HUMOR IN ACTING
A few thoughts about the use of humor in acting. One of my favorite documentaries is the 1985 nine-hour long “Shoah”, by Claude Landsmann. which deals primarily with the few survivors of the Nazi death camp at Treblinka. At one point in the movie, Landsmann goes undercover with a hidden camera and pretends to be a Nazi sympathizer. He is sitting in the living room of one of the Treblinka guards, making small talk, when he observes – almost off-hand – “I have heard that you could process as many as 1,000 a day at Treblinka. The ex-Nazi guard laughed heartedly: “Oh, no! We could handle 10,000 or 12,000 easy.” I sit here today, twenty-three years after seeing that movie and still get chills when I recall that moment. The guy laughed! It revealed his entire value system.
A couple of months ago, I wrote about how new actors will tend to gravitate to anger and sex when playing a scene. By the same token, they will tend to avoid humor. Maybe it is because, in a sense, humor is a more risky choice. And too many of them believe that the only thing funny is “funny ha-ha”. But, as was the case in “Shoah”, humor comes in all shapes and sizes. No matter how grim the scene, almost every one of them will profit from more humor. Interestingly, laughter is hard to fake. It is a factor of mood, and there isn’t much worse acting than an actor faking a laugh.
I remember getting a kick out of one of my California students some time back. He seemed genetically incapable of using authentic humor. Whenever he would laugh during a scene, it was almost like he was saying, in effect, “I don’t laugh. But, if I did, it would sound like this!” I used to tell him all the time that, if the laughter wasn’t there organically, he would do himself more harm than good by trying to fake it.
Nothing is quite as revealing as a character’s sense of humor. Is he the kind of person who enjoys superiority? Is he the kind who might enjoy tormenting animals? (Many serial killers have that trait in their background)
Laughter can be sarcastic, derisive, dismissive, ironic, insincere, a power-play. It can be used to put down another person. It can be seductive, charming, apologetic, wry, stupid or sick.
The thing is that playwrights often do not write in the laughter. In a way, it would be an insult to the actor to do so. But Shakespeare said, “Hold the mirror up to nature”, and if humor doesn’t reflect nature I don’t know what does.
Actors get so darned serious about their craft at times. “Hey, I’m acting here! Did you check out the tears? Those are real, my friend, real tears. I’m serious enough about acting to generate some real emotion.” I have observed acting classes in which actors tore one another’s clothes off each other, thrown chairs at one another, literally spat into one another’s faces. And you know what? The experience doesn’t move me. It is not relevant to me that an actor on stage can work up a big head of emotion.
Remember Paul Newman in the movie, “Cool Hand Luke”. That was a masterful use of humor on the part of a fine actor. No matter how many holes they made him dig and refill in the prison yard, he laughed in their faces. “You can’t break me,” he seemed to be saying. “In fact, it makes me laugh that you would even think you could break me!” Another actor playing that role would not have chosen laughter as a defensive element. There are good reasons for why Paul Newman is a star.
Same deal with “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. There they are, the two of them, stuck high on a cliff, with only raging river water behind them – and the posse was closing in fast. Newman tells Robert Redford to go ahead and jump into the river. Redford admits reluctantly that “I can’t swim.”. Newman’s classic and humorous response was, “Hell, the fall will probably kill you!” Another actor might not have found humor there, but it worked wonderfully the way Newman handled it.
Laughter doesn’t necessarily mean that your character doesn’t care about a particular thing. It can also mean that he or she cares a lot, maybe even too much. Humor is a telling thing.
Look for humor in your acting, folks. It doesn’t have to be funny, only true. Humor is one of the most underused emotions in our craft.
