Photo: Ben Martin/Getty Images.
Comedian George Jessel performing at the Tappan Zee Motor Inn in Nyack, New York, in 1966.
When I was small, which was quite a while ago, a close family member had a sad drinking problem. Having had one too many back in the day, he went to hear comedian George Jessel and got thrown out for heckling.
That’s why I was particularly interested in today’s story about how comedians handle hecklers. Nick A. Zaino III wrote about it at the Boston Globe.
“For a stand-up comedian, dealing with a vocal audience is often just part of the job, for better or worse. Sometimes it’s magic, sometimes it ruins the vibe. More recently, audiences have come to expect more interaction thanks to the influx of crowd work videos on social media. Those were already on the rise pre-COVID, but the effect intensified as more people experienced comedy online during lockdown. For working comics, the results have been mixed.
“Stand-ups have very practical reasons for posting a lot of crowd work clips. They’re easy to produce if a comedian is touring or playing out regularly, and they don’t have to ‘burn’ material they want to save for a special or a TV set. ‘They’re posting the stuff to keep people interested,’ says Boston comic Corey Rodrigues. … ‘Some people are better at it than others.’
“But some watching have come away with the impression that a live comedy show is mostly crowd work. ‘A lot of people have never been to a live show,’ adds Rodrigues. …
“ ‘COVID caused people to see a lot of comedy because they were stuck in their houses watching YouTube and all the different social media channels,’ says comedian and Boston Comedy Festival founder Jim McCue, ‘so I think that had an effect on people.’
“And they may be more enthusiastic to talk back and break up the show. As Rodrigues said, some comics handle it better than others. And heckling has always been a part of the live experience, going back at least as far as vaudeville audiences tossing tomatoes at an act they didn’t like. But dealing with the disruptions is a separate skillset from writing material to deliver, and not every comedian is interested in developing that. …
“Says comedian Josh Gondelman … ‘The audience participating in a stand-up set by chiming in and by answering questions or shouting something out is a more prevalent expectation — that’s a feature of comedy, rather than an interruption.’
“McCue has used crowd work in his act for decades. He’s adept at interacting with his audiences, but it’s not his whole act, and sometimes people look down on him for it. …
“Some comedians leaned into their audience interaction and get a label of a ‘crowd work comic.’ Matt Rife took the label personally and signed off his first Netflix special, ‘Natural Selection,’ with a message about believing in himself after 12 years of stand-up, and then a mic drop with the words, ‘But what do I know? I only do crowd work, right?’
“But not every comedian who does it has gotten flack for it. Paula Poundstone is a master of crowd work, stashing away details about different audience members and weaving them together as the show goes on. Todd Barry released The Crowd Work Tour special, for which he came onstage with no prepared material, in 2014 — way before social media made it trendy. …
“If a comedian is having a bad set, or they’re not a very polished act yet, that opens them up to problems. If a comic is doing well, and someone still tries to draw attention to themselves, the rest of the crowd might even drown them out without the comedian even having to step in. ‘Most of the people in that room showed up to laugh and have a great time,’ says Rodrigues. ‘So if you are providing that, that’s what they want.’
“Kelly MacFarland has noticed the effect of social media on audience behavior, but she has more than two decades of stand-up experience to fall back on. ‘There’s definitely a shift in the way that you’ve got to hit hard and fast,’ she says. ‘Audiences are used to instant gratification with their phone, iPad, computer, streaming services. I feel like I’m teaching them what to expect, and to trust me they’re going to like it. For the record, I always love the audience. Quiet, wild, loud, or sweet. Without them, there’s no show. You have to adapt and stay true to yourself.’ ”
More at the Globe, here.
