Zoom and Emotion

In this exercise, one of the players (A) acts on the playing area, another (B) sits to the side at the edge. According to a prompt, A tells about a typical course from their everyday life. That can be, for example: "What do you do in the morning after getting up?" This typical course is now to be told in relatively detailed fashion and to be illustrated through action and gesture. B's task is to occasionally call "Zoom!" into the talk. A's task is then to tell what was just described in even more precise and embellished detail. So when, for example, A is just telling about their breakfast egg, that's to be enriched with details, e.g. the colour of the egg, whether it's an organic egg, its expiry date, where they buy the eggs, etc. When B says "Back!", the original story continues, without the details. Furthermore, B can, in the course of the further description, call out an emotion. Then A has to describe the course in that emotion. If A tells, for example, that they have breakfast with their flatmate, and B now imposes "boredom", they have to tell, in a bored way, about their breakfast with the flatmate and/or about her as a person. Both "Zoom" and emotion can each be requested several times by B.

With the help of this exercise one can train how to arrive at more interesting characters and play ideas.

Tips and notes

• Zoom or emotion should each be imposed at a certain time interval.
• Within the zoom description one can demand a further zoom. So when, in the example above, it is being reported that A buys the egg from farmer Wilfried, then after a further "Zoom" one could now tell about the farm of farmer Wilfried and his hens.
• It's also about tormenting the player, so feel free to call in an unfitting emotion as well.
• The basic description should be autobiographical; the details after the "Zoom" and the emotions don't have to be.