Born Standing Up

A recent road trip afforded me the opportunity to listen to the audio-book version of Steve Martin’s memoir reflecting on his career in stand-up comedy. Nurtured by his mathematical mind and his college forays into philosophy, Martin’s innovations in stand-up are a case study in the shift from the Modern to the Postmodern.

In his analysis of the craft, Martin detected a formulaic relationship between the comic and the audience. The art of stand-up was found in the comic’s ability to build a sense of tension and then release it with the punch line. An audience almost instinctively fell into this rhythm of build-and-release, and successful comics were those who instinctively tapped into it – that mysterious stage quality known as “comedic timing.”

By studying the stage habits of successful performers, Martin further noted that each had a signature gesture, almost imperceptibly subtle, that accompanied the delivery of the punch line. On one occasion in particular, he watched a well-known, aged comic on the Tonight Show who patted his belly with each punch line. In his old-age, the comedian slurred his speech such that punch line was often unintelligible. Nonetheless, the audience always laughed on cue. Martin concluded that in the current state of stand-up, audiences had essentially been trained to recognize a punch line and respond appropriately, an almost Pavlovian arrangement.

Here’s the Postmodern shift. Martin wanted to create a comedic style that disrupted the automatic build-and-release rhythm, allowing the audience to choose when to laugh – a more democratic, participatory stand-up. The release (punch line) was the key. The release simultaneously served two functions: it cued the audience as to when they ought to laugh, but it also restricted them to laughing at times dtermined by the comic. Martin wanted to take a top down paradigm and make it bottom up – grassroots comedy.

So he asked the question, “What if there’s no release, no punch line?” Martin’s comedy developed around the idea that he would perpetually build up a joke or gag and never complete it. He would offer no resolution. While the audience waited for the release, he moved to the next build up of tension. If the audience got the gag, they laughed right then. But if some people didn’t get it until later (even the next day, perhaps) they were free to laugh then, too. The product was a more spontaneous, natural experience for the audience.

It’s interesting to see that Steve Martin’s frenetic, unstructured, “wild-and-crazy-guy” routines of the 70’s were actually highly structured and precisely choreographed, the product of near scientific analysis and application of philosophical theory. Despite the overly silly antics, a certain amount of genius was a work.

Then again, given the smart wit and technical virtuosity of Martin’s later work, it’s not that surprising.

Unfortunately, for all his technical virtuosity, both Martin’s narrative and the life he narrates are emotionally arid. His descent into non-sequitur absurdism and unrestrained sarcasm seems to leave him without the capacity for sincerity or depth of heart. And in that, Martin exemplifies Postmodernism’s organic connection to Modernism’s dehumanizing bent toward fragmentary compartmentalism.