How much of stand-up comedy is based on crowd reaction and interaction with the audience? Obviously, the material itself is extremely important. But a comedian won’t know how those jokes will play until trying them out on people. (This applies to any art form, really. The audience tells you what’s working and what isn’t. And that feedback is often crucial to development.) So what happens when a stand-up performs without the audience?
Matt Byrne and Ian Abramson put that concept to the test with a series called “Seven Minutes in Purgatory,” in which a stand-up does his or her routine in a soundproof room wearing headphones, while an audience is in another room. So the comedian has no idea which material is doing well with the audience, and there’s no interaction or small talk that can fill the time between jokes and perhaps cut some of the awkwardness.
In the latest installment of the series — also posted on Funny or Die — Kyle Kinane (one of my current favorite stand-ups) gives soundproof comedy a try.
Kinane seemed to do pretty well without the audience, but did use the props in the room as a crutch rather than walk around the stage and chit-chat with the crowd a bit. That just has to be a weird feeling. I’ve never performed stand-up, but have read my work in front of an audience and loved it when I got a laugh or reaction. Without that, I’d have been disappointed. That need has to be even stronger with comedians.
Or maybe not. Toward the end of his set, Kinane says “I think I like it better this way, because then you can’t tell what jokes suck, so your self-esteem can stay even.”
