First Commedy Exercise - Skit

Aim of Task: To work in a group and make our first comedy performance in class. To start applying the comic techniques that we learned in class.

Description of Task: The whole class was separated into groups with different comic scenes. My group was Vincent, Undine, Daniel and I. However, since Vincent did not attend class the day of the performance, Jason participated with us. Our scene was in a hospital. It was about a doctor and his nurse who had been operating two people at once but had performed the wrong operation to both patients. We started brainstorming to think about what operation had been performed wrong. We decided that we would make it sexual, since from previous experience we know that it can be comical. We decided that the operation the doctor had done wrong was that he had changed a man's genitalia for the nose of a woman and the woman's genitalia for the mouth of a man. The doctor and his nurse would make the scene funny by using unusual objects when operating the patients like cones, drums and sticks. All of the comedy would be without any dialogue, so we could make body expressions even funnier: something Jason, who performed as doctor, is good at. I performed as one of the patients and Undine played as the female patient. We had to figure out a way to show which parts of us had been changed. We found out that we could do the shape with our hands, like we did in the previous mimicking exercises. When the doctor ended with the operation, we would stand up and start touching all of our body, and showing that we noticed something wrong in our faces and legs. Then, we would suddenly turn towards each other and notice that what was wrong in our bodies is now on each other bodies; showing sounds and expressions of surprise. We had to exaggerate each of this expressions as much as possible so we could making very comical.

Reflection: For some reason, when jokes are sexual they become funnier. We used it in our scene, but other groups also played with sexual jokes and all the class laughed a lot. Perhaps the fact that the topic can be taboo, and it is mentioned publicly, is one of the reasons why it is funnier. It is something that we discussed on the brainstorming, that it gets out of the seriousness and routine. Sexual jokes can also be something unexpected, which is another thing that makes people laugh. Showing these parts without dialogue was kind of difficult, but it made it even funnier in the end. I think that mute scenes make people more focused and curious about what is going to stage. It grabs their attention, therefore, they are more prone to expect something funny and laugh even more when they get it.

Conclusion: Sexual jokes can appeal to a wide audience because it is something unexpected and not serious. Comedy scenes without dialogue are also funny because it leaves the audience wondering about what is going to be funny. Comedy is a lot about what the audience expects and what the audience gets. It is difficult to have an specific pattern for comedy though.