The Audience

In class, we discussed how an actor's relationship with the audience can guide a performance. In theater, depending on the collective mood of the audience, performances of the same work can garner drastically different reactions, and subtly change the mood of the show. In stand-up, the role of the audience becomes more crystallized. The sound of laughter, the nature of laughter, other emotional reactions (shock, revulsion, etc) and heckling all provide instant feedback to a comic about their performance. It is important for the comic to remember that their goal should not be to curb the audience's reaction to their jokes. It's the reverse - the comic should respond accordingly to the audience by altering either their jokes or the way that they say their jokes. In that way, the performer-audience relationship in stand-up is similar to relationships among actors on the stage. The Word Game developed by Meissner is a classic exercise which demonstrates the effectiveness of listening while performing, and can also be applied to stand-up. Taylor Tomlinson demonstrates this sensitivity to her audience in the following clip from her Netflix special, on the left below. Receptiveness to the audience can be taken further; in her routine which makes fun of stereotypes of Asian women in Western sexual fantasies, Yumi Nagashima generates a large, positive reaction to a Western audience while making fun of them at the same time (right, below). Thus, harnessing feedback from the audience can greatly enhance a stand-up routine.

One trend in stand-up comedy has been to interact with the audience before or after the show. Comedians such as Hasan Minhaj and Andrew Schulz have different ways of doing this. Minhaj takes questions from the audience as a warm-up to the show, which usually involves light banter from both sides (left, below, first 2 minutes). In contrast, Schulz riffs off of reactions from the audience - sometimes even hecklers - to drive his comedy routine forward (right, below, starting from 3:45). Much of Schulz's stand-up centers around his own reaction to the audience, and he is known for being savage in his riffs. It is interesting that while Minhaj allows the audience to roast him, Schulz generally roasts the audience. Either way, both end up strengthening their connection with the people in the room. This mirrors the relationship among actors during a performance. One might expect that either the audience or the performer has power during a performance, i.e. a good comedian may conduct the audience well and possess power, while a bad comedian may yield due to insecurity. In actuality, everyone at a comedy show, just like all actors within a single scene, are equal. Thus, to put it bluntly, it doesn't matter who gets roasted, as long as the responses of each party (a task falling mainly to the comedian) are appropriate.

Conveying Emotion

Tadashi Suzuki emphasized that while practicing the Stanislavski Method, where actors place themselves in their character's reality, actors may become so grounded in their own experiences that they don't apply "imaginative work to create a fictional space and experience emotions unique to the act of being onstage." (As a modern example of this method, consider the recent Netflix film, To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Much of the film's script and acting, in its effort to accurately depict the experience of an Asian American girl in an American high school, is very 'normal'. Vox's Constance Grady points out that the "Stanislavski-dedication" of male actor Noah Centineo to his role as Peter Kavinsky in the film has enabled his popularity among American girls, who these days crave a "wholesome internet boyfriend.") But, as Suzuki points out, playwrights don't write plays to mimic "quotidian reality", but to "interrogate it from a distance" by using creative and alternate fictions. This allows people onstage to "reconfirm the astonishing nature of human existence," which is often dulled in day-to-day living.

This is especially important for a stand-up comedian, whose routine will often include commentary and criticism about places and cultures from the distant realm of comedy. In other words, criticising a society point blank, as politicians or activists do, has serious social consequences. In contrast, the same material made funny can be an effective way to increase audience's awareness and knowledge about a topic, which is why so many comedians (e.g. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Hasan Minhaj, Trevor Noah) have found successful careers using politics as material for their comedy shows. In addition to politics, comedians such as Pete Davidson and Lilly Singh have found ways to discuss their personal struggles OR the stigma against mental illness while simultaneously embodying the glory and fame of stardom, exemplifying their escape from their own quotidian reality. Using stand-up for social commentary will be explored in another section. The point is that comedic value can be created by extending and possibly exaggerating emotions and experiences from daily living.

Charisma

The concept of stage presence, or possibly, charisma, is elusive to new actors. Anne Deavere Smith provides a lengthy but not very helpful essay on stage presence, citing figures from Gloria Foster to Lauren Hutton to an old man kissing trees in New York. These figures display a wide array of qualities such as owning their own space, commitment, having presence of wit, being alert, being open to others' perspectives, having hold over one's fears and desires, and more. After further analysis, it seems to me that Smith has listed a number of symptoms of what we might call charisma, but has not identified the root cause of why some people have it and some don't. In her TEDx Talk at Cambridge University, Deborah Frances-White posits that charisma is a combination of being very powerful, but also lovable, such as Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, or Martin Luther King Jr. How do they accomplish this? The powerful aspect is covered in the public-speaking section of this handbook. But the lovable part has to do with rebranding one's own charisma.

Frances-White introduces the concept of "rooms", which manifest when we enter a new workplace, classroom, or join a new community. Many aspects of new rooms are intimidating. The people around us may be smarter or more experienced, or they may be tight-knit like a family and we may feel like outsiders. For stand-up comedians, intimidation comes from the audience's expectation that the person onstage will give them a good time. Have you ever given a presentation and half the people were on their phones? Audiences expect to be entertained by a speaker, regardless of whether they are in an educational, corporate, or recreational setting. Frances-White likens a performance to a group of lions observing a gazelle on the savannah. While somewhat abstract, the parallel she draws between prey/predators and performers/audiences is not entirely off the mark. In the corporate world and in education, speakers do not acknowledge this truth and constantly fall short of performing in an enticing and meaningful way for their audience.

The philosophy that performers need to please their audience may seem to undermine the importance of listening and even interacting with the audience. If the audience just needs to "sit back and enjoy the show," why should they be expected to interact in any way? While Trevor Noah has embraced his task as a performer (Stand-Up Comedy is a lot like Sex, 0:39 - 1:07) and Tiffany Haddish has stated that she views her stand-up performance as educational, Leila Buck envisions performances as being more interactive. She wants the audience to participate, learn, and grow from the experience. Frances-White suggests a way to reconcile these seemingly contrasting ideas through her view of charisma. Going back to the rooms, she believes that the role of a stand-up comedian is to change the room. A stand-up comedian should tell themselves, "I want to change this audience because they came out to hear me speak." In her words, stand-up comedians are "not self-conscious, they are audience conscious." This is why successful performances in stand-up comedy not only evoke laughter, but also make the audience think - because the performer's focus during the show is to change the audience, not to tell their jokes word-for-word, or to be liked, or to force their views onto the audience. So, the very thing that enables listening and adjusting to the audiences' reaction is what enables a successful stand-up comedian to evoke change (and hopefully laughter) in the people sitting before them.

Social Criticism

Artists have the power to decide the kind of reality they depict through their work. Within that realm lies critiquing the society around you, whether it is the world, your country, your state, or just your neighborhood. Buck's vision to utilize theater as a transformative force within small communities also offers niche opportunities for comedians. Comics come from far and abroad in today's age, and many of their jokes center around their culture from home. Not only is it within their power to compare and contrast their culture to others (typically Western), but their homes receive global recognition and awareness at the same time. Comedians such as Yumi Nagashima, Vir Das, Trevor Noah, Hasan Minhaj, Pete Davidson, and Michael Che have used their cultural background as inspiration for their sets. Hasan Minhaj is a prime social commentator.

Public Speaking

Most people are afraid of public speaking. In fact, stage fright is a large barrier to overcome in theater, in stand-up, and (strange that it's come to this) in life. Deborah Frances-White provides a number of tips for combating stage fright, which can be seen in the performances of a number of diverse comedians. Her main argument is that, even with a lot of practice and months of gigs, stand-up comics may still feel nervous and scared of performing, if they have trained themselves that fear is a part of the performing process. If, right before every performance, stand-up comics focus on the nerves, the sweat, the shaking, heart racing, then feeling fear will eventually become a habit and incorporated into the stand-up routine.

Frances-White suggests a number of physical practices which can alleviate the fear associated with stage fright to help people bypass the negative habits of performing and focus on the energetic and fun rush that comes with entertaining an audience.

• Leaning on the forward foot: acting as if you are walking towards an audience enforces the message to both yourself and the audience that you are not afraid - since we tend to run away or back up from things we are scared of.

• Keeping your eyes and head still: returning to the gazelle/lion example from above, flicking your eyes suggests that you're looking for a way to escape. Moving your head suggests that you are not in charge of your own body movements.

• Stay in control of your hand movements: make them meaningful and broad, not fluid, small, and purposeless: many comedians use hand movements very effectively to convey their stories, because hand movements (along with eyes and head) are what tell the story. If your hands, eyes, and head are making you seem like a gazelle, then that's the story you are telling, and the words coming out of your mouth will have no effect. This is a huge parallel to acting, since how you say a few words in a line can drastically change the story of the performance.

• Do not point your toes inward: a classic demonstration of fear.

As comedian Yumi Nagashima points out, public-speaking can be liberating. After traveling from Japan to Canada and struggling to find an acting job as a Japanese woman, Nagashima discovered that stand-up comedy poses much fewer barriers to different ethnicities than acting does. This is further demonstrated by the diverse array of successful comedians today. One notable depiction of a stand-up comedian being "liberated" and completely changing the room is Mrs. Maisel in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Midge Maisel feels trapped by the expectations of women in the 1950s and decides to pursue her passion for stand-up comedy, a highly un-ladylike profession at the time. Throughout the show, viewers can see Midge change from an insecure performer who hates failing, to an experienced comic who is comfortable on stage and able to change the room (see Season 3, Episode 8, 0:58:40 - 1:00:40), even in front of a hostile audience.