Improv
1971 · 19m · Canada
Directed by Joan Henson
Genres: documentary, drama, experimental
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, theatrical
Twelve National Arts Centre Studio Company actors work without a script under Michael Bawtree to create an experimental improvised play, making the process of creation part of the final production.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone's obsessed with the *product* of improvisation—the happy accident, the genius moment—but Henson just films twelve actors *failing* in real time, and somehow that's the most honest thing about theater I've ever seen.
A rigorous formal inquiry into the relationship between process and presentation; by making the struggle of creation inseparable from the work itself, Henson situates this piece in a deliberate lineage of metatheatrical and documentary practice that demands close attention.
The restraint is everything here—Henson doesn't cut away from the dead air, the false starts, the actors catching each other's eyes mid-stumble, which transforms what could've been a gimmick into something genuinely disarming about how performance actually lives.