Time Jump

Improvised scenes often unfold in real time. While there’s nothing wrong with a three-minute scene set in a living room on a Saturday evening, players sometimes get trapped in their scene.

I remember watching one scene involving a pointless kitchen argument. Afterwards, a performer complained: “I didn’t know where to go with it. It was boring but there was nothing to do.” I pointed out that she could easily have moved the action ahead by turning to the audience and saying: “An hour later.” She knew this already, but in the stress of the moment, she’d forgotten the time-jump option.

Time Jump makes a game out of this kind of transition. The story begins with an ordinary scene. A “director” (usually a player who’s not in the scene) interrupts the action to jump the story further ahead in time.

Typically, the jumps get larger as the scene progresses – minutes at first, then hours, then days, months and years – but don’t feel bound to this. It can be useful to throw in small jumps from time to time.

A common ask-for is a place where people might meet for the first time. A meeting between strangers is not usually a good way to begin a scene, but can work well in this game. Let’s say the suggestion is “an office party”…

A woman (Lea) looks at the food on display at the table. Brian comes up.

BRIAN: Some party, huh?

LEA: Yes… great…

BRIAN: I don’t mean to pry, but is something wrong?

Lea nods.

DIRECTOR: Two minutes later…

The performers change positions. Brian hugs Lea as she weeps uncontrollably on his shoulder.

BRIAN: So they just fired you, just like that?

LEA: Just now. Out of the blue! Right over there by the punch bowl.

The audience should get the sense that they’re seeing the interesting highlights of a story. If we advance two minutes, it’s because that’s an important moment to see. Each transition involves a shift in emotion.

Typically, two characters will meet then get involved in some kind of adventure. Perhaps half an hour later, Brian and Lea are trying to take revenge on the company by kidnapping the president. Two days later, they are both sitting in a police car. A month later, they are crawling through an escape tunnel. Twenty years later, they are selling their book on a chat show.

The final scene is often a big jump. It might be “fifty years later” (our two characters are reminiscing in a retirement home) or something much bigger.

DIRECTOR: A thousand years later.

The performers pick their way through rubble. They walk like robots.

BRIAN: See, Karx, these are the ruins of old Earth.

LEA: Yes, Zakor. Their civilization was destroyed by a book about crime. It set off a crime wave which engulfed the planet.

BRIAN: Shocking. I see that there is a copy of the book lying right here.

He picks it up, and reads with growing interest. Lea joins him. They look at each other.

BRIAN: A life of crime. A fascinating concept.

LEA: Indeed.

Lights come down.

 

Tips for the Director

In any game where someone interrupts a scene, the director needs to be loud. Players are often so wrapped up in their scene that they won’t hear an announcement that is obvious to the audience. If you announce a time jump and the players don’t hear it, which is common, don’t look sheepish back down. Repeat it it more loudly. Use a microphone, if one is available.

If it’s dull, don’t wait for things to become interesting – jump things ahead.

The scenes usually advance by larger and larger amounts, but if things are going slowly, nudge it ahead.

DIRECTOR: Twenty years later.

CLARISSE: Why, Horace, we meet again.

HORACE: My, my, Clarisse. How long has it been.

CLARISSE: Twenty long years.

This is dull. We already know it’s twenty years later, so the director nudges things along.

DIRECTOR: Five minutes later!

CLARISSE: And so you see, my dear son is actually your son too.

HORACE: I can’t believe it! I’m a father!

If your group doesn’t have enough players for a director, players can turn to the audience and call their own jumps in time.

Optionally, the director can call a place as well as a time. The director will sometimes see a good opportunity for a scene and a location can steer it that way.

Carl and Elizabeth meet for the first time at an ice-cream stand.

CARL: Excuse me, I think you dropped something.

ELIZABETH: Oh! My bracelet! That clasp is always coming undone. Thank you so much.

Carl gazes at her.

CARL: You’re… very welcome.

DIRECTOR: Ten minutes later, back at her place.

Carl and Elizabeth are kissing.

ELIZABETH: You know, I don’t normally do this sort of thing. But there’s something about you…

DIRECTOR: Nine months later at the hospital

Elizabeth mimes giving birth.

CARL: Push! Push! You can do it!

 

Tips for the Players

Try to change your location, physical position and activity with each time jump. Perhaps throw yourself into a random activity—you’ll often find it’s easy to justify why you’re doing it.

Bill and Marium have just been playing the characters of teenagers at a picnic. Bill is eating a chicken leg.

DIRECTOR: Ten years later…

Bill mimes sawing a piece of wood. Marium walks over to him.

MARIUM: My father is dead!

BILL: I know. I’m just making his coffin.

If she had entered with a different line, he could have justified it just as easily.

Bill saws wood. Marium enters.

MARIUM: Bill! You’re so romantic.

BILL: Our Love Shack is nearly finished!

Don’t get caught in a Harry Met Sally approach of continually meeting after each jump in time. (“So, how have you been?” “Good, good…”) Instead, assume the characters develop a close and ongoing relationship, and each jump shows a new part of it. Throw yourselves into the middle of new action. (“Faster! They’re gaining on us!”)

Try to keep track of how old your characters are. I’ve seen players portraying characters in their teens who, after a call of “thirty years later” are suddenly hobbling along on canes. Canes are not typical of characters in their late forties.

Players often feel an urge to stay in the same place and the same position, fighting against the point of the game, which is to move the story quickly forward. This fear of change often produces an obvious gag.

Bill stands, talking on his phone. Mary waits impatiently for him to end the call, so she can talk to him.

DIRECTOR: Five years later…

Bill doesn’t move. Mary doesn’t move. He’s still on the phone. She checks her watch.

MARY: Would you get off that phone! It’s been five years.

The audience will laugh, but this gag makes it difficult to make anything else happen in the scene. Sometimes players stick with this joke (which gets stale fast) for the duration of the game.

If Time Jump starts with a meeting, it frequently produces certain types of scenes. One follows the course of a relationship—two people who become friends, then may have a falling out, before patching up their differences and dying. Another common story involves two people who go on an adventure, often as criminals.

You can get a different range of stories by making the story about the adventures of only one character. Decide in advance which of the performers will be the main character. The other performer plays everybody else. In the first scene, Marium plays Bill’s loving wife. In the second, as he walks in the park, she turns up as the leader of his old gang. In the third scene, she’s the prison guard, then his cellmate.
Choosing one person as protagonist makes it much easier to produce a coherent story.

Players sometimes have the idea of adding complexity by jumping forward and backwards in time. This is not an improvement. There’s a reason most movies and novels unfold in in chronological order.