Modified On March 8, 2009
From the Times (UK), we have Allan Brown serving up this drivel:
The ego of most comedians is on a scale so vast that it requires Google Earth to be mapped adequately. Equally sizable, though, is their insecurity, their pesky, sleeve-tugging need to be loved for themselves. This is why comedians risk the horror of dying on stage; because they’ll feel big and desirable if it so happens that they don’t.
Along the front of every comedy stage is an invisible one-way mirror, allowing the audience to see the performer and the performer to see themselves.
We suppose that the “civilians” (those who have never done standup) can’t quite fathom how it is that we do what we do, so they concoct scenarios like the one above– They must be egotistical, otherwise how could they get up there and do standup? goes the logic.
At least that’s how they (the journos) would handle it if they were to plunge into standup comedy.
Of course, the reality is much less dramatic. To be sure, there are comedians with large egos (just as there are doctors, tow truck operators or ornithologists with large egos), but there is no greater or smaller percentage among our ranks.
Doing what we do doesn’t require an outsized ego, however. In fact, it could be argued that it requires just the opposite. As we are fond of saying: Don’t take the bombs personally and don’t take the kills personally, either. One can’t go to Vegas and do 14 shows in a week if one is doing it to feed an ego that’s observable from the Space Station. It just doesn’t work that way.
Observe a comedian just offstage from smoking a room. Are there fists thrust into the air triumphantly? A touchdown dance of some sort? Frothing and chest thumping accompanied by the planting of long, sloppy kisses on unsuspecting bystanders? No. The demeanor of the comic who just crushed is more… placid. Satisfied. And, to some extent, there begins a calculation of the days/hours/minutes to the next show– not out of some neurotic need to return to the stage, but out of a very practical need to erase the memory of the previous kill and begin the process of preparing for the next performance, of re-calibrating. (To be sure, there is some assessment of the just-completed show– Was there new material? Did it go well? Does it need tweaking?– but the post mortem doesn’t usually involve wondering whether sufficient love from the crowd was felt or whether or not a long-dead, abusive father was looking down on the stage from heaven.)
Observe a comedian just offstage from a bomb… or merely a show that didn’t go as well as hoped. Moping? Hissing and snapping at well-meaning colleagues or clueless fans? No. The demeanor, once again, is usually placid. Much the same assessment goes on and much the same re-calibration occurs. The highs and lows are modulated out of necessity. It is this modulation (Is it learned? Is it inherent?) that enables the comedian to go up week after week, show after show and deliver consistently good shows over the long run.
(Thanks to FOS Aaron Ward for the tip!)