[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Three, two, one. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

ROBERT: The podcast.

JAD: Okay, so last week, we—we just did a thing about certainty.

ROBERT: And doubt.

JAD: Yes. And, you know, one of the questions that was silently lurking there was, like, what are the mental tricks that can help a person walk through a period of intense doubt.

ROBERT: And while we were researching that show, I was trying to think where I had seen the most intense, almost, you know, theatrical uncertainty. And there happens—do you know—do you like improvisational comedy? I have a ...

JAD: I would like to be, but it's—the experience of watching improv makes me uncomfortable.

ROBERT: Well, that's the thing. I'm gonna introduce you to two guys who do something very interesting with that discomfort, because if you talk to—to true comedy, nerds they will tell you there are two individuals who take this improvisational dare further than anybody else.

SEAN COLE: Hello.

DAVID PASQUESI: Hello.

SEAN: TJ and Dave?

DAVE: Yep.

ROBERT: David Pasquesi and TJ Jagodowski.

DAVID PASQUESI: This is—this is us.

ROBERT: And this is Robert.

DAVID PASQUESI: Hi Robert.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Hi Robert.

ROBERT: Our producer Sean Cole and I called them up because we've been to their shows and ...

SEAN: You have two fans here.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Well, thank you guys. Geez.

ROBERT: I've gone with my wife, with my sister, I've gone with people who went—couldn't stand it because they thought it was like so scary to them. I had one friend, actually, who wanted to bolt and I had, like, hold his hand—his leg down on the chair.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: That's a common reaction.

DAVID PASQUESI: Yeah.

JAD: Okay, so what—what do these guys do that's so special?

ROBERT: Well, in normal improvisation people come onto the stage and they ask for—they'll go, "You—you're at a party." And then they go, "You—you've got a—a French teacher."

And you go—and then they ...

JAD: They have to make up a scene about that—that scenario.

ROBERT: And then—and then it lasts for five minutes or so.

JAD: Right.

ROBERT: Well these guys, they don't do that at all.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Thank you very much!]

ROBERT: They get up on stage.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: And this is TJ Jagodowski!]

ROBERT: They introduce themselves.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We are super happy to be here, as we hail from Chicago.]

ROBERT: They do a little crowd work back and forth with the audience.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're very much looking forward to improvising for you. Trust us, this is all made up.]

ROBERT: But then lights go out.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: And when the lights come back up ...

ROBERT: There's two guys on stage just looking at each other. And it looks like they've just suddenly woken up, and have no idea who they are.

DAVID PASQUESI: No.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: No.

ROBERT: They don't know if they're a man or a woman.

DAVID PASQUESI: No.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Not yet.

ROBERT: Where they are.

DAVID PASQUESI: Correct.

ROBERT: When they are.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: No assumptions.

DAVID PASQUESI: We're completely tabula rasa.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: From the very beginning it's understood that we're all just gonna find out ...

ROBERT: Together.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Right.

ROBERT: And here's the thing. This is going to last unbroken for the next 50 minutes. This is like a one-act play with characters and plot. And they can't stop, can't break, and they have no idea what they're about to do. None.

JAD: So wait if they're—if they have no script, they had no plan, they got nothing. They don't even know who they are, how do you even begin?

ROBERT: Well, I'll tell you what it looks like. They just stand there and look at each other until ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: You'll bounce back, man.]

ROBERT: … one of them speaks.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: You'll bounce back.]

ROBERT: And then it's on.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I don't want to get into it.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, you'll bounce back. [audience laughs] Tough day.]

ROBERT: At this point, what do you know?

DAVID PASQUESI: All I know is we're friends. We're in some sort of indoor setting, I think it looked like that.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Males.

DAVID PASQUESI: Males.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Breathe it out, breathe through it. Right? Is that what they say?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Breathe into the area that's bringing you the pain? Yeah. Yeah.]

JAD: And one of the—is one of the guys upset?

ROBERT: Yup.

DAVID PASQUESI: Something has just happened.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We can hear some of the screamin' from out here.]

ROBERT: I don't know, some kind of fight?

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Hey look, you know, I say what I need to say, you know? That's what I do when it happens. You know what happens if you keep it in, you keep it in? Cancer.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Right, yeah. Yeah. Like Jackie Robinson.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, right, right.]

ROBERT: All right, so some kind of fight just happened, and one of these guys ...

TJ JAGODOWSKI: He is feeling like he just lost, I don't know why. I don't know who we are yet.

ROBERT: But they gotta ...

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Keep going.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Did he look, did he look, like stunned. Did you get a good reaction?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, I mean I got—yeah, at first.]

JAD: So this fight was with a boss I think.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Well, we're all rooting for you out here.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Thanks. Thanks.]

JAD: Their boss.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, we'll see what the fallout is.]

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Okay, now we know it's a corporate environment without decent leadership.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We got no leadership. We got no leadership.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: No. Right, yeah. A little top heavy, if you ask me. A little top heavy!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, a little top heavy!]

JAD: All right, so two guys complaining about a boss.

ROBERT: Yeah, but right at that moment they both shout in the same direction. So ...

TJ JAGODOWSKI: The geography of this setting ...

ROBERT: Kind of crystalizes, because now we know that the boss's office is off to the right.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Yeah, there are facts that are revealing themselves now, literally, you know, blueprints.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, you know what? Because you gotta ask yourself, you want the job or you want the story?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yup. Yup.]

DAVID PASQUESI: But, we still don't know where it's going.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm fine. I'm gonna be fine. Whatever happens, I'm gonna be fine.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, you'd be great. You're gonna be an asset to any corporation, or company, you know?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I don't know about that.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, I do.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: That's nice of you to say.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: It was heroic, you know? It was like you were ridin' into battle for everybody.]

ROBERT: But then, there comes a moment ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: You wore—you brought the banner in there, and that's pretty—that's pretty awesome.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Hey, you know what? If you don't stand—you know, because you'll fall for anything.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Right.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Right.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Right.]

ROBERT: And it's right ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: You know, and I know it's a softball team.]

ROBERT: ... there.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: But, it starts somewhere. It starts somewhere.]

JAD: [laughs]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: If I want, yeah.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: What he's gonna play shortstop because he's a [bleep] district manager?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Right, you know?]

ROBERT: Suddenly it's like [exhales].

TJ JAGODOWSKI: There is a little bit of an exhale of like, "All right, well now we know that. That—that does make sense with the things we've seen up till now."

DAVID PASQUESI: And also the—I think the delight in, "Oh, wow. It's been that all along."

JAD: Right, right.

DAVID PASQUESI: Because we're just paying attention to what happened since the lights went up. Nothing else exists.

ROBERT: Right.

DAVID PASQUESI: So one of the things that happened since the lights went up is when I mentioned something about cancer.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Cancer.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Right. Yeah.]

DAVID PASQUESI: TJ said Jackie Robinson.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Like Jackie Robinson.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah, right.]

DAVID PASQUESI: So that—that went in my brain.

ROBERT: And Dave says the only way you're gonna get these kinds of moments, which are both surprising and obvious at the very same time, is if the performers are genuinely as surprised at what just happened as the audience.

DAVID PASQUESI: And the only way that can happen is if we actually don't know it. And so the not knowing is where the—that's the goal.

ROBERT: But I mean, I assume you have the usual amount of self loathing that most people have, so ...

DAVID PASQUESI: Probably more.

ROBERT: So why are you afraid that you will look for this story between you and nothing will occur?

DAVID PASQUESI: Please don't bring up this question.

ROBERT: [laughs]

SEAN: Is that a constant fear?

DAVID PASQUESI: Yes, absolutely.

ROBERT: TJ says ...

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Before the show begins, it is an absolute, like, maelstrom going on, in—inside me, personally.

ROBERT: But here's the truly fascinating thing: the way they deal with that maelstrom, all that anxiety about what's gonna happen, is they tell themselves this story, that this thing that they're creating, they don't actually create it. They don't make it happen.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: It's already happening.

ROBERT: Without them.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: It's all already going on, that's—it's not our job to make it.

JAD: It's already going on? What?

ROBERT: All right, so—you know the moment I mentioned at the beginning, when the—when the lights dim, and they're standing, just about to begin.

JAD: Yeah.

ROBERT: They'd say at that moment the stage is literally swirling with all these characters…

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Millions and millions of billions of its, all going on.

ROBERT: Billions of stories.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: All going on.

ROBERT: And the moment the lights come up, one of those stories gets frozen in place and they just step in.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: TJ Jagodowski: We ...]

ROBERT: Here's how TJ describes it in a documentary.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: TJ Jagodowski: ... believe that there is this thing going on, that the show is already going on, it is already in process and we pick it up at a moment somewhere within this progression, but that the show, itself, started a long time ago. We—we didn't know it, and we don't know which show we're about to join already in progress. So we get to live it or physically represent it for 50-some odd minutes, and then we leave it, but it keeps on going, that the people that were represented for that amount of time, go on to have marriages and divorces and children and buy property, and maybe die a natural death a long time in the future, or die in some horrible accident soon after—soon after we see them.]

TJ JAGODOWSKI: To think of the show as it's already all set and all I have to do is stay out of the way, takes a huge pressure off of having—I'm not a determining, active part in this, I'm along for this excellent ride that's already excellent with a friend of mine, if I just listen and pay attention to him and what the show is doing.

SEAN: And do you actually believe that—that the show is already going on before you get there and everything like that? Or is that just, is that—is that a story that you tell yourself, or is that more of a ...

TJ JAGODOWSKI: That is an excellent question.

ROBERT: [laughs]

SEAN: Thank you.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: And I don't know the answer.

SEAN: Really?

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Yeah. I don't know if—I don't know if—if it's going on before or after. I'm not sure of that. But I do know that right now this is happening. And it's not our—of our making. Recently a friend of mine said, "Hey, how'd the show go last night?" I go, "Oh, it was crazy! This one guy ended up killing himself." And he stopped me. He goes, "You know that's you, right?"

ROBERT: [laughs]

TJ JAGODOWSKI: "You know that, right? You know that you're talking about you guys."

ROBERT: And the honest answer to that question is what, exactly?

TJ JAGODOWSKI: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I know what he means.

ROBERT: [laughs]

ROBERT: Just so you know, over the course of the hour they start playing all kinds of different characters, the show expands, expands. You meet coworkers.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Have you been here the whole time?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah. I was on a—was on a call. Yeah.]

ROBERT: Eventually you meet the boss, and then the workers discover that the boss has been intentionally throwing ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're throwing ...]

ROBERT: ... softball games.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: ... contests.]

ROBERT: Because they are playing clients. They don't want to embarrass them.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're throwing games?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Not always.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: We're bowing down?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Sometimes.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Taking it up the fanny from Cottonelle because you need their business?]

[laughter]

ROBERT: So the workers hatch a scheme to kidnap the boss.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Maybe tie him and put him in a van.]

ROBERT: So they can finally win a game.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: So he can't show up at a game, screw up the batting order, things like that.]

ROBERT: And it keeps going on from there.

TJ JAGODOWSKI: You just respond honestly in these tiny moments. One little thing, on to the next little thing.

DAVID PASQUESI: It's that step off the platform before the next piece of floor comes to be under that foot.

ROBERT: It's like—it's like a beautiful dare, sort of, the whole thing, and ...

SEAN: It sounds like you're talking both about life, and about the show as a beautiful dare. Yeah.

JAD: I mean our—our tendency is to take what you guys do and transpose it onto other things. Do you think—do you do that? Do you think, how we perform is how people should live, or does that seem silly?

TJ JAGODOWSKI: It seems silly, and I agree with it. I do know that when I can get, you know, in the real world closer to the idea of what I do when I improvise, I know I have better days. When I don't try to presuppose too much, try and predetermine too much, when I am taking things as they come in the moment I know I am living a less anxious life.

ROBERT: And when they're up there on the stage, in the lights, by themselves, with no plan ...

TJ JAGODOWSKI: It's the—it's the best hour, all week.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: So, he's still—he's still in his office.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: At large. He's still at large.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Yeah. Yeah, he's loose.]

TJ JAGODOWSKI: It's just so encompassing. It is a really still—a really still place.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: He's foiled my every attempt!]

[laughter]

TJ JAGODOWSKI: No one's gonna ask you for anything. No one's gonna call. You're just in this kind of sealed bubble with—with someone that you trust implicitly. And there's just a real lovely still to it.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: What to do?]

TJ JAGODOWSKI: There's no more calm place in the world than the quiet of doing that show with David at that time. 

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Maybe we don't need—need to make that many changes. Maybe we just do better.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I'm gonna miss you too. [audience cheers]]

ROBERT: Big thanks to producer Sean Cole, who helped us produce this thing and thought it up. And to Alex Karpovsky, whose documentary we quoted briefly from. It's called, Trust Us, This is All Made Up. And to Harrison George, whose lesser-known brothers McCartney Paul, Lennon John and Starr Ringo. Anyway ...

JAD: I'm sure he's never heard that one before.

ROBERT: Time to go.

JAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

[LISTENER: Hi, this is Shelby from Montreal, Canada. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]

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