Da Doo Ron Ron and Albert Einstein: Connecting and Creating

Da Doo Ron Ron is a well-known improv game that, I believe, illustrates some essential truths about the skills required for success in any human endeavor.

The Da Doo Ron Ron game is based on the song of the same name. You all know it – sing along with me:

Met him on a Monday and my heart stood still

Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron
Somebody told me that his name was Bill
Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron
Yeah, my heart stood still
Yeah, his name was Bill
And when he walked me home
Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron

The Da Doo Ron Ron game starts with the performers standing side-by-side across the stage. An audience member calls out a name (say, “Jill” – probably from a Shaun Cassidy fan), which prompts the performer at one end of the line to sing:

Met her on a Monday and her name was Jill
[All performers sing] Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron

The next performer then must come up with the next line of the song, which must end in a word that rhymes with “Jill”:

She fed me chicken soup and it tasted like swill
Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron

The next performers in sequence continue singing a rhyming line each, for example:

Yeah, it made me ill
Yeah, I took a pill
Yeah, I climbed a really big hill
Do Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron

A performer is eliminated from the game if he fails to come up with a rhyme, uses a rhyming word which has already been used, or hesitates and breaks the rhythm.

In the example above, notice that the last line about the “really big hill” doesn’t necessarily make sense in the context of the other lines. This is ok under the game rules – all that’s needed is a rhyme, any rhyme. The key, then, to playing Da Doo Ron Ron is to run rapidly through what my improv colleague Joey Greene calls the Rolodex of the mind – mentally flipping through all the possible rhymes you can use when it becomes your turn.

While Da Doo Ron Ron serves as a high-energy warmup game, it draws on only part of the performance improviser’s toolkit – the ability to make quick mental connections. For more complex structures such as The Harold, however, the performance improviser must also turn those quick connections into a narrative that drives toward an ultimate resolution – what Keith Johnstone refers to simply as storytelling. In other words, to play actual improvised scenes, the performance improviser must both connect and create.

I believe that these two skillsets – connecting and creating – lie at the heart of any individual or joint effort. Connecting – recognizing relationships among seemingly unrelated objects or concepts, seeing the possibilities lurking in the shadows. Creating – recognizing the most promising relationships and possibilities to pursue and forging them into a fully realized outcome.

The performance improviser must utilize both skillsets - in real time - in order to transcend relatively simple games like Da Doo Ron Ron and become the compleat storyteller. For the Daily Improviser, though, the imperative is a bit different, as illustrated by one of history’s greatest artists – Albert Einstein.

[To be continued …]