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My Blog
Blog
RANTS ABOUT STAND UP COMEDY & VOICE
| Posted on July 13, 2015 at 10:47 AM |
comments (11)
|
I
LOVE SAD TRUTHS. THEY OFTEN HIT HOME AND
MAKE ME LAUGH. "More
ramble scramble about stand up comedy, as always I hope you get out
of it what I intended.” I
was asked once again for a solid key to gaining a voice in stand up
comedy. I have answered this question before and I believe over the
years my response has changed somewhat. Though I would trust as in
everything in stand up comedy, it's all connected. To
directly get to the question of discovering voice I would say a big
step would be capturing some honesty about yourself and having the
courage to put it out there. That's it. If
I had to pick one way to unearth this honesty I would say it is
'comedian know thy emotional self' AND inject that into as much of
your stand up as possible. How?
Well, every observation, every news or pop culture story you write
about has an emotional affect on YOU, share that along with your
funny twists and trapdoors. Keep it personal and emotional often,
even darkness can be compelling, and relief from it, soooo funny. Ask
any assemblage. Rodney
Dangerfield quit comedy once but when he returned he returned knowing
his emotional world. It
was simply, “I
don't get no respect”. Zero
respect was HIS thing and everything that went with it he made HIS
own. His emotion was he was hurt, damaged and life just keeps piling
it on. When Dangerfield made his entrance you immediately had a
sympathy with him and a kinship; because everybody knows the feelings
of hurt and being disrespected. Rodney owned that bracket with his
audience and the audience felt a deep connection to him. He was a
disciple of pain = comedy. Consider
that comedy isn't just about things, it's about YOUR things, and you
feel for these things. They bring you comfort or aggravate the crap
out of you, one way or another it's almost always about your
emotions. Emotions
drive attitudes, and attitudes are the foundation of much comedy. YOU
wanna be funny and noted? Put YOU in your act. Capture your emotional
world, your personal hash tags, write your own catch phrases, get in
touch with where you're at emotionally and write and perform from
there. But
here's a secret. Make
sure that when you're talking about you you you, that YOUR audience
gets something out of it for THEM. They have emotions too that need
to be addressed if you want to hold their attention when doing any
kind of 'skit' for them. Laughter
for certain is an emotional need to fill and a much needed response
when working clubs and colleges etc if you want to get return
bookings; but remember we're still talking how to develop a voice. So
in the big picture they (your audience) has a need to be able to
'take something home', a message, a deeper understanding of
themselves perhaps? Sure,
ooor it could be an artful enjoyment of watching a unique honest
personality, with an off way of thinking, thrash through his/her
dealings and feelings with the universe. …. like Steven Wright or
Sam Kinison, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Joan Rivers
and maybe YOU. In
short here's the deal, when you have a topic you want to write about,
do your best to think of how it affects you emotionally. Comedy is a
big 'how do I feel' art form. The more you're in touch with how you
feel and your jokes reflect that, the quicker you're going to be able
to design a voice for yourself. Just
another sumthin to think funny about. |