I realized (or more like forgot!) the other day that there’s a very subtle difference between reacting and responding in improv. One is based on impulse, and the other is based on groundedness. Why does being grounded matter? Simply because when you’re grounded, you can help create more magical scenes on stage — scenes that make sense, scenes in which you’re not second-guessing yourself (like I do most of the time).

Why am I talking about groundedness? Because this was one of the things the Neutral Mask helps you achieve.

The Neutral Mask was very much the focus of the Physical Performance on Stage: Presence 2 day intensive I attended last weekend led by the talented Chase Jeffels.

What is the Neutral Mask, you ask? It’s actually a mask! A blank, expressionless mask that forces the actor on stage to communicate through body language, breath, and movement.

The intensive started with us introducing ourselves with no expressions. The idea was to gauge how much space you fill around you. Sometimes your body can communicate way more than you think. Speak too softly, and you fall below neutral. Speak too loudly, and you tip above it. Both are extremes - the objective was to find that grounded middle. That grounded middle could lead to that authentic confidence - the kind of confidence that isn’t cocky confidence.

It took me five tries to get close to neutral — and even then, true neutrality is impossible as Chase mentioned to us.

The intensive was full of exercises—some were more physically demanding than others—and I really sweated my butt off in some. I regretted wearing jeans on the first day.

One of the exercises we did was called “Doctor’s Office”. The ask was to imagine ourselves in a waiting room of the Doctor’s Office & use our physicality to tell a story. We did two variations of it:

1. In the first, we used only our own physicality — no reacting to others. I found myself a bit impatient towards the end of it if I remember correctly.
2. In the second, we were allowed to respond to someone else’s physicality — not through words, but through movement. For instance, one of my partners started coughing & I responded by pretending to put on a mask as if I was afraid of catching their germs.

One of my favorite exercises came at the end: wearing an actual neutral mask and doing a silent activity.

We’d hear a hand drum. That was our cue to “wake up” on a beach. Slowly, we’d rise, take in our surroundings, and eventually discover a rock. We were to pick it up, feel it, and throw it across the horizon. The challenge was to let our stances show just how far we threw it.

Trust me, it was harder than it sounds. The part of throwing the rock alone took me about three tries to get it almost right.

As one of my classmates put it—the whole intensive was very profound, and I started thinking about what it means to me. For instance, I am an overthinker, and more often than not, I am my own harshest critic (we all probably are). I feel it’s just the kind of thing that would neutralize that inner critic. I only experienced it for a few moments, but not having to listen to that voice inside of you is very freeing.

I’ve been thinking how to carry that into daily life. Maybe you could try, too:

1. Doing the ‘neutral’ walk.
2. Assuming the ‘neutral’ stance when I’m in an elevator or waiting in line.
3. Practicing being still in front of a mirror.

(You have to be careful with this in public, though—you don’t want to look like a robot!)

And here’s the question Chase left us with — one I shared with my therapist (who, by the way, was blown away by it):

“Who am I when there’s no problem to solve?”

Still thinking about it.