get the laugh and you get out of there. All those things that Mr. Blonde started using first, because we had Besser as our coach and they had just come out of Three Mad Rituals. He started giving us a lot of the stuff they were using in Three Mad Rituals and we started to get away from opening, three beats, game, three beats, game, and we started mixing it up more and stuff like that. But I think there was a discipline required of the classical Harold that is lacking, because now you don't have to do your scene again. When I was a kid, you had to do three beats of that scene. That was it. So you had to figure out something. And now if your scene doesn't work, well hell, just do something else. Just drop it, and pretend it never happened. There was a certain amount of discipline and that all started to get dropped, because they started messing with the form more, and so ultimately it has become more and more about the form and about tricks and cut to's and this man is wearing a large hamster head and blah, blah, blah. And scenes have become less and less. Do you agree?

KM. I still see it. I still see good scene work. When watching Harolds, I see it less in the experienced players. But the younger players, players that have been doing Harold for six months to a year and a half, they sometimes do really interesting scenework, because they have enough confidence that they don't freak out on stage, and they can relax. And they don't have enough skill at bits yet that they can totally rely on them.

RM. So they have to rely on the scene?

KM. Right. In that middle range of Harold at ImprovOlympic I see a lot of good scenework, but it's not like how I remember the scenework in Jazz Freddy, it's not like occasionally how it can be in Armando, it's certainly not like the scenework that was in Naked or what you are trying to achieve in your class.

RM. I think the scenework in Armando has changed a lot.

KM. For the better or the worse?

RM. For the worse.

KM. How so?

RM. Alright look, I've only seen it once.

KM. And that was the night you did it?

RM. No actually, I've seen it once or twice. I remember when it first opened and they first did it, it seemed a little less schticky, a little less fast paced. It seemed a little slower, a little more intelligent, a little brighter. And, no disrespect to present company, but that was the golden age of improv. I feel like its changed. When I saw it six months ago, it seemed very different to me. Plus it's become such a fucking scene. All you have to do is walk up there and sneeze and everyone is so geared up and ready for this to be the best improv show they've ever seen. No matter what anyone does, they laugh. Don't you think that?

KM. The audience spoils us. I realized that on New Year's Eve when we performed the same exact show, pretty much the same cast, in front of an audience of people who had never seen improv before and were expecting stand up. They were tough. It seemed very different than our normal audience. It was much more like work. The normal Armando audience is much easier on us. Although they aren't blind either. One thing  I have noticed over the last year or so is how much word of mouth affects that show. And its not always good. When Scott Robinson, Susan Messing, and Neil Flynn all left the show last summer, the attendence collapsed within a couple of weeks. We went from packed houses with an extra row of chairs, down to 40-50 person houses for a few weeks. Eventually the audience built back up, after people saw that the show was still pretty good without them.

RM. Do you think improv is better than standup?

KM. I think it can be.

RM. [laughing]

KM. I guess if we are talking your average Harold show, your average show at the Playground and most other improv shows in town, if people want pure entertainment they should probably spend their money on stand up.

RM. Because what cracks me up is that I think people really look down on stand up in the improv world. I've often got that feeling.

KM. Some stand ups have a real problem adjusting to improv.

RM. I can agree with that. Don't you think a lot of improvisers generally frown on stand-ups?

KM. I don't know about that right now. Maybe. Maybe. When we started doing long-form improv, I think the vast majority of people trying it, doing it, and dedicated any amount of time to it, especially at ImprovOlympic, really did think that what they were doing was an art form. I don't think a majority do anymore. They look at it as an entertainment, a hobby, a chance to get skills or contacts which will help them get ahead in their career. Do you agree with that?

RM. Yeah. It's always easy to say that it was better back then. I think you had to seek improv out a bit more five or six years ago. I feel like everyone takes improv classes now. When we started, there were only two or three classes that Charna had, so you had to seek this out and now there are two hundred students or whatever, and it has become much more of a stepping stone. If I do this then I get an agent and then I get a sit-com or then I get Saturday Night Live or I get Second City. In short, I agree I think people are less concerned with the art part of it.

KM. This brings me back to your class. Why bother teaching your class if the form currently is ultimately satisfying?

RM. Because I think it can change still. I think there's still room for the direction that improv ultimately goes in. Don't get me wrong, I think there is room for cabaret style improv. Just like there is room for cabaret singers and opera singers. They're both singers but they are at totally different ends of the spectrum. I've always seen this amazing potential in it. If I had my druthers it would never be done anywhere but in a theater.

KM. What's the different quality you get in a theater?

RM. I think the minute you walk into a theater you have a higher expectation of something, in contrast to when you walk into what is essentially a club setting or a cabaret setting. Being in a theater makes it clear right away that whoever is doing this is taking it more seriously, you know what I'm saying? Let me go back to the question about why bother teaching this? Because I've seen amazing stuff. I've seen people who I know were not considered very good on their Harold teams turn around and do just this absolutely beautiful and funny scenework, and I don't want to say moving, no I've sort of been moved a few a times. They do scenework that's worth more than "Honey, I'm home and there's an alien in the garage." And I'm sick of--I'm about to begin pontificating--I am so sick of form. If anyone comes up with one more new form. Who gives a fuck? I'm so sick of this. Stu [Harris] used to have that bit where he's describing a new improv form, and he would say, "Yeah, we take a retarded girl and set her on fire and whatever the last words she utters, that's our suggestion." And it's all the same fucking thing. It's either how you get your suggestion or the order of scenes. It's like enough already, it's form, form, form. Do a scene. Arrrrrgh.

KM. Don't you think the form you decide upon affects what kind of scenes get put into them?

RM. Yeah, but it seems that everyone is trying to come up with a new form. It always seems like the total emphasis. No one says 'What kind of work do we want to do?' Well, everyone does say that, everyone pays lip service to 'We want to do slow, intelligent scenework.' Everyone says that, and I said it too and never did it. And I was the first person to pull out a dick joke when we needed a laugh, but everyone pays lip service to that slow, intelligent thing. No one does it. Instead of saying hey we want to create the scenework we want to do and so we're going to do slow, intelligent scenework, we get instead a bunch of cut to's, and starting backwards, and one person wears a rubber mask stage left and does monologues, you know it's all [laughing] window dressing. I love it when people say it's a new form and really what it comes down to is where they get the suggestion. I mean everything ultimately is a Harold, isn't it? It's a new form because we all bring in milk cartons for the week and we look at one and we get the name of a missing child. Then we improvise their story. It's ridiculous.

If you would like to discuss this interview go to thread "A Conversation with Rob Mello" at the main message board.

Last edited on 01/25/01.