Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation (4 page)

Ars est celare artem,
as the ancient Romans would say: the art is in concealing the art.

COMEDY AND KUNG FU

In a recent class, Del discussed the importance of taking improv seriously, and not letting
the audience affect the integrity of the work. Speaking in the performance space —
a theatre
above a bar that features bands in between improv shows —
he compared it to the work of
martial artists:

"I feel a little silly at times, saying how seriously this work must be

taken. Look around us. There's lots of goofy shit all over the walls, we

know what's served on the tables, and we share the space with blues bands

of varying degrees and quality. And we have an audience that will be

satisfied with much less than we're capable of giving them. It is not that

the environment is particularly supportive to group-experimental-improv-

isation performance art —
it's more like the comedy saloon!

"When you walk into a dojo, there is a change that comes over you. The

environment is supportive of the concept —
which is to study martial arts.

You've seen them when you walk down the street; people in there

grabbing each other's pajamas and throwing each other to the floor.

"There are a few squares in our society that think kung fu is about

kicking people's heads in, but we know differently. It is something else. It

is a martial art. You don't walk into a dojo and
say 'Good morning, master,

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I'd like to learn how to kick somebody's head in, please.' They'd throw you
down the stairs! It would be like going to Jesus and saying I'd like to learn
how to walk on water, please.' I mean, there are more important things to
do!

"Coming here to learn to make people laugh is equally absurd. To
assume that making the audience laugh is the goal of improvisation is
almost as absurd as assuming that you go to a dojo to learn how to kick
somebody's face in. It's just not true!

"Still, they laugh. It is a side-effect of attempting to achieve something
more beautiful, honest, and
truthful, something that has far more to do
with the theatre —
which puts your attention on what is important about
being a human in a community —
as opposed to television entertainment,
which is designed to take your mind
off
what is more important about your
lives.

"It is easy to become deluded by the audience, because they laugh.
Don't let them make you buy the lie that what you're doing is for the
laughter. Is what we're doing comedy? Probably
not. Is it funny? Probably
yes. Where do the really best laughs come from? Terrific
connections
made intellectually, or terrific revelations made emotionally."

NO LAUGHING ALOUD

Physicist Niels Bohr once said, "Some things are so serious, they can only be joked
about."

Likewise, the only way to do a comedy scene is to play it completely straight.

The more ridiculous the situation, the more seriously it must be played; the actors must be
totally committed to their characters and play them with complete integrity to achieve
maximum laughs.

Airplane!
and the two
Naked Gun
movies are perfect examples. The three films' lines,
situations, and sight gags are so outrageous that they must have a solid Anchor. Therefore, the
Zucker brothers hired an established dramatic actor, Leslie Nielsen, to deliver the silliest lines
completely deadpan. In The Naked Gun, his performance as Lt. Frank Drebbin is almost
identical to his performances in the various TV police dramas that are
being lampooned. Any
twinkle in his eye or winking at the camera to let audiences know that he is in on the laugh
would destroy the credibility and integrity he has built up, which make the jokes so effective.

One beginning ImprovOlympic student announced
to coauthor Halpern that he was
studying improvisation, but then planned to go on to "serious" acting. "What do you think
you're supposed to be doing now?" she asked him.

Famed commercial director Joe Sedelmeier once said that when he auditions comic
actors, he immediately dismisses anyone who asks whether the script should be read seriously
or humorously. He knows that if they have to ask, they obviously don't know what they're
doing. The only way to play comedy is seriously.

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A JOKE AND A LAUGH

The most
direct path to disaster in improvisation is trying to make jokes. This is so
important, it deserves repeating.

Don't try to make jokes in improv!

Jokes are not necessary; they are a complete waste of time and energy that is better spent
developing a scene. Get the point? Chances are if you're concentrating on telling a joke, you're
not looking for the connections in a scene. And the connections will draw much bigger laughs
than any joke.

Many actors don't understand the difference between a joke and a laugh. A joke is only
one way —
and seldom the best way —
to get a laugh; jokes can get laughs but, obviously,
laughs don't always result from jokes.

The most effective, satisfying laughs usually come from an actor making a connection to
something that has gone before. The connecting line must be truly inspired by the situation on
the stage at the moment, and usually can't be planned or recreated later. It is seldom the least bit
funny out of context. A laugh resulting from a connection is a classic example of
a moment
when "you had to be there," and describing what happened later can't do it justice.

Standing on stage and telling the audience a joke in the middle of a scene sucks the energy
out of a scene. Making a connection generates energy for that scene; as connections are
discovered, they perpetuate themselves, raising the scene to a
level which could never be
reached by telling jokes.

JOKES

Jokes are more primitive, basic and direct —
I tell you something I think is funny, hoping
you will respond by laughing. A comedian who tells jokes is basically a salesman, trying to sell
the audience a clever story or punch line, while hoping to be paid back in laughter. On a good
night, he may sell his entire line, but on a bad night, he may suffer the equivalent of
having
every door slammed shut in his face.

A good improviser doesn't need to resort to jokes; jokes are born out of desperation, and
the audience is the first to realize it. When players worry that a scene isn't funny, they may
resort to jokes. This usuallyguarantees
that the scene won't be funny.

When a player forces a joke, it is usually a comment about the scene. Unfortunately, if
you are able to comment on the scene, then you are not really involved in the scene. Many of
our great comedians will deliver a funny aside to the camera, although they are generally
making a joke at the expense of emotional commitment. This may be fine for the joke-tellers,
but when improvisers resort to such tactics, they quickly find that they don't have the faculties
—
or
the writers —
of a Jack Benny.

In so many of the classic Marx Brothers comedies, Groucho leans over to the camera and
makes a funny comment about one of his brothers or Margaret Dumont. It works well within
the context of the picture, but Groucho wasn't improvising. Besides, we all know how much
emotional depth Groucho brought to his love scenes with Dumont. Likewise, on
The Burns
and Allen Show,
George Burns is able to tune in a TV set to see what scheme Grade is cooking
up, making his re
marks directly
to the audience. Funny? Yes, but it's not impro
visation. It's

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hard to be drawn into a scene when Burns can step out of that scene at any moment and make
funny comments.

Funny asides to the audience have their place; commenting on a scene is even allowable
in improv under certain circumstances,
but only as long as you aren't involved in the scene at
the time
(unless it
becomes a game in itself —
a matter we'll discuss later). The situation is
similar to a relationship between a man and a woman —
the more
they talk about it, the less
time they spend on it.

Jokes frequently lead to groans from an audience —
they rarely get laughs. On those
occasions when they do get laughs, it is usually at the expense of the scene, because the level of
commitment to the scene is lowered. Jokes tend to be employed as a last-ditch measure by
insecure players when they are worried that a scene isn't funny. Unfortunately, too many
players manage to establish themselves as bad improvisers and humorless stand-up comics in
the same scene.

If a player begins making jokes
at the
expense of a scene, he has nothing to fall back on
when the jokes fail. If a scene is not getting laughs, however, the performers don't need to
worry, as long as they are being true to their scene. They only need to be patient.
The laughs
will come soon enough from connections —
and the connections cannot be avoided.

CONNECTIONS

Audiences appreciate a sophisticated game player. When a player listens
and uses
patterns
that have developed in a scene, it can elicit cheers from an audience which are much
more intoxicating than the laughs that result from a few jokes.

Del Close remembers hearing famed comic Lenny Bruce talk on stage for 20 minutes
without getting one laugh —
and then suddenly tying together several trains of thought with
one or two sentences, as the audience erupted in cheers at the brilliance they had just
witnessed.

Those sorts of cheers are far more rewarding than a few laughs. When properly played, a
Harold audience resembles the crowd at a sporting event rather than the audience at a
nightclub. A Harold audience will react as if they’ve seen a Michael Jordan slam-dunk when
they watch players
remembering
each other's ideas and incorporating them back into their
scenes. We have witnessed standing ovations when a player pulls together eight different trains
of thought in one brief monolog. Those cheers and screams can become even more addicting
than laughs.

Making connections is as easy as listening; remembering, and recycling information.
When patterns in scenes are noticed
and played
they create continuity in the scene.

A player must first listen to what his fellow players are saying, which he can't do if he's
busy inventing jokes and trying to force the scene in one particular direction. He has to store
the information
in the back of his mind, not relying on it too
heavily, but
keeping it handy so he
can pull it out when something in the scene triggers
the connection. When such an opportunity
arises in the scene, the player recycles the thought or
action. The audience members make the
connection for themselves, and respond much more enthusiastically than if they had just heard
a punch line.

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Connections are a much more sophisticated way to get laughs. When an audience sees the
players start a pattern, they finish the connections in their own minds. They are forced to think
just a tiny bit, and when they have to work along with the players to recognize the laugh, it is
much more
gratifying for the audience, which has had its intelligence flattered in the bargain.

The simplest, most basic example of connections can be seen in
a pattern game.

THE PATTERN GAME: