Help with not laughing?
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Acting
Forum Discription: Q&A about auditions, character development and other aspects of the craft
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4871
Printed Date: 5/07/24 at 3:27am
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Topic: Help with not laughing?
Posted By: bandray
Subject: Help with not laughing?
Date Posted: 11/12/10 at 5:35pm
I know this sounds like such an amateurish thing to ask. I've probably been in close to 30 plays and have never had this problem before. I'm in a production of "Inspecting Carol" and many members of the cast (including myself) are having a huge problem not laughing. The play is pretty funny itself but the actors are also just hilarious. In the case of some of them, all I have to do is look at them and I start laughing.
Somebody half joking mentioned thinking of dead kittens to get through it. I love kittens but I tried it anyway and it only half worked lol.
We open in two weeks. Maybe by then, we'll get it together. Maybe an audience will just cause us to be in check but if not, does anyone have some tips on combating the laughing problem during a performance?
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Replies:
Posted By: jayzehr
Date Posted: 11/13/10 at 5:21pm
Take this all with a grain of salt:
If you start laughing on stage in front of an audience that has to mean your character is laughing You're not going to stop and go back and do it over, right? So, if you're laughing in rehearsal you should go with it and try to incorporate it into the moment and what you're doing. Resisting it only makes things worse. That won't necessarily be how you want to do it in the end but it can help defuse the impulse. Like I said YMMV, that's just how I've been trying to approach it with actors.
Usually the lights coming on solve all problems like this anyway.
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Posted By: bandray
Date Posted: 11/14/10 at 1:28am
Posted By: Tallsor
Date Posted: 11/15/10 at 11:55am
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My college drama teacher had this to say about trying not to laugh on stage: if I tell you to not think about elephants, what's the first thing you think of? Most likely elephants.
Sitting there telling yourself to not laugh is not going to help anymore than telling yourself to not think about elephants is actually going to help you not think about elephants. You have to focus on something completely different - her suggestion was focusing on a blank piece of paper.
My two bits.
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Posted By: Rorgg
Date Posted: 11/15/10 at 1:35pm
My two bits:
1. As the repetition settles in, as long as things remain consistent, you will to some extent desensitize to the point where it shouldn't be a problem.
2. Stay in character. If your character's not supposed to be laughing, there's a reason for it. Is there something detrimental going on? Are they confused? Missing information to complete the joke? Distracted? Just dim? Follow THAT and you should be in the right frame of mind of also not laugh. And if not... well, make one up, or justify why they WOULD.
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Posted By: edh915
Date Posted: 11/16/10 at 12:37pm
I totally second Rorqq's advice. I was going to say something yesterday about "stay in character", but I figured with 30 plays under your belt that such basic advice as that shouldn't be necessary.
Comedies are funny to the audience; to the characters "in" the comedies everything is "serious". They shouldn't "know" that they're in a funny situation. Find the serious zone, and the urge to laugh will dissipate.
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Posted By: theactordavid
Date Posted: 1/24/11 at 7:38am
I think the tricky part in all of this is that the actors still need to "be" funny for the audience's benefit, while not succumbing to the humor of the moment. The repetitive nature of rehearsal helps with the latter, as they know the "joke" is coming, but it can also lead to drying up of the delivery. Typically, I've seen hilarious first readings that break everyone up with all the freshness that's there, and that freshness starts to diminish with the repetition. That's one of the biggest challenges to the actor - stay funny, but don't lose it on the punchline.
The characters, on the other hand, even in a farce, must always be in a serious moment, as edh915 notes. A viewing of any of the long-running sitcoms (Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, Raymond) will attest to that. With exception of the "wise-cracking" character whose lines are obviously meant to be funny for the benefit of the characters, the rest are in serious mode, the plot at the point meaningful and weighty, as silly as it may appear to us viewers. Another challenge to the actor.
Re: "as long as things remain consistent" - aye, there's the rub. Once the lights go up and the audience starts responding, and the actors begin to hear laughter in such measure that they haven't heard through rehearsals, that freshness resurfaces a little and the comedic edge sharpens. A new delivery, a different reaction, a timing that really hits the spot, all of these present to the cast a new "punchline", something they haven't been ready for, and the difficulty of not breaking character comes back to haunt them. I've experienced it first-hand.
My advice? If you feel that "break" coming on, try to find a diversion (a reason to look away from the other actors, perhaps a glance at the set, or casually handle a prop), something that does not appear out of character nor distract from the attention of the audience, and then hurry up and collect your wits about you.
Most of the time, I've found that the funniest things on stage are the way the actors look, their physicality, their facial expressions. Remember, despite the amount of dialogue, theater is a visual medium. When a friend tells you about going to the theater, they say "I saw a good play last night", not "I heard a good play last night." Try not to watch the play you are "in".
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There are no small roles, only roles with a low line-load and minimal stage time.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com
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Posted By: Tired_Yeti
Date Posted: 4/18/11 at 3:25am
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I have used a couple of tricks.
First, unless it's absolutely necessary for the scene, I don't make eye contact with the other actor during a tough laugh line. Look at his/her chin, neck, or chest. Even looking at his/her forehead or hairline--NOT the eyebrows. People move their eyebrows during humor and that can look funny and trigger a laugh.
The other thing I do is immediately after the laugh line is delivered, I think of something that's NOT funny. Dead kittens doesn't work for me because I don't know any kittens and I don't really care about dead cats all that much anyway. I've worked in hospice with people who are sick and dying and sometimes I'll make myself remember a time I was helping a suffering patient. I don't do it long enough to bring me down...Just enough to kill the laugh until that beat is over then I come back to the scene and move forward from there. Any personal painful memory should work. You only need to remember it for a few short seconds at the most.
In the last show I was in (a farce), I played a character that was very funny to the audience but was supposed to be serious. I had to deliver some great laughs but had to do it with a serious look or sometimes even a look of panic. It was a killer! I nearly lost it several times. I used those mental tricks I mentioned and they worked for me.
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