I Hate Point of View

Tonight at improv was a review of "universe", but like all games, they all cross over the material they cover. We're working on one called "doorways", and the idea is that you pantamime going through some kind of door/portal/whatever without saying a word, then your partner comes on stage and verbally indicates where you are or what you're doing based on what he saw you do to get through this door.

Some people went through sliding doors, others faced a garage door, and some swept beads to the side to attend a yoga class. The real struggle with doors is that they're made to be easy to get through without a lot of interaction. I wanted a hard door and I wanted to leave a place instead of go inside.

I begin by pulling a thing from behind something. I'm making a sawing action at something over my head. I pause, look around, and continue. I saw and I saw, and finally I cut through, and toss the remaining bit aside. I jump up. I bend at my side. I get through. I realize I forgot something. I go back. I push it through. I return to the other side. I open up the bundle, and step in to some pant legs. Then I pull on the rest of the outfit. I put on a hat. All the while looking frantic. Then I realize, I'm in the clear, I'm home free.

Where was I?

Well if you were my partner who walked in you might have said this: "Long day at the slaughterhouse, wasn't it?" And you'd be right, because you said it. I had been sawing down cattle and ducking and jumping between giant carcasses and then finally put on clean clothes to go home for the day.  Meanwhile, I thought I had pulled a file from behind a pillow, and gotten through the bars on the window of my prison cell. Forgotten my civilian clothes, put on those clothes and then casually walked to freedom a la Sawshank Redemption. But no, I was in a slaughterhouse, and I looked back and I knew he was right. and the audience, while they were with me on the prison break, needed to see me deal with the slaughterhouse now.

Walking up to the stage, I thought I had an awesome door, easy to guess, fun to play with on the outside. I was reminded tonight that it didn't matter how much it was like a real prison break to me, I don't count. I know what "door" I'm going through. I have to figure out what my partner and the audience see.

Just like real life.