Conflict/Agreement Scenes

A scenic exercises on finding agreement and relationship in a scene instead of conflict.

Avoiding conflict isn’t a rule, but it is something that can often help shows so it’s a useful skill to have – being able to take a conflict scene and find agreement and relationship.

In the exercise the teacher gives two improvisers a scene suggestion that would usually result in conflict and arguments. By listening to each other they try to find agreement and relationship in the scene instead of the conflict.

The teacher may sometimes help by pointing out offers that they could bond over.

Scene Suggestions

• Two explorers are bitten by a snake in the jungle. They have just enough antidote to save one of their lives. If they share it they both die.
• Two people crash their cars into each other in a pub car park.
• Someone has been brought into their managers office to be fired from their job.
• A couple have split up and are packing things away as they get ready to move out of their shared house.
• Soldiers from different armies meet in no man’s land.
• A police officer is chasing a criminal.
• Someone arrives home to find a burglar in their living room.

Origin

We originally learnt this game from Charna Halpern from iO Theatre Chicago.