Improv, perhaps more than any other theatrical form, tends to break that Fourth Wall... or "go meta." Sometimes that's a great thing and sometimes it ruins a show.
(that's a picture of Animal Man, a DC comics superhero who had the sad revelation that he was a character in a comic book. Great story, and that full-page panel kinda freaked me out when I first read it.)
Improv shows, just by getting a suggestion, poke little tiny holes into the Fourth Wall. It's theater, but improv is automatically interactive theater. Most improv shows tend to react to the room and the audience (a breaking glass, a too loud audience member, accidental light or sound cues) and that's fine and fun. It's part of improvisation.
Some shows prefer to be more theatrical and never address anything outside of the performance and that too is fine and fun. In fact, I personally prefer that kind of show. Those are the kind of shows I perform in. (As previously mentioned in this blog, I'm an improv snob.)
It's the shows that abuse the power of "going meta" that annoy me. They do it too much... or they refer to things in the room or audience almost as a crutch instead of creating something on stage. If you watch a lot of improv you tend to notice if a person or a group breaks that Fourth Wall on numerous occasions. While audiences love it the first time, if they come back and see the same group do it again they'll tend to discard the improvisational experience.
Do you break the Fourth Wall often during shows? Do you like it when improv shows do that? How about when TV shows do it?
I guess one of the most famous examples of a TV show going "meta" is when the show Newhart ended with Bob Newhart waking up next to "wife" from his previous TV series; the entire show was a dream within The Bob Newhart Show.
Less known, but mind-blowing to me as I was watching it live when it happened, is the series finale to I Married Dora (I had a crush on series star Elizabeth Pena.) Dora and the extended Family just watched the father/husband gets relocated to Alaska and leaves them all. They're crushed; they thought he would stay with them, and then...
Filed under: Jason's Shows, TV shows
Tags: Animal Man, Fourth Wall, I Married Dora, Meta, Newhart
I would agree in that I can handle it once in an improv show but after that, it takes me out of it. I love it in TV, however!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs5Dwyth6Mw
I'm with you, Annie! Man, look how young Jack Black is! Whew!