How to Play
The dictionary defines Distillation as the extraction of the essential meaning or most important aspects of something. That’s the objective of this improv game.
The players perform a one minute scene.
Repeat the scene but each player only gets 3 lines.
Repeat the scene again and each player gets one line.
Origin
This game comes to us from Jenn Chou in Los Angeles, California.
Note
Do the lines have to be lines that have been said before? I don’t know. Play with it and report back.
It seems that if we’re going for the Distillation…then that may suggest re-writing the lines to be more pure, to capture the essence of the relationship dynamic.
This game is similar to “Half-life” but you cut down the number of lines instead of the time.
“Half-life” is already included in The Playbook. Do you have your own copy? Get the The Playbook so you have hundreds of games in your pocket when you need them.
So cool to see this game on the list! To answer your question, no rule at all about repeating lines. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. I bet the ultimate iteration is playing the scene a fourth time where each player only gets one word, then a fifth time in total silence.