Comedy is Hard

We really felt like we were getting somewhere. Indulgences is a tricky play - definitely funny, but its balance of nutty randomness, standard oneliners and philosophical invention is hard to manage. But the last 5 or so shows we really started to chug along. Audience response was starting to get a least relatively reliable, and we'd had 2 or 3 really solid houses - thank heavens one of these included Wednesday night when playwright Chris Craddock came to see the show. This was, in fact, one of our best houses, and we left that night feeling like we had found the rhythm of this show.

Then Thursday came along. One of our biggest houses. And they sat there like stones. Like stones. And it wasn't like we were pushing, or playing for laughs. We were just doing our thing. And nothing was coming back. Even the ending, which in the early shows was the one place we could rely on getting everybody involved and laughing, they was chuckling and some grinning, but it felt like a house half the size.

And then Friday came. A fairly small house, which was surprising for a Friday night at the end of a run, but you never can tell. And they sat there. Like dead stones. Not only did they laugh at nothing, except in embarrassed pairs here and there. But they gave nothing back. The old joke, "is this an audience or an oil painting" was never truer. And again. No rhyme or reason to it. We weren't pushing. We were moving it along because we were getting nothing, I say nothing, back, but it wasn't rushed. We were talking to each other, playing the story. It's a good show. So where were they?

It makes me wonder if people know how to be audiences anymore. I'm not sure they understand that they owe something more to the experience than the money they put into the ticket. They are there to share. The event only happens when we make it together. And, yes, it's the performers' job to make it easy for them to enter the story, but it takes an act of will to say, I get it, this is the story we are making, let me get in on this. Sitting there, admiring the skill of the actors, or mentally critiquing the play, or waiting to be entertained, just doesn't cut it. When you go see a play, you need to hold up your end of the bargain.