Here's something you might be interested in.
No two performances are the same. No two audiences either. If you're playing a comedy, accounting for these differences is tricky stuff. A joke that fizzled with the matinee audience, who just ate lunch, might bowl the evening crowd over. Or vice versa: the afternoon zinger could flop dead at night, and actors wonder why. Timing's a key, of course. And simple rules, like never move on someone's laugh line and pull focus from the joke. I like two pieces of advice. David Mamet, ever the bottom-liner, says, "the audience at the comedy came to laugh. Let it." And Sir Alan Ayckbourn, most of whose 75 plays are comedies, always tells his cast at the final dress rehearsal, "keep your innocence...neither demand nor expect a laugh. It's just a little bonus."
No two performances are the same. No two audiences either. If you're playing a comedy, accounting for these differences is tricky stuff. A joke that fizzled with the matinee audience, who just ate lunch, might bowl the evening crowd over. Or vice versa: the afternoon zinger could flop dead at night, and actors wonder why. Timing's a key, of course. And simple rules, like never move on someone's laugh line and pull focus from the joke. I like two pieces of advice. David Mamet, ever the bottom-liner, says, "the audience at the comedy came to laugh. Let it." And Sir Alan Ayckbourn, most of whose 75 plays are comedies, always tells his cast at the final dress rehearsal, "keep your innocence...neither demand nor expect a laugh. It's just a little bonus."