(This is Part 2 of a series. Go back to Part 1.)
Continuing our exploration into the nature of comedy...
There was a principle which I mentioned in the last article, which is that the scene must be absurd but not too absurd. The scene has to be believable enough so that the absurdity is effective.
I'd like to expand on that principle a little now. To say that the scene is absurd, but not too much, means that the comic scene is going to be a combination of reasonable and unreasonable. Too much reasonableness and the scene isn't funny. Too much unreasonableness and it isn't funny either. A comic scene exists in that Goldilocks realm where the tone is just right.
Further, it means that the reasonableness has to come first. The scene has to start out perfectly normally, and only by and by veer off into the absurd. This normality in the beginning allows the audience to "buy in" to the scene, to become invested in it. So that when the absurdity gradually emerges the audience is still going along for the ride, it's still there, it's still invested as the absurdity and the comedy deepen.
As the comic analyst Mel Helitzer points out, just look at a copy of any old I Love Lucy episode. It always starts out normally, with Lucy and Ricki just being normal people. Then a logical premise is introduced, such as that Lucy begins to suspect Ricky of philandering. But then the logical premise is taken down a path where it slowly becomes absurd ...carrying the audience the whole way.
A great example is an old Nichols and May routine. I'm reproducing this from memory so it may not be exact, but it's something like this:
A doctor (Nichols) and the assisting nurse (May) are in the middle of surgery. It all starts normally, and then begins the descent to absurdity:
Doctor: Scapel.
She hands him a scapel.
Nurse: Scapel.
A pause.
Doctor: Sponge.
Nurse: Sponge.
A pause.
Doctor: Suture.
Nurse: Suture.
A pause.
Doctor: I love you.
Nurse: Not now!
...and they're off.
A great example too is from an early episode of 30 Rock. Jenna, the star of the show-within-a-show, had earlier asked Kenneth the NBC page to get her some hemorrhoid creme because she had heard it was good for wrinkles under the eyes. Later on, she meets Jack Donaghy, the new network boss, for the first time, and is flirting with him. Notice how the scene with Jack starts normally and then leads to the payoff:
Jenna: Who's in charge here?
Jack: I'm in charge.
Jenna (flirting): Okay; well, I'm not sure about this costume.
Jack: I think it's hot.
Jenna: Thank you. I'm Jenna, by the way.
Just then Kenneth the page walks up.
Kenneth: Miss Marony, I got that hemorrhoid creme you wanted.
A pause.
Jenna (to Jack): It's for my face.
Jack: Well, wherever you're putting it, I think it's working.
Great comic writing by Tina Fey!
—jim sloman, for 1.23.07
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