I’m going to warn you now before I start writing that this blog is going to have questions, not answers. I’m just exploring an idea, wondering out loud. I don’t have any practical tips or life advice today. Sorry!
Still here? Hi. What I’ve been wondering about is the level of predictability in live comedy performance. As I’ve mentioned here, bombing is an inevitable part of a comedian’s life. Also, it happens to every single one of us, even the most successful and accomplished comedians in the world. There’s no such thing as “too big to fail” in the world of stand up.
I’m not going to obsess about bombing today. The bit that interests me is that it’s not predictable. If it was we might avoid it and not know the experience, but one of the salient aspects of live comedy is that no matter how we prepare we can never predict or guarantee an outcome. Meditating on that might change the way some of us approach our work.
In my book I discuss a spectrum we all occupy a place somewhere on. This is the spectrum between extremely tight scripted comics who write and plan everything in advance, and their polar opposite – the loose and unscripted comedians who revel in the chaos and work with whatever comes up.
This phenomena interests me. I’m one of those scripted plan guys who writes my set before presenting it and, even though I’ll work with any hecklers or interlocutors who make themselves heard, don’t have any affection of improv or crowdwork. But the bit that makes it interesting to me is that in the rest of my life, I’m the complete opposite of that.
To explain; When I worked in disability support I quickly realized there were two kinds of carers. There were the ones who liked to work to a schedule, the ones who were best suited to workplaces with high medical needs where care had to be administered at regular predictable intervals and everything had to operate like a well oiled machine. And then there were those of us who didn’t need that level of certainty and could react and adjust to whatever arose, mostly in the unpredictable world of behavioral anomaly.
I think success comes from a very specific types of self knowledge, and this is one of those critical types people should know. Since accepting that I’m so much better at responding to what pops up than I am at sticking to rigid plans, I’ve directed my career accordingly and the gains have been exponential. Strangely though, with comedy, I like to prepare and plan my material. I don’t like to go to a stage empty-handed, and set myself up for success with a crafted routine.
But we still need the confidence and power to roll with unplanned changes because the live comedy is a microcosm of the world, and the world regularly resists our attempts to impose rules and conditions on it’s behaviour. Apparently God laughs when we make plans. We atheists just say “Shit Happens.”
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that outcomes are unpredictable when we perform. Ever wonder why an audience didn’t respond the way you expected them to when you told them the joke that killed 999 times before this performance?
I’m arrogant enough to assume that if that joke worked with thousands of other people, then the problem this time wasn’t me or my material. It was the audience.
At least that feels like the logical assumption to me. But not everyone feels that way. I saw an interview with Jerry Seinfeld where he discussed this phenomena and put the blame squarely on the performer. He says you did it different. Something was off. He says if the material consistently works, then you did something different this time. The tone, your posture, the antecedent material, your segue or your facial expression was different. You think you replicated the recipe perfectly, but something was off. It wasn’t the recipe, it was something the chef did differently without being aware of it.
That’s valid but it’s also revealing. It tells me a lot about Jerry Seinfeld, who’s clearly very much at the ‘scripted’ end of that spectrum I mentioned. Jerry seems to think of jokes like Big Macs, something that can be replicated perfectly millions of times without deviation with any imperfection being directly attributable to the person who assembled them.
BUT…. what if I told you that comedy performance is not a Big Mac? I mean, there are some comics out there who might lead you to believe that it is, but you can’t just assemble the comedy ingredients and keep expecting the same outcome.
As I’ve written previously there are too many variables – from the temperature to the ambient light to the acoustics and other aspects of the room itself. Heraclitus told us that we can never ever step into the same river twice, and I’d suggest that comedians also don’t get exactly the same audience every single night.
Sometimes it’s the vibe of the room that’s not the same, you you know we’re dealing with something amorphous and all-encompassing when I’m using phrases like “vibe of the room.” One of the biggest differences between stand up comedy and other artforms, besides all the others being taken seriously, is that comedy needs an audience.
Your painting is still art even if nobody else can see it. Same for your book, and you can still refer to your music as art even if it gets as few listeners as mine did. But a joke that isn’t heard? Without getting all “tree falls in a forest,” I think we can all agree that even if we could prove the unheard joke exists that it has no value.
No matter how much we might plan, script, plot or prepare we still have to know that results are uncertain and that it’s possible our killer joke might not land or, worse. it might be interpreted incorrectly. Perfect customer service doesn’t guarantee happy customer 100% of the time. We have to remind ourselves of this when we see our strongest jokes not doing as well as we expect them to.
I’m sure I’m not the only comedian who’s had to suppress surprising feelings of anger and resentment when an audience doesn’t react as expected to a reliably funny joke. I’m not proud of it but this does piss me off sometimes and it’s hard to resist the urge to chastise the philistines in the crowd, letting them know that what they just heard was a joke deemed hilarious by hundreds of appreciative people who clearly have better senses of humour than they do.
But then I remember variables. I recall the night my reliably hilarious set about the cost of living fell completely flat, and a friend later told me that it was because the audience was 100% landlords, most of whom owned boats as well as investment properties. Somehow a series of positive gigs and supportive audience had made me forget that jokes are not one-size-fits-all.
But you know why that’s OK? Because that’s what makes it addictive. Behavioural specialists know that the most powerful and addictive influence is Intermittent Reinforcement. Basically it’s the idea that unpredictable results are what keep us hooked. You might be sceptical if I told you that pokie machines and scratch tickets are powerfully addictive precisely because they don’t pay out every single time, but trust me – it’s a thing.
If you get a predictable and regular response every time you push the button, you’ll eventually stop pushing the button even if it’s rewarding you. At some point you’ll stop wanting what it gave you more than the thrill of the uncertain outcome.
The sweet spot of stand up comedy is a high level of confidence in your own mastery combined with a tiny bit of risk and uncertainty. The fact that stand up is always, no matter how much mastery we develop, it’s still a bit like walking a tightrope.
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More than a how-to book, The Self-Made Stand-Up is an essential resource for developing yourself as an effective comedian. If you’re a comedian, or looking to become one, The Self-Made Stand-Up is the emotional support animal you need.
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Sean Cooper, Comedian 