‘And Then What Happens?’ (Part II)

Editor’s note: Click to read Part I of the series. 

Chrisy Baylor’s story might focus on her grandmother’s portable toilet.

“Overweight, old-fashioned and fat-legged,” her grandmother wielded control that left its mark on Baylor, who is transforming a difficult childhood in East Baltimore under her grandmother’s oppressive thumb into a story that she can perform, onstage, for laughs.

“She had a commode with a metal bucket, and she would sit on it and do her business in front of us,” said Baylor, onstage during the second class at Magooby’s Joke House, where Marc Unger and Rain Pryor are teaching a seminar called "The Art of Comedic Storytelling."

“But that’s not the worst part,” Baylor continued, pacing the stage with a contained rage akin to Unger’s. “When she was finished, she’d say, ‘Which one of you gonna empty this pan for me?’”

Unger didn’t let Baylor get away with the cliché of an overbearing grandmother.

“We know that person,” Unger said, “but we don’t know your overbearing grandmother. This is storytelling, and our words count. Instead of saying she is overweight, give us her weight. Did she have a mole? Dentures? Were they gray? Were they clean? Were they white? Paint a picture for us. That’ll bring her to life for us.”

Unger, on his own this week because Pryor was home with her sick daughter, delved into the three themes of storytelling: man versus man, man versus self, and man versus nature.

“This seems like ‘man versus man,’ right now,” said Unger, responding to Baylor’s memories of her grandmother’s domination. “But if it’s ‘man versus nature,’ it was about you and that pot. And you could—you could do your whole story about cleaning that pot.”

Another student, Kat Homan Soul of White Hall, MD, didn’t get far enough into her story for Unger to determine which of the three themes might fit—she dissolved into tears onstage before she was halfway though.

“I’m getting emotional. I’m sorry, I’m gonna cry,” Soul said, looking aghast at herself. Her story was about a romantic canoe trip she’d taken several years ago on her birthday. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Good. Good,” said Unger, approving but not sympathizing. “That’s how you get it out. For now, this is what you have to go through.”

“Really?” wailed Soul, still onstage, swiping at her cheeks.

“Yes. Absolutely,” Unger said. “You’re feeling your story, clearly. As you go through the rehearsal process, you’ll start to distance yourself a little bit from the story, just enough to control your emotions and use them the way you want to. Now it’s raw, so you’re feeling it. Want to take a break? Sure. Okay.”

The class clapped hard for Soul.

Danielle Baird’s performance contained no hint of the nervousness . Appearing comfortable onstage, she related a tale of her first motorcycle ride, with a new boyfriend, who’d surprised her at home with an invitation to hop on.

“I don’t do motorcycles—they’re too dangerous,” said Baird. But she somehow found herself wearing a helmet and facing her fear, figuring if she was meant to die that day, she “might as well go out strong.”

The motorcycle, vibrating under Baird’s boyfriend, took on a life of its own.

“This motorcycle was a black, sweet, sexy bike,” said Baird, onstage. “She looked wet, she was so shiny. And if she could talk, she would say, ‘Bitch, you ain’t riding my man.’”

Unger directed Baird to think about the “man versus self” theme of battling her fear, and the “man versus nature” theme of her conflict with the motorcycle itself. One classmate, Bryant McCray, seeking a common thread between Baird’s relationship with the motorcycle and her boyfriend, referred to the motorcycle as a “crotch rocket.”

“Did it turn you on?” Unger asked Baird, unabashedly striking at the heart of the story.

Baird only hesitated a moment.

“Maybe in three more rides it would have,” she laughed.

Mark Franz told a story about almost getting beaten up by a kid riding a 10-speed bicycle, who took exception to Franz cutting him off in the roadway when Franz was driving a '79 Chevy Malibu.

“It’s the ‘Heavy Chevy,’” Franz said. “Black hardtop and gold paint. A muscle car. But I’m a lover, not a fighter. I said, ‘Hey man, relax, I didn’t cut you off.’”

Finding the instant humor in Franz's story, Unger exclaimed, “The only thing muscle about you is your car! You should never get your ass kicked by somebody on a 10-speed! Write that down.”

Franz struggled for the right words to end his story, and Unger spent a moment explaining endings.

“Sometimes great storytelling doesn’t have to have a big finish or a message-y finish,” he said. “It can just simply be over. When you feel you’ve said what you have to say, say goodbye.”

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