A Comedian's Most Intriguing Weapon
Think You Know What It Is? (Comedy Mindhacks #57)
My wife hasn’t been to many of my shows. In fact, due to other comedians being so vulgar, she stopped coming to shows pretty much altogether. But beyond that, there was one thing about me on stage that drove her crazy. She’d sit in the audience and get bothered by the historical inaccuracies in my stories.
It’d go like this: I tell a funny story about our 20th anniversary trip to Italy. I talk about the argument we got in, but she remembers that it didn’t start at the Colosseum like I said; no, it started back at the hotel. The inaccuracy bothered her. But…the rest of the audience didn’t care at all.
They were laughing. They were connecting. They were living in the emotional truth of what it feels like when a romantic anniversary trip turns into a battle through Rome. Literally, nobody else in that room cared where the fight actually started. So, what did they care about? The emotional truth and the gap between expectation and reality.
In his book Stories of a Street Performer, magician-comedian Whit “Pop” Haydn writes that “human emotion is the most intriguing and attention-attracting weapon the performer has at his disposal.” He lists emotions performers should mine: anger, fear, discomfort, laughter, disgust, perplexity, cunning, relief, excitement, surprise, sincerity, delight. “These are gold to be mined,” he says. “That is what theater is all about, and magicians should make use of all the techniques of acting and theater that they can command.”
In reading that, I was reminded of the point I just made above: audiences really don’t care as much about factual accuracy as they do emotional truth. When I’m on stage performing, my job isn’t to be a historian. My job is to connect with the audience emotionally. In my story, that was a lot easier to do when I moved our fight to the Colosseum instead of the hotel. I wasn’t lying about the fight or really anything at all. Instead, I was simply choosing honesty and emotional resonance over historical accuracy. The Colosseum is a place built for battle. The hotel room is lame by comparison.
In that Italy bit, in other words, what I put on display throughout the story is my own confusion and ineptitude. I show that my wife is better than I am and that I can sometimes be a dumb husband. All that’s real. And it comes with real emotions, even if they’re amplified. As I tell the story, in fact, I make gestures. I do impressions. I perform act-outs. It adds to the emotional state of the performance.
Later, when I imitate a Vatican guard who catches me trying to take a shortcut, I don’t just add a character. I use him to show how dumb and childish I’m acting. If I just describe the argument, that is, if I just “tell,” the joke wouldn’t work nearly as well. The “show,” that is, the act-out helps make the emotional truth visible.
When I work on a new bit now, one thing I try to keep in mind at the start is this question: What’s the gap? What’s the gap between what people expect and what actually happens. For the anniversary joke, I start like this: “A few years ago, for our 20th, my wife and I planned this big, elaborate trip to... couples therapy.” Notice the gap?
People get how hard relationships are. But they also understand what a letdown that feels like. They know the gap. And once that gap is there, I tap into the emotions of that gap. Not just with my words, but with my face, my body, my voice. The audience needs to see me living in that disappointment, that confusion, and that ridiculousness.
You see, you can have perfect joke structure and still leave an audience cold. Technical skill does often impress people. BUT…emotional authenticity captivates them. So, here’s a nice little comedy mindhack: look at your material and find the gaps. Find the moments where expectation crashes into reality. Then ask yourself: Am I just describing this, or am I showing the emotion of it?
JOKE WRITING COURSE: By the way, if you have any interest at all in learning about your persona, how to write some jokes, or doing stand-up comedy, check out my online joke writing course, “The Joke Writer’s Lab,” HERE.