All language subtitles for Masterclass Steve Martin Teaches Comedy - 8. Crafting your act

One book kind of influenced me. It was

called Showmanship for Magicians. I was

about 15 when I read it. And it was

written by a professional who u actually

his bio says uh he quit magic and

disgust.

But in that he he broke a showdown

to all the elements that you can use.

You have

uh the verbal,

you have the visual. And he looked at

opera and he says opera uses costumes.

It uses lights. It uses sets.

It uses music. Why not?

Why don't you use it all? Use everything

you can. Now, sometimes that's

impractical, but what it really means is

use every part of your personality that

you can. If you want to, if you want to

stand there and tell jokes, that's a

style, but you're not really

exploiting everything you've got. Maybe

your jokes are so powerful that that's

the best delivery. could be. But

remember, you have physicality. And

physicality doesn't have to be this. But

even when you're not doing anything,

you're physicalizing it. So just think,

how can I utilize that to an advantage

or to an artistic advantage? When I

started really getting into my standup,

I realized I could

visualize the words. Now, this really

applied to what I was doing because I

was very physical. So if I talked and

went like this, I could actually express

a word with my hands. And as I actually

wrote in my book, I said sometimes I

realized it wasn't the line that was

getting the laugh. It was the gestalt,

it was everything all at once that was

working. And

you know, all these things pulling

together becomes precise.

um where there's nothing left

unanswered,

um nothing left undelt with

right now. Uh I love being concise. I

really like, like I say, having that

material to land on, being clean, being

clear. When I say clean, I don't mean

not dirty. I mean clean. clean lines,

clean everything. And I like the

precision. Uh

there's a a quote that I read when I was

in college by EE Cummings

and

he he was talking about being a poet and

he said he said he said people ask me

why I'm a poet and I said I said like

the vaudeville comedian I enjoy that

precision that creates movement.

And I looked at it and I read it and I

thought what does that mean? What does

that mean? Precision creating movement.

And then you know 25 years later I

started to understand it that the more

precise you are the more the less air

the less less moments where nothing is

happening precision leads you inexurably

to the next moment. And eventually

you're going moment to moment to moment

and you're creating movement for the

audience. The the thing that gets you

precise

is performance experience

and suddenly you're not thinking oh what

comes next

uh

which can be done if it's done as part

of your performance. So those are always

a sides. I want you to know always the

sides. They're always exceptions. But

basically the the experience and you

start saying that line and now you've

said that line a hundred times and s

subtly it's becoming precise where the

consonants and the vowels are falling in

place and you're aware of the audience.

You hear a noise over there that might

distract. you hesitate that nancond

before you say the next syllable so the

audience can hear it. Um

it's just a gathering of information and

treating

your work not as going from joke to joke

to joke but as a whole.

When you're performing,

everything matters. Everything

you're It's not just, oh, here's a joke

and here's another joke. In between

those jokes, it's mattering. It's like,

do you still have them between

those two jokes or two laugh points? I

don't like to use the word jokes because

it implies a a punchline, but just being

funny. Get them to lean in rather than

lean back,

at least metaphorically.

But the importance of every moment

uh

when you put your foot on the stage for

the first time, it matters. They're

looking at it. They're analyzing it

whether they know it or not. And you're

speaking at that moment even when you're

not speaking. So think about just stay

on it. Stay on it all the time. You

know, sometimes I would have to in the

set, you know, I'd be changing materials

and I'd have to look at my set list to

see what was next. And I know at that

moment lost them.

Uh, and so I, you know, figure out maybe

a comic way to do it. I pick it up. I,

you know, what's next? Oh god, I hate

that. You know, something, anything to

make it live rather than be a moment

where you're not, oh yeah, right. I

would say I'd be on stage and like I say

when you look at your set list or you

take a drink of water, you're stopped.

You stop the momentum. So I work the

drink of water into a bit. I would like

take a, you know, a big drink of water

then just spit it out on the floor and

keep going. And so a kind of necessity

which I needed to do is drink some water

became a bit.

Okay, let's not waste any more time.

Remember

that a comedian when he goes on, he or

she goes on stage is telling a story

right from the top.

And and I don't mean a story story.

You're telling a story of yourself.

You're telling the story of the material

and you're just going to keep them

engaged. Don't go from bit to bit to

bit. Figure out a way to make it look

like a unified thing. Even if it's not.

By the way, my my my act was so

ununified,

but somehow I could tie it together by

either looking distracted or looking

like I was thinking or finding little

interstitial bits that would lead me to

the next thing. Just remember, you're

you got 45 minutes, you got 10 minutes,

you got 15 minutes. You're going to tell

them a story about yourself.

The one thing that will help give your

act or show a feeling of unity is this

simple little thing which I call laying

things in. It's really very similar to

what a running gag used to be. But

laying things in is something you do

early in your show and then you start to

call it back later at some point. Uh it

might be a simple joke. I mean, Don

Rickles would, you know, keep going back

to the same uh car person in the

audience. Um,

or maybe it's just a concept. Maybe you

state a philosophy early on in your

show, just a little one line or

something, and then at the end you go

back to that. And it might be a joke

that you keep repeating, it might be a

philosophy you keep repeating, but it

helps give unity. It feels like this has

been thought about

and um you know whether it's extravagant

or minor you know it could be just a a

line or two or a thought or a joke that

that starts to make the whole thing

cohhere. Uh like I say it could be a

philosophy it could be just a joke it

could be just a gesture.

I was once uh in the 80s when I was

making movies. I made a comedy and I uh

went to see it in with an audience and

it wasn't doing so well and there was

another comedy out that was doing really

really well. They don't remember what it

was. So I went to see my movie. I

thought they're laughing. It's like it's

got like 30 laughs in it. And I went to

see the com competition

and I counted the laughs had two.

I thought, why is that movie doing

better than my movie and I realized, oh,

they want to see that movie?

It was about something they wanted to

see. So if you can make your show, your

piece about something, if you if you

think about it, how many times you go

see a movie or you think what's it

about?

Want to know what it's about. And if a

comedian can have the show be about

something,

uh, for example, Amy Schumer, I happen

to be reading her book, so she's on my

mind. Her show is about something. it

hard to put your finger on, but it's

about being liberated.

It's about being not taken advantage of.

There's so many uh kind of moral points

in in her performances. Also, straight

ahead comedy, which you always want. You

always want straight ahead comedy. You

can't preach.

If you think

I I'm going to be a comedian who

criticizes

popular culture already that's a that's

a position and that's a philosophy and

you can develop that. Now maybe

when you think that you think so

everything I say is going to criticize

popular culture. Doesn't have to. You

could say it twice

in your entire show and it'll come off

like he's a critic or he or she is a

critic of popular culture.

Um, I've noticed I was working with a

friend on a script just kind of giving

him a little advice and he said, you

know, I'm a I'm a kind of sentence

writer, so I like to have these kind of

elegant sentences for the characters to

say. I say, really? You only have to do

it twice. and they'll say, "Wow, those

two lines were so beautiful." You don't

want to say, "Wow, those 50 lines were

so beautiful." It'll actually stick

if you just have two lines. So, let's

say you're going to be a political

comedian,

every line,

uh, every 10 lines or once, or is it

your conclusion?

When I was uh young in my teens and and

doing my little magic show and you're

getting your very first shows under your

belt, I was trying to be very organized

and I would write down my set list. And

then afterwards I would uh go back and

go, "This worked, you know, big, you

know, not so not so good." Uh things

like that. But I

I I I kind of stop that. I I you when

you really start performing, when you

really start dedicating yourself and you

start performing a lot, it stays in your

head. And I did I did make notes. I come

out off stage. If I had a set list,

I'd give something two or three tries.

If it didn't work, I'd take it out. But

I had I had a secret way to do it. I was

so worried

about something not working

that if I had a new idea to introduce,

I would just take the smallest kernel of

that routine, bit, joke, whatever, sneak

it in somewhere, and get out as fast as

possible in case it didn't work. And

then if it did work, then I knew I could

expand on it.

Cutting is the greatest feeling a

comedian can have when you're out there

and say that bit's not working and that

or or in a movie or a play and it's gone

the next night. It's like, "Oh, what a

relief to have that gone." But I

probably taken out, you know, 10,000

hours of material to get to four.

And I uh I remember when I was really

starting, I was starting in a in a

professional way.

Eventually, I had I I had to do two

different shows a night, and I could do

two different twohour shows. Not today.

I go, what do I doing a two-hour show

for? That's ridiculous. And nobody can

even laugh for two hours. But I had it.

And then as I started achieving success,

I didn't have to do two shows a night

anymore. So I could distill those four

hours down to

one.

And it was the greatest thing that ever

happened to me. It's like, h no, I don't

have to sell a weak bit anymore. I can

do my best stuff.

And that's really when the act started

to click when I could do one show a

night. But if you're starting out, go

with your best stuff. Always go with

your best stuff. I one night we were

going to play uh on the Letterman show

played music. There's this great

musician named Earl Scrugs. We were

going to play banjo. We had like five

banjo players. We're going to play a

song and we're all thinking he I know he

doesn't want to play Foggy Mountain

Breakdown. That's his most famous song.

And so he's done that a million times.

So, Will think maybe Lonesome Road Blues

or maybe something else. And and so we

go to Earl and say, "Uh, hey, we're

thinking maybe uh uh playing Lonesome

Road Blues. What do What do you think?"

He says, "I always think you should go

with your best.

You know, it's when you leave here, I

want you to say, "Hey, that guy was

funny." Yeah. But he was also very, very

intelligent.

That's right. I'm into the intellectual

canyon. Okay, say it with me. That's why

I'm into the intellectual canon.

See, it's important to study philosophy.

It sounds like a meaningless thing, but

you learn the important questions of

life. The important ethical questions.

Is it okay to yell movie in a crowded

firehouse?

The important religious questions. Does

the pope [ __ ] in the woods?

I was thinking that line some night, you

know, the heavens will open, you know,

saying, "Okay, that's enough. You come

on."

I don't believe in that stuff. I'm

sorry. I don't

if there is a God, give me a sign,

please. Some sort of sign.

See, I told you there was no