All language subtitles for Masterclass Steve Martin Teaches Comedy - 21. Writing Case Study Meteor Shower

I thought maybe we'd take a look at at a

play I've written, a recent play which

I'm actually quite proud of and it's

been produced so it's pretty well

together. And maybe I could explain some

of the reasons uh that certain things

happen. And one of the things that I'm

become very aware of is exposition and

how to lay it in.

Uh you know I always my cliche is uh in

a movie when two guys are walking down

the street and one of them says, "Joe,

you're my brother." What about when blah

blah Why would you ever say that to your

your brother? Your brother knows who he

is. then it's just kind of clunky

exposition. And there's so many ways to

do it. Just say, "What did dad say?" You

know, it's such a simpler thing. And

it's so much better when this

information is gathered rather than

told. So, um, I get out my little

computer.

Now, this this play I've written, I'll

try to make this as brief as possible,

is called Meteor Shower, and it's a

comedy. And that's its intent is to be a

comedy and to make people laugh. That's

its purpose. And I'll just set the

situation. It's it's a couple

in their 40s, early 40s, mid-40s. They

live in Ohhigh, California, which is out

in the desert, and they've invited a

couple over that they don't know that

well, uh, to watch a meteor shower in

the summer, and then chaos ensues.

So, how do you how do you tell that? And

I'll just uh first I wanted to establish

the couple.

The woman, her name, their names are

Corki and Norm. And she she's on stage

alone. He says she sees him. He comes

in. He's half-dressed. He goes, "Norm,

they're here in 15 minutes." Now,

already the audience knows, "Oh,

someone's coming over." Without doing

anything, they're wait. They're here in

15 minutes. I know. I know. I And she

says, he says, "I I've got a Jeopardy

quest. There's a Jeopardy question. I'm

trying to find the answer to. And he

says, "It's on the tip of my tongue." On

the tip of my tongue. Now, I'll explain

what the joke is in a minute. But this

is just a little

uh you know uh appetizer. It doesn't

it's not really relevant, but it talks

has ultimately has a point. He says,

"It's on the tip of my tongue. It's a

book title. It's a book title. It's

something like death to the cuckoo. What

is it? Death like death to the cuckoo."

And the wife goes, "Oh, to kill a

mockingb bird."

And what they've done now is establish

this bond that they can finish each

other's sentences. They understand each

other by doing a joke. So,

and he says, "Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you." Yet another reason to be

married. So, now we know this is going

to be kind of about marriage. And yet,

we haven't really said anything any

anything uh direct about it. And he

says, "Oh," he she she says, 'You had a

brain freeze. He says, 'Oh, yeah, I

repressed it. And when I repress

something, I push I push it way down and

kick dirt over it. It's not coming back.

And then she says, "If you don't deal

with your subconscious, it will deal

with you." Now, that's exactly what the

play is about. and I've said it by the

top of page two, but it doesn't come off

like preachy or and you know 60 pages

later it's going to count that that line

is going to count and help explain what

this play is about. You know, first time

we put it on I thought I think they're

having

a trouble

understanding certain concepts of what

the play is. So that's what I put in the

thing about the subconscious in the

beginning because it's a little odd to

say something like that and it makes the

audience sit up and just listen like

what does that what is that about? So

these things came later

and uh you know the shape of it starts

to come when you realize what you need.

So if you thought I just sat down and

wrote this linearly, you think it's

unbelievable, you know, all those things

woven in. No, it was written and then

looked at and said, "What does this

mean? Can I can I set this up earlier?

Can I talk about it in a subtle way

that'll have meaning later?"

Uh then he she says that line, "If you

don't deal with the subconscious, it

will deal with you." And he goes, "Oh,

that's good. Who said that?" And she

says, 'Oh, in that book, remember? And

he says, 'Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, what that

does is without saying anything is

they've read the same book. They've read

the same book about psychology and it's

so dismissed, but an audience is paying

attention and they're catching all this.

So, you said, "Okay, they're they're a

couple. They they understand they're

very close. They have a close marriage

and they're still perhaps studying it.

And then she just says,

"What's she like?"

Now, we haven't said anybody's coming

over, but in that sentence, it's a big

there's a lot of information in that.

What's she like? And he goes, "Oh, I

don't know. I just know him. I don't

know her. You know, she was the West

Coast editor at Bog." And just sort of

laying a little information in there.

And he said, "I I only met her for five

minutes. She was picking up Gerald after

tennis. She's the one who mentioned the

meteor shower.

So now we've got the information laid in

without saying without ever saying, "Oh,

there's a, you know, Gerald, there's a

couple coming over to look at us, watch

a meteor shower with us. We've never

done that." So then she says to him,

"How does a meteor shower come up in

conversation?" And he says, "Oh, she

said Gerald wanted to leave town to see

this meteor shower first I've heard of

it." So he puffs up. Kept calling it a

rain of fire. Can't miss the rain of

fire once in a lifetime. Blah blah blah.

Now what's happening here is

it's actually a little bit of a a

metaphorical setup for what's going to

happen in the play. But you're also

describing this guy Gerald. And you get

the feeling that he's a pontificator.

And all this is done descriptively. It's

not done blatantly. Says uh and I said

we live in Ohhigh. And he said, "Can you

see the stars there?" And I said, "Yeah,

shopping on the weekends." Haha. And he

looked at me like a blank, but she

laughed. And then his wife says, "You

like that?" "Yeah, she got the joke."

Then she says, "I read people know if

they want to sleep with a person within

two seconds of meeting them." So now

we're off. There's a little twinge of

jealousy established just in

conversation. Uh, and you know, that's

the way we kick off the play. And you're

pretty well verssed by the top of page

three. Uh, that's the way I like things.

Now, it can work a different way

completely. It can slowly unfold, which

I believe this play does, too. It

unfolds many layers as it as it goes on.

But I hope that right off the bat

there's a little bit of intrigue and

mystery and there there's but there's no

mystery about what's going on. They need

to know what's going on. You know, I

think this is what makes something easy

to watch and interesting at the same

time. You're creating something

interesting

and you're telling them the story at the

same time kind of effortlessly.

I had three of the characters really

worked out really worked out well and I

thought well this fourth character is a

little bit vague and she she doesn't

have I don't know when sometimes to have

her say a line and I thought oh we're

getting ready to do this thing I better

give her some more lines just to make

her included a little bit more and it

was just little things like go baby

little tiny lines that kept her alive in

the scene

And as I watched the rehearsals go on

and we had a great actress, Alex

Hendrickson um who played the part and

brought clarity to it for me. So by

inserting her more in the scenes, ma

making her have more life and watching

how the actress was was interpreting it,

I I was able to fully see the character

and the characters function in the play

and I was able to write toward that and

was very very helpful. So, you know, I

went in with three quarters of the

characters out of, you know, and and

then the last character was developed, I

think, successfully, you know, while we

were working on it and while we were in

previews.

A lot of times you're done editing

because you run out of time and you

know, you can play with something

forever.

But

for example, in Meteor Shower, I could

see in the first iteration of it, I say,

"Okay, there's a problem in the audience

grasping its overall message.

Uh although they're laughing all the way

through, but some people would say,

"What was what was that about?" And then

other people would say, "No, I I

completely got it." And it was usually

divided between young and old. young

completely got it. Older people wanted a

more formal theater experience, I think.

So, as we got to Connecticut, I started

to address that

and I made a few changes, just a line,

literally two lines.

And I stopped getting that kind of

feedback. I thought, really, it was just

two lines or is it just jelling

mysteriously a little bit better? And uh

and now I feel like uh it feels done. It

feels done because I I feel like the

questions I had were answered now. We're

probably going to do it again. And I'm

sure there will be uh touch-ups, but I

don't feel like anything major major

surgery is going to be done. In fact, I

I look forward to to doing it doing it

again and finding okay, now we can

relax. The play is working as a whole.

It's it's understandable. grasp

graspable. It's got enough mystery to it

that I like. So, it's not just a sitcom.

And that was one element. I thought, if

I'm going to write about two couples,

how do you keep it from being a sitcom?

Because sitcoms are very funny, very

sophisticated,

everything has been covered. So, that

was a one of the challenges of writing

it was was uh making it have another

life that you couldn't do on television.

Had to be something you couldn't do. You

couldn't see this on television. You

have to sit in the theater to to get