Playing Comedy Vs Drama

Hi actors!

Last night in my workshop one issue that came up was whether or not the actor needs to develop and play a full character when playing "over the top" comedy. This could include comedy or farce as varied as Moliere or Aristophanes, or as current as "dumb comedy" like what you see on Disney or Nickelodeon.

The brief answer is "yes". You ALWAYS develop a complete character and play it. You do this regardless of whether the piece is comic or dramatic. Always.

For some reason, actors (and others) often degrade Comedy in their mind, as if it were some "second rate" cousin of Drama and not to be taken quite so "seriously" when putting it together. Nothing could be further from true. Any pro will tell you that Comedy is harder to make work, generally, than drama.

There is a famous story about a famed comedian, I believer it was Henny Youngman. supposedly as he was dying (physically dying, not just "dying" on stage)someone in the room said "Oh - it's so hard! You're dying! It's so hard that you're dying!" The comic looked up and murmured "dying is easy - comedy is hard".

That about sums up the truth of the matter. Comedy IS hard and requires the best of your effort and intelligence in approaching it.

A character in a comedy often does strange, almost inexplicable things. The wilder the comedy, as with a farce, the wilder the action often becomes. Yet, if the audience doesn't see real "human beings" caught up in perhaps odd situations, human beings with REAL thoughts and wishes and emotions, then the audience will simply not care much. They also won't laugh much.

Comedy has a special and extreme need for "real" from the actor. The circumstances in the action and story make it particularly difficult to believe in the play of film. Yet it is imperative that the audience care, that they even root for the main character in some way. We MUST see REAL people, regardless of the situation, people caught up in what they perceive to be life and death situations, even if the situation is nothing more "extraordinary" than, say, the character is hungry, waiting for dinner, and it never seems to come. To the CHARACTER, the situation is real, and what's more, dire.

I talk to actors about this sort of thing all the time. When constructing a character, the closer to life and death importance what is happening in the piece FOR THE CHARACTER, the better (in all likelihood) will be the performance. The clearer it is to the audience WHAT is happening, WHY it is happening, and the character's REACTION to it all based on the character's needs and desires, the better. That sort of thing is what makes an audience root for you (the actor and the character).

Groucho Marx was asked about "what funny" is. If anyone would have known, it was Groucho! He said that a baby carriage with a baby in it rolling uncontrolled down a hill is funny. Then he said that it's a lot funnier if the baby in the carriage is REAL.

One important "secret" behind playing comedy well is no secret at all. Play a fully developed character and show us their needs, their ideas, and how important to the character the predicament is that they find themselves in.

See you next week!