In an interview with Oxford American’s Jacob Rosenberg (7/18/2017), Rory Scovel talks a bit about his relation to the audience in some ways that are important, casting them as participants in his act, as smart, thinking people, with whom he has to connect.
On audience roles
Scovel does a lot of spontaneous stuff, sometimes performing a character, like the “Southern Bro” he trots out in what I’ve called his “Lenny Bruce Opening” to his Netflix special, Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up for the First Time. He is asked by Rosenberg,
Sometimes you’re in the middle of your set in that character, but it seems like you’re still listening and judging what you are saying. Then you pop out some perfect line that coalesces the whole joke, makes fun of what you said before even. Are you doing a lot of listening to yourself ramble?
It’s a weird balance of listening to yourself, so you can kind of be driving the car, but also listening to the audience so you can also see the road. Whenever I have a bad set it’s usually because I’m not doing one of those things at all. I’m either not paying attention to the crowd or I was over-confident with what I was going to do. Whenever there’s a night where I’m dialed in and I have the most fun, it’s usually because I’m right fifty-fifty on listening to the crowd and myself.
What I find interesting in this driving metaphor, first off, because how frequently are any of us active and self-conscious when driving? My ideal driving is kind of a zen zone-out where everything just comes together because of years of driving that car, on that road, in similar conditions.
Nevertheless, the idea that he’s actively listening to the audience as much as he’s thinking about what he’s saying is admirable. It indicates that Scovel might view his audience – in terms of the popular ideas about audiences I’ve talked about before – at least as directors, in that he responds to them, so in a sense, they direct him, or maybe as lovers, equal partners in the creation of the comedy event.
Smart audiences
Scovel further expresses the uncommon idea about audiences that they are (or can be) thinking human beings:
Do you ever struggle to find that connection with a crowd?
If you came and saw me live tomorrow, 100% of people definitely aren’t laughing 100% of the time. Sometimes it’s these twenty people, then it’s fifty, then it’s eighty; then it’s only five. I think a smart audience is an audience that realizes they shouldn’t laugh at everything. It’s kind of absurd to think, when you go to a concert, you have to leave going: “I loved every moment. I loved everything.” It’s kind of ridiculous that everything has to be perfect and cater to what I enjoy.
A common interpretation of laughter is that it’s an unconscious, emotional reaction to something that stands in for any other type of action – once we laugh, we’ve unconsciously agreed to take no further action, we’ve agreed that this is play and the topic or joke was trivial.
While we could read this as Scovel doing a little C.Y.A. as to why people don’t laugh at his jokes – “I swear, it’s not that the jokes are bad, it’s that audiences are so smart.” Instead, Scovel seems to join those who argue that humor is (or can be) a more active, conscious, rational process – this is why it’s possible to feign laughter to fit in. Scovel’s audience seems to engage with his material and decide to laugh – or not – which is why he must listen to them.
On connecting
In his next answer, Scovel leans more toward viewing his audience as lovers, and also says something about the authenticity of his persona.
How do you try to stay in the moment—and stay silly—while you’re actually doing comedy?
I think just reminding myself to quit thinking that there’s some kind of perfect show to capture; to remind myself constantly that it is comedy and mistakes are funny. Anything that is too perfect—it kind of becomes too sterile and then it does not feel genuine. If it doesn’t feel genuine then there’s no possible way people are going to feel they saw you.
This idea of the audience “feel[ing] they saw you” strikes me as reminiscent of James Cameron’s Avatar, where the “I see you” greeting is parallel to the Sanskrit Namaste, and implies that they see deeply, they see the real, True you – or at least, they feel that way. Scovel implies that the audience has to be convinced that this is happening. This really only fits into a relational, lover model of audiences (under my current working hypothesis); in terms of the model, they have to be wooed. However, this wooing does not have to be authentic, Scovel still leaves some wiggle room for a persona.
Scovel is trying to create an imperfect show, because he wants it to “feel genuine.” He seems to agree with David Misch that jokes don’t have to be truthful, but truth-adjacent; they have to be believable. This means that he doesn’t have to speak 100% truth, but just enough that it “feels” right. In Misch’s terms, Scovel (when not doing a character), is using a “slippery persona” that seems very much like himself IRL, or at least, so far as we know.
Summary
Yes, I read between the lines and infer a lot – it’s kind of my thing. Scovel says he listens to them, which means for him they’re active participants. He says smart audiences don’t laugh at everything, which I interpret as saying he thinks they are thinking during his show. He talks about making a show “feel genuine” so the audience “feel they saw [him],” which I read as saying that he’s trying to create a relationship with the audience, though he realizes it can be based on a “slippery” version of him. Taken this way, Scovel’s view of the audience and his relation to them is somewhat more evolved than most that I’ve seen.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
