Comedy, Dr. Freud and Barbershop Ballads

By Janie Tamarkin, Harmony on the Sound Chorus, Region 1

“I love it if comedy reflects real life, because to me it’s more reassuring that we’ll get through.” — James Brooks, director of As Good As It Gets and Terms Of Endearment

In our choruses and quartets we work to make packages entertaining for audiences and often that means we want to make them laugh. The question is, “where do we begin?” Why not do one-liners and slapstick? Why choose character and not caricature? The answer is that even in comedy packages, we sing ballads.

Here is the next question: How can we sing a heartfelt ballad smack in the midst of comedy and make both the ballad and the comedy effective?

Let’s talk about comedy and then we’ll get to the ballad and the “how to.”

Actors agree that it is more difficult to do comedy well than it is to do drama, because comedy –including slapstick and parody– depends upon exquisite timing and unshakeable commitment to character and story to actually be funny. The minute an actor steps out of character, mugs or telegraphs to the audience, “Watch! This is going to be funny!” the spell is broken, the moment –and the comedy– is gone.

“Comedy is a perspective. Nothing is inherently funny or sad, humorous or tragic. It depends on how you choose to look at it.” — From Laughing Out Loud

In The Odd Couple, Felix is someone we care about. His obsessive behavior is an attempt to get a grip on a life spinning out of control: separation from his wife and kids, a suicide attempt, paralyzing depression and loneliness. He moves in with his friend Oscar and the hilarity begins. How can this heartbreaking back-story be at the core of one of America’s funniest comedies? What makes it comedic and not tragic? Kramer vs. Kramer, another movie about a newly divorced man is agonizingly sad. If comedy like tragedy is built on serious problems, why do we laugh at Felix and Oscar?

“Comedy is pain.”— George Roy Hill, director, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and The Sting

Sigmund Freud –that barrel of laughs– suggested that we laugh to release the tension that comes from anxiety. In other words, as we watch Felix and Oscar bicker we identify with them. Our anxiety grows with theirs. We laugh partly because we are relieved that their problems are theirs and not ours, and partly because of the characters’ mismatched personalities. Oscar’s slovenliness drives Felix to compulsive cleaning –and vice versa– and we laugh rather than cry.

“Real humor does not come from sacrificing the reality of a moment in order to crack a joke, but in finding the joke in the reality of the moment.” —Truth in Comedy

The Odd Couple is a perfect example of how good comedy works; the actors appear to have no idea that what they are doing is funny. They are wholly believable, never giving us a hint that they are actors in a play. We just know if we went to that apartment building in New York, Oscar and the guys would be playing poker and Felix, in a ruffled apron, would be making little crust-less sandwiches. Being funny requires a delicate balance that builds on the complexities and frailties of the human condition and it is funniest played straight.

The formula seems counter-intuitive — the more we like and identify with the characters, the greater their conflicts and higher the stakes, the more successful the comedy. That’s where the ballad comes in.

“How To”: The Ballad

The process begins with the ballad. Like The Odd Couple and many other fine comedies, our packages need to develop from a serious core. That core can be found in the lyrics and the subtext of our ballads. If The Odd Couple were a musical, Felix would sing a ballad. Passionate ballads and comedy are not at odds — in fact they intensify and strengthen each other when they are inter-connected from beginning to end of the package.

Example: A Show Package

Down to business. How do you shape a comedy? I chose four songs that might be used in a comedy package. Movies are an effective tool when creating a package because they allow singers to identify with a character, her story and her emotions. This identification triggers the emotional context for songs, the ballad in particular. The movie I chose is Something’s Gotta Give with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. It is a comedy built on an idea brimming with possibilities — the rejuvenating power of love.
Our character is Erica Barry. She is in her fifties, a successful writer, divorced. By all appearances she is in control of her life, but she is vulnerable, feeling that she has been “put out to pasture” by a culture that has no use for women her age. She is clever, funny and guarded.

The conflict and anxiety stem from Erica’s love/hate reaction to Harry Sanborn a middle-aged “Peter Pan” trying desperately to keep up with younger men. Harry stands for everything Erica distrusts — but sparks fly and she falls in love.

What’s at stake for Erica: her femininity, fear of being vulnerable and growing old.

The repertoire in this order is:
Flirty Eyes/How Many Hearts Have You Broken? Medley (contest uptune)
It’s Almost Like Being In Love
My Foolish Heart (contest ballad)
Lucky Day

In accordance with the character-driven/conflict/anxiety formula, let’s begin with the ballad, My Foolish Heart, in which the uncertainty of love is compared with the constancy of the moon. The lyrics give us clues to our character’s conflict and to the story’s core: Erica is caught between caution and passion, doubt and desire.

Flirty-Eyes also reveals the simultaneous fear and excitement Erica feels as she realizes how attracted she is to Harry. It expresses her wit and her confusion, as does It’s Almost Like Being In Love.

Lucky Day ends the package joyously as conflicts are resolved. Each song fits into four scenes in the movie almost as if the movie was a musical comedy.

Something’s Gotta Give, like The Odd Couple, is a comedy with teeth. Rich and multi-dimensional characters struggle, react, grow and change and all the time, they are making us laugh. Nothing is more moving than life and nothing is funnier than the truth.

The Bottom Line

Whether we are creating a two-song contest package or an International show package, using the ballad to build comedy is a way of telling the story of someone who is like us — complicated and human. Relying upon costumes, jokes and gimmicks to do all the entertaining for us does not do us justice. We have at our fingertips all the personality, intelligence, imagination and humor it takes to create universal stories that live up to the skill of our singing.

Comedy Dos and Don’ts

Dos
Apply technique: character, conflict, anxiety, high stakes
Make strong choices
Go for the truth, make it real
Commit, have no fear
Take risks

Don’ts
Go for punch lines
Make in-jokes, be cutesy
Use slapstick unless it is grounded in truth
Depend on caricature
Try to be funny

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