Performing in Comedy

A Student's Guide

Ian Wilkie

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138913875
• eBook ISBN: 9781317429289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

Ian Wilkie contends that comic acting is a distinct art form, and as such demands a unique skillset. By exploring the ways in which performance choices and improvised moments can work in conjunction with texts themselves, Performing in Comedy offers an indispensable practical tool for enhancing comic performance.

This volume is a must-read for any actors, directors or students who work with comic texts. Wilkie synthesises theories and principles of comedy with practical tips, and re-evaluates the ways in which these ideas can be used by the performer.

Most importantly, these skills – timing, focus, awareness – are teachable rather than being innate talents. Exercises, interviews and guides to further resources enhance this comprehensive exploration of comic acting.

Chapter 1

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Overview of comic performance

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You’re not doing comedy if nobody laughs.

(John Wright, 2007: 5)

Introduction

So, you are performing in a comedy? Should you approach the performance of it any differently? From inside the acting profession the knee-jerk response is often a horrified ‘no!’ while theories on performance and acting theory tend to remain strangely non-committal on the matter. But dig a little deeper and it soon becomes clear that, due to the different formulations and expectations of non-comic and comic forms of drama, subtle differences in the manner of their performance are required. Do exactly the same received ‘rules’ and theories of performance really apply to the practice of comedy as pertain to ‘serious’, ‘tragic’, ‘straight’ or non-comic forms of drama? For the performer, as, for example, the actress Frances de la Tour explained in an interview, ‘if you can do comedy, you can do tragedy. If you can do tragedy, you can’t necessarily do comedy’ (in Walsh, 2015: 27). Certainly, however, favoured traditional theories of acting and performance do not seem to differentiate the practice of performing comedy, and, from the perspectives of the performer or director, texts on how to approach the art of performance often disregard the doing of comedy completely. Those influential modern European performance gurus who have dominated Westernised thinking on the practice of drama (e.g. Constantin Stanislavski and his ‘System’, Lee Strasberg and ‘The Method’, Jerzi Grotowski and the ‘Poor’ Theatre, Bertold Brecht and the ‘Epic’ Theatre, or Peter Brook and the ‘Empty Space’) do not appear to draw any differences between the performance of comic and non-comic forms of drama. But accepted acting theory concepts such as the exploration of ‘emotional memory’, the uncovering of ‘subtext’, or the presentation of ‘gestus’ as a means of presenting emotional or intellectual truths in dramatic form do not quite fit the practice of doing comedy so satisfactorily. So, in short, the means to create the representation of comic and non-comic dramatic ‘truths’ are usually accepted to be the same. And that is the end of story.

And yet … and yet … performing comedy is different. By its very nature, comic performance has unique properties. For, basically, if what you, the actor or director, present to the audience is not funny, or it fails to provoke amusement, even actual laughter, in the audience, then that performance has not been effective. As Armando Iannucci, the creator of The Thick of It (BBC, 2005–) and the film In the Loop (Iannucci, 2009) observed in an interview, ‘if it’s not funny … it’s been a waste of time. There isn’t a noise that you make during drama that says “I really like this drama”. Whereas with comedy, it’s instant’ (in Patterson, 2009: 9).

Comic performance requires the provocation of amusement (the stimulation of a humorous response) in an audience. Other forms of dramatic presentation do not. So, in that one simple respect, comic performance must take a unique form and requires the practice of specific, pertinent skills from the performer (and director) to create the required effects. Indeed, practitioners themselves often concede that comedy is actually ‘harder’ to do. As the American actress Elaine Stritch noted, ‘comedies are a lot harder and more stressful to play than serious parts. As Neil Simon says ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard’ (in Luckhurst and Veltman, 2001: 141).

This book is, therefore, an attempt to place comic performance’s special formulations at the centre of the actors’ and directors’ practice and to redress the neglect that comic performance, taken as a separate phenomenon, has traditionally experienced within performance studies. Too often the performers’ contribution to the successful transmission of a comedy has been ignored or even denigrated. Indeed, the mistrust of ‘acting’ that pervades in modern performance culture (especially in film or television) means that you may well be told that the lines or situation are ‘funny enough in themselves’ and all that is required of you, the actor, is just to say them. The falsehood there is that the text will take care of itself and the actor’s interpretation of the part is somehow secondary. The nonsense of such a statement is illustrated in film and TV ‘remakes’ where the same lines and situations do not necessarily always ‘take care of themselves’ when another performer interprets them. Any takers for, say, the 1970 remake of Laughter in Paradise? The 1996 UK remakes of the Hancock TV shows? The 2011 remake of Arthur? That the performances – the interpreters’ playing of the role – provide a huge part in assuring the effectiveness of the comedy is, surely, indisputable.

Features that define comic performance will be suggested throughout this book, and these will be supplemented with exercises for the performer, director or facilitator to help you find – and practice the doing of – comic performance. A chapter on the role that audience ‘interplay’ takes within ‘truthful’ comic performance follows along with chapters on working as part of an ensemble; on the use of rhythm and timing; on working with comic text; on acting in film, television and sitcom formats, plus one containing advice from practitioners. All of these chapters will encourage you to become a reflective practitioner – that is, someone who:

• reviews their practice both during and after the event;

• applies potential improvements to their practice based on observation of the effect of their performance;

• in collaboration with their co-performers, applies changes as a result of witnessing the evolving effects;

• continues the cycle of practitioner doing, reviewing, redoing and re-reviewing throughout the performance process.

In this book, there is a difference made between acting and performance. The sociologist Erving Goffman (1959) used the term ‘acting’ for everything we do in everyday life, while the Theatre Workshop director Joan Littlewood (1994: 199) pronounced:

Everybody can act … aren’t we all acting most of the time? Performing is something different. Our politicians, popes, barristers and rabble rousers are all actors, but con-men, spies, crooks and plain-clothes policemen are even better. What is a good actor? Part priest, part poet, part clown.

Theatre or television acting, therefore, is, at its most basic, simply the presentation of what people do – a representation of a state of being. You will find that television and film directors are, sometimes, suspicious of ‘actors’, as they fear any perceived ‘theatricality’, viewing this as mere overemphasis. They sometimes think that all that they crave is some form of simple representation of being – and would often prefer to hire an actual butcher, baker, candlestick-maker, criminal, mother or vicar, rather than employ a performer to play the role! Sometimes, anything that smacks of performance is simply an anathema to directors for the screen. However, where this comes unstuck for them is when the real butcher or baker is required to act anything other than their occupational role. Playing real feelings or emotions and prompting a reaction through representation of these (this includes inducing amusement or laughter) is the skilled job of the performer. The ‘real’ person cannot always reproduce the dramatic or comic moments that enliven any text in the way that the script requires, so performers are, albeit sometimes warily, employed to impersonate the characters required.

Acting, therefore, in its simplest sense of ‘being’ or ‘impersonating’ is something that everyone can do. It is something, indeed, that we all do all of the time.

Performance, however, is not something that everyone can do. It is, instead, a case of manifesting authentic states of more complex human ‘being’. It is the ability to create interactions, reactions, provocations and responses. The performer must convey meanings, ones that are often hidden or sublimated, to other humans, through the media of screen or stage. Not everyone can do this.

Any worries about ‘performance’ in the media are also somewhat different in theatre where acting (in the sense of replicating behaviours) is more clearly needed to get the messages across. Here, both acting and performance are required.

Performance, then, for the purposes of this book, specifically means a professional mastery of those skills and expertise that will enhance a comic text. It means the conscious display of intercommunicative, representational skills which the actor can deploy to cause an effect, specifically, in this case, in the doing of comedy. Discussion of these skills will centre mainly round how they feature in live situations, that is, as in the theatre context. It will be argued that these skills need not be overt or made noticeable to the audience, and, indeed, some of the craft of the actor is in hiding these skills, making them appear innate and natural.

In short, what follows aims to illustrate the differences between comic and non-comic performance forms, how comic performance works in practice, and how the actor and director might develop the repertoire of acting skills that are required to produce effective comic performance. This chapter also provides a summary overview of the key themes involved in performing in comedy which will then be explored in more detail throughout the chapters that follow.

INDIVIDUAL EXERCISE

Textual clues

Try reading out different selected serious dramatic and comic speeches and extracts and contrasting them. See how much or how little ‘performance’ or acting is needed to make the text work and ‘come alive’. Ask yourself which texts require the most extra performance skills to lift them off the page? For example, try firstly reading aloud – and without intonation – the dramatic text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth speech:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

(Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5)

Now contrast this with the Porter’s speech from the same play:

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there i’the name of Belzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins enow about you; here you’ll sweat for’t. (Knock).

Knock, knock! Who’s there in the other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator. (Knock).

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor: here you may roast your goose. (Knock).

Knock, knock! Never at quiet! What are you? – But this place is too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. (Knock).

Anon, anon! I pray you remember the porter.

(Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3)

Experiment with adding extra performance layers, for example, vary your vocal intonation, add gestural touches, or try ‘lightening’ or ‘darkening’ the interpretation. Which type of text requires more ‘performance’ layers to be communicated effectively?

Try this experiment with other ‘serious’ and ‘comic’ excerpts from plays of different genres to test out whether comic text needs more performance to bring the script fully to life.

Amusing the audience

Firstly, it is perfectly true that comedy should be played as ‘seriously’ as any other form of drama. Comedy, as a performative art, is as ‘real’ in, and of, itself as any other form of theatre. In comedy, your performance must still serve the wider ‘message’ of the play, sitcom, radio drama or film. However, comic performance is an activity that, fundamentally, is intended to amuse an audience. It is an experience that is crafted to be something enjoyable that should make the spectators smile or laugh. In executing comic performance, a link between the player and the audience is formed. The audience provides both the expectation of and a response through laughter, while the performer must somehow be aware of this live interchange from the audience and respond, in turn, to their response. The actor’s awareness of potential laughter is still necessary when acting in television or film, even where no live audience may be present. It is in the interchange between performer and spectator where comic performance most often comes fully to life. It is the audience’s response to the stimulus created by the actor(s) that is the defining feature of comedy and is that which makes comic performance different to non-comic forms. Comedy works within a world of a mutual consciousness of the performers’ attempts to inspire each audience’s laughter. To create this cause and effect, to a large extent, the comic performer creates and relies on a peculiar form of interplay with the audience. As Peter Thomson notes, ‘the comic actor is always in collusion with the spectators’ (2002: 141). The performer operates within a unique state of permissible ‘truth’ within an accepted pretence. Laughter is the mutual reward and is also the indicator (to both performer and audience) of the effectiveness of the performance.

In the following chapter, we will investigate further how this form of complicity, empathy or interplay – ‘the interchange between actor and audience’ (Mamet, 1998: 56) – can be created and established while still maintaining the comic ‘truth’ of the situation or plot. On purely practical grounds, for you, the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Overview of comic performance
• 2 Interplay and the audience
• 3 Expertise, truth and ensemble interplay
• 4 Rhythm and timing
• 5 Working with text
• 6 Comic performance in television and film
• 7 Advice from practitioners
• 8 The happy ending
• Appendices
• References
• Index