By Douglas Friedman
DEL MAR, California — Hypnotists have performed in front of audiences for generations; the earliest iterations as scientific demonstrations in the late 1700’s but years later as a form of popular entertainment. Improv comedy…performers creating scenes without a script, came along much later but has become an even more widely attended theatrical experience.
After honing his craft as a hypnotist entertaining audiences in a number of venues including cruise ships for Royal Caribbean and others, in 2016 Asad Mecci sent an unsolicited email to improv TV show “Whose Line is it Anyway?” star Colin Mochrie suggesting they explore a way to work together.
Within 24 hours, Mochrie responded and in short order, “Hyprov” was born, the marriage of Hypnosis and Improv into one powerhouse show.
The premise is simple. To open the show, 20 volunteers come to the stage and listen to Mecci talking them through a process that leads to a state of stupor. After whittling the group to four or five after observing how they respond physiologically to his suggestions, Mochrie takes over and the real fun begins.
Much like any improv show, suggestions from the audience are the starting point from which scenes are created featuring the audience volunteers, all whose inhibitions have been abandoned.
Ahead of their upcoming performance on June 18 at the San Diego County Fair, I had the chance to speak with Asad Mecci and Colin Mochrie about what makes the show work.
Q: How has your “Hyprov” show changed since you started working it out in 2016?
Colin: It was almost like our first show was Pong, and now we’re at the Legend of Zelda. At first we didn’t know exactly what they were capable of. I mean, we walked on stage, hoping that this show would work. We really had no idea, and then we found over the time we’d done this or that well, but we can ask them to do more than we thought. They can actually do full blown scenes. So it was a learning experience for us. We thought it was just going to be me being a traffic cop, doing most of the heavy lifting, but no, they become true improv pros.
Q: Asad, how much did Colin and improv in general bring to the show you were already doing in theatres and at corporate events?
Asad: I originally started off performing my own show, Hypnohype, where I would bring up the same 20 volunteers and then whittle it down to the best subjects, do experiments with them, but this show has this incredible improv component, which really is fascinating to watch. The crescendo of the show is watching Colin perform a bit with one of the volunteers and the volunteer is shifting and morphing into the different characters that Colin comes into contact with while he’s solving a case. He’s in full-time private detective mode, and it’s incredible to watch the subjects match wits with Colin as well. They’re able to keep up with him and add to the scene, making it very entertaining. Not only for the audience, but also for me. I’ve seen the show hundreds of times now, and it never ceases to amaze me at how creative these people are when you unlock their creativity.
Q: Apart from the adrenaline you must feel when the show really clicks, do you also feel something more visceral, kind of like being able to control other people, as opposed to when you do a great scene with, you know, other improvers.
Colin: Just to be clear, I have no control over these people at all. There’s nothing I am doing that can… When I’m working with people from “Whose Line” or any other improviser, even though we’re improvising, we still have sort of the same foundations, and we’re also working on making a scene. So throughout the scene, even though we’re improvising, I can go “oh, they’re heading this way, they’re heading to a possible end. I don’t have that with these volunteers. They’re just giving me information and then going off in their own little directions. So it makes it interesting for me to work as hard as this. I say that, and I love it. You know, you can get lazy when you work with people that you’ve worked with a long time in the improv thing, because I can go, “Oh, you know what? I know exactly where you’re going with this.” With volunteers, I don’t have that. I really have to listen through everything they’re saying, because sometimes they toss out little gems, you know, you could miss unless you’re really in the moment. I think the show has actually made me a better improviser, has helped me keep my skills sharp.
Asad: It’s also amazing to watch Colin as he adapts on the fly because he’s such a master improviser. So in some shows with Hyprov the volunteers are standout stars, and he then watching and reacting to how they improvise, and he knows that he can add in little kernels. At times if they’re not giving him as much as he needs, he can pick up the pace and pick up the slack and push hard with the comedy. He’s just such an incredible improviser. It’s a master class in improv because you watch how he is on the fly adjusting to and calibrating these volunteers. So not only am I calibrating them in that I’m watching for the physiological feedback, but Colin is watching them very closely and observing them very closely to see how they’ reacting.
Q: Asad, I read on your Wikipedia page that “self-consciousness is fatal to improv.” How so?
Asad: The part of the brain that deals with self-reflection becomes disconnected when somebody’s hypnotized. They no longer reflect on their behavior. They just carry out my suggestions without hesitation, without question. Newer improvisors will often hesitate, they’ll use filler words, they’ll play to the crowd in that they look like they’re trying really hard. Whereas these people just follow the suggestions without hesitation, without question, which makes for really good improv, because they immerse themselves fully in the scene. The really good subjects don’t crack, they don’t laugh in the scenes. Usually, to keep a straight face during the stuff that Colin is doing up on stage is nearly impossible. But these people are stone faced working with Colin. If you were to do this without the hypnosis and you brought up 10 people who had no improv experience, and got them to improvise with Colin, it would be an unmitigated disaster in front of a group of people. They would hesitate, they would play to the crowd, they’d use filler words like “uh…”, but mostly because they would be laughing so hard at what Collin was doing up there, as they’re improvising with him, they’d just be laughing throughout.
Q: Will you be touching on political or other current events during the show?
Colin: We try to stay away from politics just because it tends to divide the audience. If you go to see a show like Bill Maher or John Stewart or something, you know what you’re getting. Likewise, you know what you’re going to get a lot of with us. Some goofy lines (and laughs), just showing that we all have the potential within us to do great things. That’s basically what the show is.
Tickets to “HYPROV” June 18 at the San Diego County Fair can be purchased at HYPROV: Improv Under Hypnosis
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Douglas Friedman is a television writer and marketing executive.