You wanted to see me?
Two-person scene where a boss makes an absurd ask and the employee stays grounded.
Play a two-person scene in which one character pushes a wildly unreasonable workplace agenda and the other responds realistically, forcing the initiator to justify their logic.
Person A: You wanted to see me, farmer?
Person B: Yes, thanks. We need to order more grain, we need to get the tractor fixed, I’d like to lay off some of the hired help for budget reasons, and also I’d like us to stop growing food.
Then Person A “straight mans” it, meaning they try to respond like a rational person would.
Person A: Uh, but all we do is grow food. We’re a farm.
Person B then has to come up with a reason why they want to do the weird thing. For the purposes of this exercise, it doesn’t even matter if they have a good reason. We’re getting used to having an ironic agenda.
The straight man should ask why, and then the person with the occupation should come up with a reason why. Again, don’t worry about this too much. Although there are a lot of exercises that focus on the why, this one is actually more about enjoying it when there’s someone behaving in the exact opposite way from how we expect.
**Additionally **
Once the students have got to a clear character philosophy, ask them:
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What’s the game
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If this is true what else is true in this scene
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As them and the back-line for potential second beats