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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Steve Kaplan
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January 11, 2016 - January 1, 2022
there’s absolutely no difference between comedy and drama,
Unlike “funny,” comedy isn’t so much a matter of opinion as an art form, with its own aesthetic.
“Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end.”
Today’s comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he’s telling the truth.”
comedy tells the truth about people.
Comedy is the art of telling the truth about what it’s like to be human.
the staples of daytime drama — the actors rarely act in an inappropriate manner, in a way that would tend to mock the characters.
In a soap, these people are better than us in so many ways. They’re superheroes; they have all the qualities that we ourselves lack.
Yes, they have flaws, but these are usually tragic, heartbreaking, heartrending flaws.
Which is OK, because soaps aren’t trying to be real — they’re trying to be dramatic. And the essence of drama is: Drama helps us dream about what we could be — what we can be.2
Because drama helps us dream about what we can be.
Drama helps us dream about what we could be, but comedy helps us live with who we are.
while drama believes in man’s perfection, comedy operates secure in the knowledge of man’s imperfection:
insecure, awkward, fumbling, unsure
While drama might depict one of us going through a dark night of the soul, comedy sees the dark night, but also notices that, during that dark night, we’re still wearing the same robe we’ve had on for a few days and eating chunky pean...
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comedy sees all our flaws, and foibles, and failings, and still doesn’t hate us for them.
“There’s humor in the little things that people did. If you showed them how they looked when they did what they did,
people would laugh.”
Drama whitewashes some of these flaws, edits others out, glorifies a few, and justifies the rest.
any flaw that would make the dramatic Hero seem coarse or ridiculous is excised out. For instance, you’ve never seen a production of Hamlet in which Hamlet farts, have you?
Comedy, on the other hand, encompasses both our humanity and its inherent sins, our ridiculous lives and its deep s...
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All of us screw up in a myriad of small ways every single day, while some of us manage to muck things up on a grand scale. And the ultimate screw-up, the ultimate flaw? Death, of course. We die. We all die.
If we didn’t die, there’d be no art. If we lived forever, there’d be no need to paint a picture, or write a poem, because we’d figure that given all the time we have, that we’d get around to it eventually.
But we do die, and Art is our attempt to comprehend and capture this ephemeral (to us, anyhow) reality.
The dramatic artist looks at a man’s death, and solemnly says, “A man died, how sad.” The comic artist looks at the same event and says, somewhat dryly, “Look how he lived, how ridiculous!”
Man is the only animal that has awareness of his own mortality.
Even knowing the fact that we’re going to die, we go out and try to make the best of things, as best as we can.
Every decision I’ll make, either consciously or unconsciously, is made with the hope it will increase my joy or reduce my fear.
Comedy reflects that metaphorical truth — that even though we’re hurtling through the void, in a cold, uncaring universe, not knowing where we came from, not knowing where we’re going, even though some of us may give up hope, may despair — as a race, as a species, we try to go on.
People may be sitting in the dark, thinking “I’m a failure, I’m defeated, I’m all alone.” The comic artist goes out there and says, “Me too.”
The essential gesture of the comedian is the shrug. “Hey, you’ll live. I’ve been there. That’s life. You’ll live!”
The art of comedy is the art of hope. This is the truth, the comic me...
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We start with the idea that comedy tells the truth. And the truth is that every decision we make is made to try to improve things, and even though we know that ultimately it’s doomed to failure, we’ll just keep on trying. In a way, it’s a metaphor for what it means to be human.
Comedy is about an ordinary guy or gal struggling against insurmountable odds without many of the required skills and tools with which to win yet never giving up hope.
the premise of all comedy is a man in trouble.”
1. Winning 2. Non-Hero 3. Metaphorical Relationship 4. Positive (or Selfish) Action 5. Active Emotion 6. Straight Line/Wavy Line And the script development tools: 7. Archetype 8. Comic Premise
Comedy gives the character the permission to win.
Non-Hero is the ordinary guy or gal without many of the required skills and tools with which to win.
Not an idiot, not an exaggerated fool, but simply somebody lacking, yet still determined to win.
One of the concepts behind Metaphorical Relationship is the idea that beneath every surface relationship is a true, essential, Metaphorical Relationship.
Positive Action, or selfish-action, is the idea that with every action your character takes, your character actually thinks it might work, no matter how stupid, foolish, or naive that may make him or her appear.
Active Emotion — primarily an acting or directing tool — is the idea that whatever emotion the performer on stage or on set ACTUALLY experiences as he goes through the character’s action is the correct emotional line for the character in scene.
comedy was watching somebody watch somebody do something silly.”
it’s about someone who is blind to a problem — or creating the problem themselves — and someone else struggling with that problem. Straight Line/Wavy Line.
The real dynamic is that of watcher and watched, the one who sees and the one who does not see; the one creating the problem and the one struggling with the problem.
do WHAT HE NEEDS TO DO IN ORDER TO WIN.
Because once you’re onstage, the point is to act, isn’t it? Actually, it isn’t. The point is to tell the story.
The point is that we often have to accomplish a number of different things, at the same time, in order to “win.”
Comedy gives your character in the narrative the permission to win. Comedy gives them the permission to do what they need to do in a moment of crisis, even if it makes them look like a bad guy or an idiot.
conflict is inherent to the human condition.
