I know this is strange for a performer to say, but I hate audience participation in plays. I am not that crazy about it from comedians or musicians, either. I don't know why--perhaps it goes to my dislike of improv, which is profound. I prefer precision and preparedness, and audience participation offers neither. I see it as laziness from the stage performers--depending on the nervous giggles from the crowd to supply the void when there are no genuine laughs to be garnered. It's akin to announcing local towns to get cheers from the crowd.
I have warned friends in the past that if you see me in the audience, do not engage me. I am not there to be part of your show--I am there to watch you. If you try to include me, I will ruin it for you, I promise. I am at least as clever as you, and perhaps more so. I might top you, or more likely, I will slow your show down to a crawl. Or I might make it my show.
Groucho Marx once attended a performance by Harry Houdini, and was asked to come to the stage to verify Houdini wasn't hiding lockpicks. Houdini didn't recognize Marx, who out of costume and makeup resembled a banker or lawyer. Houdini was shackled from head to foot, and asked Marx to look into his mouth to confirm there were no hidden instruments of any kind.
"Look into my mouth and please tell the audience what you see in there." Houdini said.
Groucho peered in for a long moment, and said, " Pyarhea", and returned to his seat.
So, my performer friends, a goodnatured warning: I wish to enjoy your show as a quiet, anonymous audience member. Engage me at your peril.
3 comments:
Hi Mark,
yup! I hear dat! One of the best lessons I ever had - as a stand up comic- was sitting in the front row of an audience during another comic's show. It was terrifying, -mortifying. It's a hard call for a comic to make- to chit chat or not to chit chat- with an audience. (You know a comic is struggling when they are asking the "where are you from" stuff!)
When I began stand-up - the only venues offered to new comics were in really rough and tumble pubs. You would get heckled before you even got to the microphone. (I used to start with a very tightly scripted bit, and soon learned I had to break with that if I was to survive!)
Before stand-up, I had worked as an actor...so it was quite a transition to move from that to breaking the fourth wall in stand up.
The early years of stand up in Australia we worked a very hard and rough circuit (I once performed on a beer crate in a pool hall in Wagga Wagga!)Why do it? Because you had to keep gigging to get better, to build up your nerve - and to build up material. The trouble was you could really tell the comics who worked that circuit because our material ended up being very hard edged.
And so, in come the festivals! Ah! Luxury, a stage, lighting, sound - and an audience who came to see the performers (in the rougher venues, you were often just an interruption to their drinking!) You could soften the edges a bit, and explore your story telling -expand on your routines! The only way you knew if you weren't doing well, was that soft muttering sound, the build up of coughing, people smiling politely up at you, but checking their watches. That's when you knew you had to go home to your notebook and do some re-writes!
Once I had broken that fourth wall and started doing well, I was a ham from hell horror when I returned to theatre. I remember working in a small show and I would break out of character- (I know, I know "Unprofessional!")-to slip in an ad lib here or there. Luckily enough I was quickly able to pick up on the righteous shock and disgust on the faces of my fellow actors, and I had a director smart enough to realize that I had been working stand up and needed to de-tox (comically), from that in order to get myself back in acting order. I reigned my-hammy-comic-self back in quick smart.
And then in came Improv (at the time theatre sports was all the rage in Australia). Improv was a relief! It was a nice bridge for me, for the audiences were kinder than in stand up rooms, yet looser than in the theatre scene. You were given permission to explore and fail. But when you flew, it was quite something (sort of circus like I imagine!)
(One of my mates Anthony Ackroyd - a comic and actor- from home used to do a nice bit sending up improv performers: he'd say
"Okay ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to do a little improv now...so...let's start...someone...give me the name of a kitchen object....and now..give me the name of an emotion...could you tell me what my job or occupation is. Good.
And now, give me some funny stuff about all that." (end of bit!)
I really learnt something from all three performance styles- but my funny brain neurons (can remember thinking of it like this: in theatre when you have finished a performance, actors would all hug, kiss cheeks, and say "marvellous show petal" etc. The improv scene: after a show was full of energetic warm fuzzies..lots of neck massages and high fives. Comics after a gig? A comic who thought you did a good show would come over, slap you on your back and say "you bastard"...(with a smile on their face!)
Personally, I am with you. I prefer to have rehearsed the hell out of what I am doing so that it's tight, and I definitely don't like to do audience chit chat. (I actually hate it if I can see someone I know in the crowd!) Having said that...I have resorted to audience chit chat if nothing else is working...made every single mistake there is to make on a stage in every single format. So I can't claim that I know anything.
In fact even when I go on about comedy, or improv or any of it- I make myself laff later cos I realize I know nothing!!!
But I hear ya...tee hee...if by chance I am ever in a room performing and I see you in a crowd I won't promise I won't pick on you Groucho! hee hee.
Rhonda
PS: ever watched Craig Ferguson on the late show after Letterman? He pisses about about a bit on that format. Now the very weird thing about that, is I worked with him when he toured in Oz..and he used the stage name "Bing Hitler" and there wasn't a pause, a line or a cough that he didn't have scripted. He never used to deviat from a very tightly scripted act. Innerestin stuff innit?
Hey, Mark.
My next play is Red vs. the Wolf and the Wolf engages the audience with direct questions. It's not quite the same as real theatre as it is a children's production (budget show) put on by the Lancaster Arts and Civics Club. Hope you can come out to see it and if you do I promise to studiously ignore you.
Nice blog by the way.
Hi Mark
I agree that povvy piss poor desperation questions fired at an audience are a colossal waste of time. THe biggest mistake a comic can make is to go after an audience member too hard and stay there making that person and the audience uncomfortable, while the vague funny idea they had, sputters and dies on its arse.
Like Rhonda I got my training in battleground gigs. She's not kidding when she says they were rough. There are gigs in England where they will boo you on.....
What I learned is that I tag from the audience, very quickly, and only as a technique to get to the material that I have planned. This changes if a drunk heckler kicks off. Then I take that person apart as fast as I can and use them as a tag for routines that are qpplicable to how shit their heckle was.
My preference, having compered for years, and always looked to relax an audience and set a perfect room for my acts, is to do my material. A good compere sets tone. This does involve audience work, but I learned it is with the lightest touch (drunks aside) and constantly moving back to material.
Personally, I aim to avoid anyone for whom interaction is uncomfortable. This is why a good compere walks the room before a gig, checking the flashpoints and making sure not to disturb anyone who just wants to watch a show.
The deal with stand up is you have to play the room you are given, however there are a lot of inept / inexperienced acts that try to power their way through by bullying the crowd. If you want Rhonda and I can tell you the ninja heckles for which these idiots have no defence. There are a lot more polite than you might think.
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