The Gerbil
The Gerbil is a short-form game in which one player portrays a gerbil while another plays its owner, navigating a series of scenes that reveal the gerbil's unexpected inner life, opinions, and agency. The game mines absurdist comedy from the collision between the ordinary domestic pet relationship and the gerbil's outsized perspective.
Structure
The Setup
Two players are designated: one as the gerbil, one as the owner. The gerbil performer moves and speaks in whatever way feels right for the character, from literal animal behavior to full human articulation depending on the style of the show.
The Scenes
The host or emcee establishes a series of short situations: the gerbil's reaction to a new roommate, the gerbil overhearing a phone call, the gerbil's opinion of the owner's lifestyle choices. Players react and build within each scene.
The Escalation
Each scene escalates the gerbil's involvement or awareness. By the final scene, the gerbil typically has a fully formed perspective on its domestic situation and is actively responding to it.
The Button
The game ends with a button that encapsulates the gerbil's central perspective, usually delivered by the gerbil performer directly.
How to Perform It
Performer Notes
The game lives or dies on the gerbil performer's commitment to a specific, consistent internal logic for the character. A gerbil that is merely "silly" is less interesting than one that has a defined emotional relationship to its world. Play the specific gerbil, not gerbil in general.
The Owner
The owner's role is to be real. Playing an exaggerated buffoon undermines the game. The funnier choice is genuine affection and obliviousness, which makes the gerbil's private perspective funnier by contrast.
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How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). The Gerbil. Retrieved October 15, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/the-gerbil
The Improv Archive. "The Gerbil." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/the-gerbil.
The Improv Archive. "The Gerbil." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/the-gerbil. Accessed October 15, 2026.
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