Chris Port Blog #145. Talking Out Your Arts

© Chris Port, Central School of Speech and Drama, 1997

This should be read in conjunction with On Directing Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo: An Evaluation of ‘The Serious Business of Comedy’

Mock arts radio show. Link between scenes from Red Noses and The Entertainer under the umbrella theme of The Serious Business Of Comedy.

Red Noses ends with LX blackout and SFX toilet flush. Characters clear stage and exit. LX fade up to Link light. Mowgli and Hiller are sat in the bath, wearing striped pyiamas, facing each other with a microphone between them. Char Lady enters, dazed, wearing striped pyjamas. She picks up the radio and turns it on. Stares into mirror. As the debate gets underway she walks, carrying the radio, in a wide anti-clockwise circle around the bath. Ends up staring at the shower with her back to the bath.

ANNOUNCER

(SFX. Speaking in hushed, intimate tone).

The time now just coming up to midnight. You're listening to Radio Three. Time now for our regular interview 'Talking Out Your Arts ' hosted by Doctor Jonathan Hiller.

SFX music of 'opening crescendo from 'Colditz' theme.

HILLER

(Holding up a sign reading "On Air").

Hello, good evening and welcome to 'Talking Out Your Arts'. Tonight's subject - The Serious Business Of Comedy. With me in the studio I have Doctor Josef Mowgli, Emeritus of Philosophy at the Central College Of Performing Arts and perhaps best known for his radical theories on comical purity. Doctor Mowgli, perhaps I should begin by asking you, what exactly is comedy?

MOWGLI

Vell, a Labour government abolishing ze student grant system for a start.

HILLER

Ah! Political satire.

MOWGLI

Ya. Ze point is zat zere are many different species of comedy, each vith zeir unique tradition und zeir common racial heritage.

HILLER

And what is the common heritage of comedy?

MOWGLI

Vell, like tragedy, ve owe it all to ze Ancient Greeks. Ze vurd 'comedy' it comes from ze Greek vurd komoidia, a light-hearted little dramatic species zat evolved alongside tragedy.

HILLER

I see. The comic and the tragic, each providing a cathartic release from anxiety and tension.

MOWGLI

Ya.

HILLER

So what we're seeing here is a link between the arousal of tension and its release?

MOWGLI

Ya. Vich is vy some intellectuals - zey despise comedy.

HILLER

Despise it?

MOWGLI

Ya. Vell. You vould like to think of comedy as your irreverent conscience; zat devilish little imp vispering in your ear, poking fun at taboos und deflating ze big egos. lf ze fuhr... if Hitler had farted at ze Nuremburg rallies, who could have taken him seriously?

HILLER

Sounds good to me.

MOWGLI

(Slightly menacingly).

Ya. Vell. Depends on your point of view. You see, some intellectuals, zey argue zat comedy is not a medicine - it is an anaesthetic; like a morphine of ze soul, it stops ze pain. You can still see ze maggots writhing around in ze pus - you just can't feel ze gangene any more. Comedy is not a pressure cooker - it is a safety valve for blowing off ze gas and ze steam. For example: “How do you get ze six million juden - er ze six million jews - in ze Volkswagen?”

HILLER

I don't know.

MOWGLI

Two in ze front, two in ze back, und ze rest in ze ash tray. Ha ha. You see. Who feels angry about ze genocide after a good gas chamber joke?

HILLER

I see. So what actually is the difference between comedy and tragedy?

MOWGLI

Vell as your Horace Walpole once put it, "The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel".

HILLER

So as intellectuals - if we want to be seen as clever - we should see the world as funny rather than tragic?

MOWGLI

Ya. Ze question is, vot is funny ven you are clever? Funny haha or funny peculiar?

HILLER

The point of a joke or the pointlessness of life?

MOWGLI

Ya.

HILLER

But now that we've defined what comedy is, why is it? What's it for?

MOWGLI

Vell, if ve accept your Desmond Morris, paraphrasing Charles Darwin, that humankind is not so much a fallen angel (he gestures downwards sharply with his forearm) as a risen ape (he gestures upwards sharply in a Nazi salute), zen we might find ze ancestor of our emotions in ze cousin of our species - ze apes.

HILLER

So the origin of humour lies in the origin of species, so to speak?

MOWGLI

Ya. lf ve examine ze apes, smiling und laughing, zey are not ze same emotion. Smiling evolved from a nervous, submissive stretching of ze lips vide across ze teeth; ze teeth are closed together showing zat you are harmless, zat you are not prepared to bite.

HILLER

And what about laughing?

MOWGLI

Vell laughing is entirely different. lt is more aggressive. Ze teeth are bared and ready to bite. Also, ze very sound - "ah-ah-ah" - is designed to show group solidarity and hostility.

HILLER

So what you're saying is that we, as men, use laughter to articulate our dumb aggression?

MOWGLI

Ya.

HILLER

And that our laughter, men's laughter, is essentially the same behaviour as that of aggressive chimpanzees?

MOWGLI

Yawohl.

HILLER

Oh come now Doctor Mowgli! (He starts to laugh ). Hahahahaha ....

MOWGLI

Haha .. Ya. Ya. You see!

BOTH

... Hahahahaha ...

The laughter of both men becomes more pronounced and hysterical until eventually it becomes that of chimpanzees screaming. Char Lady turns around , tears and mucus, silent despair and horror, and changes frequency on the radio. Mowgli holds up a sign reading "Off Air". Char Lady exits. Hiller and Mowgli exit. SFX cross-mix into canned laughter and applause. SFX cross-mix into music hall music. Fade down music taking us into The Entertainer.

(The above should be read in conjunction with: Humour in the Holocaust: Does Laughter Relieve Our Suffering or Diminish Our Objections to the Suffering of Others? © Chris Port, Central School of Speech and Drama, 1999).