Standup and be counted

(This opinion originally appeared in The Scotsman, "the New York Times of our wee country," says Hennigan.)

As someone who spends a lot of time in comedic contemplation, one can only see so many plays, watch so much contemporary dance, and read so much cutting-edge fiction without feeling that standup comedy receives scant regard as an art form. There is no good reason for this. Comedy, once frowned on, is a long accepted artistic genre. In terms of recognising that standup comedy has come of age, it is about time the Edinburgh International Festival gave thought to its inclusion within the range of artistic disciplines that it celebrates.

Doing down comedy has a history. Plato was not keen. He felt that-- what with all the guffawing-- comedy's primary appeal was to the animal side of our nature; the lower physical and base side of man. This is detrimental to our rationality. In his perfect Republic, Plato's young Guardians were to be educated not to be prone to laughter. Or failing that, knock-knock jokes.

(Plato's wrath was probably fired by the scornful treatment dealt to his own teacher, Socrates, who suffered at the pen of Aristophanes, particularly in The Clouds, which had a go at the big man's idea for a "thought school," wherein it was the young who went out to work but the old who went to school. Who delivers the papers was unclear).

Both Plato and Aristotle felt that the issue of ridicule also made comedy an unworthy pursuit. For them humour necessarily involved "laughing at" something, and this must involve an attitude of superiority over what is ridiculed. As such, being funny is not consistent with being a nice person. Hobbes picked up the same spoilsport cudgel when noting that those given to humour spend a lot of time searching out the imperfections in others in order to feel good about themselves. We might call this "bitching" rather than humour, but for Hobbes it was simply misanthropic.

Yet the essence of what these objections are getting at is very much at the root of what a liberal view of politics and social relations finds good about comedy (please remember that Plato was far from being liberal). The liberal school points out that it is the destructive power of comedy-- its ability to present powerful forces or people in a bad light-- that marks it out as an essential tool.

Both sides of the argument were bound together neatly in Umberto Eco's "The Name of The Rose." The central theme voiced by the blind monk, Jorge, concerned the terrible atheistic consequences of the comedy gates being opened (through the widespread dissemination of Aristotle's "lost" Treatise on Comedy). If it was possible to laugh at anything then: "Without fear of the devil, there is no need of God".

What (liberal) Eco captured was the power of comedy to undermine and to challenge. Ironically, if one accepts that comedy has the potential to challenge the nature of society and our idea of what it means to be human, then this is as good an argument as you will need to show that-- far from being a piece of intellectual frippery-- comedy is the most powerful art form known to man. I have seen a few ballets and not one of them has induced me to question anything other than the nature of thighs.

Well, that's not how dance is measured, comes the counterblast. Dance is-- something like-- the physical articulating of that which it is impossible to verbally express (with nice music for those with a short attention span). Besides, we do not say that comedy is not worthy of serious contemplation. Comedies have been a part of the repertoire for centuries. Good point. Traditional "high art" is hooching with comedies; Balzac's Comedie Humain, Dante's Divine Comedy, any number of Chekhovs and, of course, Shakespeare. These works are all "comedic." Yet in structure and form they have more in common with dramatic tragedy than they do with standup. Furthermore, while it is true that such works are "comedic," their admirers might bristle at calling them "funny."

This apparently slight semantic difference is highlighted if one spends any amount of time attending plays and standup comedy performance, and digesting the reviews that appear about both, considering the difference between what is described as a "hilarious play" and "hilarious standup." It becomes obvious that there are two different types of "hilarious"-- one a sort of wry, finger on chin chortle or smile-- the other a full-on, uncontrollable belly laugh.

One cannot help but feel that there is an element of mere snobbery about a refusal to accord standup legitimate status. The aim of standup is to reduce the audience to involuntary spasms of laughter, yes, but that does not mean it is not art. It simply means that-- as an art-- it has a different aim. A visual artist might feel that they have failed if a member of the public breezes by their piece with but a twitch of a sidewards glance. Well, a standup will feel they have failed if people do not laugh at their "piece" (standups actually deal in "bits"). If both pieces are addressing the absurdity, say, of the amount of consumer packaging we encounter in a resource-scarce world, then it is surely the content of the work and not the form of its expression that is of import.

What Great Standups are able to do is create a world on stage with their words and behaviour. The audience is taken into this world and together they explore its logic, its premises, its successes and failures in a way that brings about reflection and, yes, laughter. This is no mean feat.

Like any successful theatrical transaction, that between audience and stand-up requires enormous effort. Without exception, the great-- or even good-- standup has spent many years honing delivery and content. There is no meaningful difference between the stagecraft achieved by a great actor and the stagecraft achieved by a great standup. And in terms of the fine-tuning of the delivery and content, there is much to be said for an analogy between standup and modern poetry.

Gosh! (I hope you are thinking), how did we not see this? In one respect, standup does not help itself be taken seriously-- it looks easy. Indeed, this is part of its appeal. It is not meant to be a well-structured comedic lecture. There should be the air of spontaneity. As such, the better and more practiced the standup, the more his presentation will belie this. Thus, while an opera singer might be appreciated in terms of how exactly they hit the stance and note and thus create the illusion of drama, a standup should be judged on how accomplished they are in creating the illusion of a comedic dialogue. (If you believe that some standup comedians really are 100 per cent spontaneous, you are wrong. They are simply brilliant practitioners of the art).

I am not saying that every standup comedian is worthy of deep and intense consideration. Many standups are little more than an inconsequential distraction from the self-inflicted tedium of modern First World life. As are many plays, operas and ballets, and far too many art gallery installations. Which is by way of saying that art of genuine consequence is not common. How could it be? We would spend our entire lives seized by revelation and probably miss the bus home.

Regretfully, Great Standups are few and far between. Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks would all have a genuine claim to such a title. Jackie Mason might. After that you are in the prickly field of debate. Woody Allen is possibly alone in being able to be called a comic genius-- a term so devalued by overuse that one is forced to use the word "genuine" before it to convey any real meaning-- and that would have to include reference to his non-standup material.

Given the rarity of the commodity, I would not expect to see a Great Standups at every Edinburgh International Festival. The recognition of such comedic brilliance is not something that should be taken lightly. Yet when a practitioner of sufficient significance arises, those that dish out the stages of status should have the ability to recognise them and the courage to select them.