"Humor is mankind's greatest blessing." -Mark Twain

I have always wished that I was funnier than I was, for as much as I have amused myself sometimes, I have also wanted to be able to amuse others equally.  Recently I have been reflecting particularly on this matter of humor as it relates to the theatre, having the opportunity to observe comedic improvisation in light of principles of acting. Through these considerations I have discovered three essential elements for this type of humor:

1. The Unexpected

The first element is a conclusion I reached long ago when my ponderings related to other matters, but I find this holds true for theatre as well.  It is the surprises that make us laugh most.  Whether that means a sudden imitation of some familiar thing, the use of a prop one had not known was there, an unanticipated change in intent, or anything else unexpected, we laugh at what we cannot see coming.

2. Conflict

This second comes directly from what makes good theatre and so applies also to improvisation.  When we see conflict on stage we begin to relate more to the characters and invest ourselves in what is happening because we want to know whether they will get what they want even if we think it is funnier if they do not get it and instead are stopped by the hilarious antics of the antagonist.  We want their commitment.  This ensures the energy level remains high, which affects the pace, which in turn determines whether we get bored and allow our attention to wander.  Hence it also includes the important aspect of timing.

3. The Instrument

This third might also be described as imitation, though it involves much more than that.  This is the reason an actor must be comfortable with himself and his body so that he can use this instrument that is himself in order to evoke laughs.  In watching the comedic improvisation show, I noticed the most humorous moments were when an actor effectively imitated some person or thing we could all recognize.  Those were the actors I wanted to watch.

Conclusion

The first and third elements can easily be funny of themselves, but it is more difficult for the second one to be, though that is basically the principle behind slapstick humor.  However, the union of these three elements is amazing.  That is what we as an audience want to see.  It is what brings our laughter almost to tears.

Post Script

I realize that it is infinitely easier to sit back in the critic's chair and comment upon a performance, far different than standing on stage oneself and being forced to think how to combine these three elements with scarcely two and a half seconds for the brain synapses to fire back and forth and create that moment of humor before the audience grows bored and lets its attention drift.  Yet I am not a hardened critic.  I only criticize so that I will be better prepared for that moment when I step on stage.  Perhaps then I too can learn to be funny.

An Actor's Discontent

"Unless you marry God, as our nuns do in Ireland, you must marry Man -- that is Me. The only third thing is to marry yourself -- yourself, yourself, yourself -- the only companion that is never satisfied -- and never satisfactory."

Michael Moon had it entirely right, I think. In particular, he understood very well what it means to spend too much time with oneself, perhaps because he was a man given to introspection, a very helpful thing that--like a good many helpful things--can become quite the opposite when taken too far.

I think Oscar Wilde would also have agreed, at least judging from an entry in The Devil's Dictionary: Alone, adj. In bad company.

In any case, sometimes one tires so much of being with the unsatisfactory and unsatisfied--and sometimes downright unpleasant--companion that is oneself that he wishes for nothing but to be rid of him. No doubt he would divorce him if he could. However, so far as I know, one cannot yet do this, though I have read that it is possible to marry oneself (which seems to me a matter of the greatest ludicrousness).

The next best thing, naturally, is to be someone else.

Now this thought may cause laughter, as if I were joking, but I assure any lingering readers that I am quite serious. Perhaps I can ask you this question: have you ever longed with an insatiable desire to be someone else?

Now of course there may be various reasons one wishes to be someone else. Envy for instance is a very compelling reason--even if there is little reason to its madness.

However, my thought allies itself more firmly with another consideration: the life of an actor. For, after all, that is just his business: to spend his life being someone else. Of course the paradox of this is that in some sense he is never more himself than when he is someone else. As soon as he accepts the bounds of the character he is to play, suddenly he becomes free to be whatever he will within that framework, no longer imprisoned by his own thoughts and needs and desires, nor by what he "should" do, and most of all no longer shackled by that incapacitating consideration of what he wants himself to be. This becoming of someone one else then is how he learns who he truly is, or at the very least--if he will remain blind to it--he reveals to others the depths of his soul.

I cannot help but wonder whether that desire for acting--one might say even the vocation to this great art--comes from that need to be someone other than oneself. And that in turn raises another question: are we only actors because of the restlessness of our nature and our discontent with what we are--in short because we cannot bear to be ourselves?