‘And Then What Happens?' (Part IV)

Marc Unger wasted no time telling the class to shut up when he began the fourth session in the five-week seminar "The Art of Comedic Storytelling."

“So at this point, I know in the first three classes, we encouraged a lot of back and forth between the performer and all you guys, but now we’re talking more about directing stuff,” said Unger, who is teaching the class with Rain Pryor. “So, if you really have a comment you need to make—”

He changed his mind, deciding to be blunt.

“No, I don’t want to say that,” he finished. “Let’s keep it with Rain and myself.”

Vera Gabriel, one of the 11 students, laughed and rephrased Unger’s directive.

“Everybody shut up,” she said.

Everybody did.

This session was pure business, and Unger and Pryor didn’t mince words.

“Here’s the thing,” said Pryor to Chrisy Baylor, when Baylor was done with her performance. “When you’re up there, the first thing that I want you to knock off is pacing.”

Baylor had paced while she told her story, going back and forth across the stage with an angry energy while she channeled the voice of her abusive grandmother, about whom she wrote her story.

“I liked the opening. I liked seeing Grandma already,” said Pryor when Baylor began her story screeching in her grandmother’s character. “Find a place onstage that is specific for Grandma, and go back there each time. Even with her leg, find her in your body.”

Baylor’s grandmother had a limp, and Pryor wanted to see Baylor impersonate her physically, and not just vocally.

Baylor also impersonated her younger self, going into a child’s voice when she described having to empty her grandmother’s portable toilet.

“Grandma Annie stood up from her chair, took a piece of tissue from the pocket of her housecoat, wiped herself and then dropped it in the bucket, and then handed it to me,” said Baylor, her high-pitched lisp a striking juxtaposition to her impersonation of her grandmother’s harshness. “I was the chosen one. I walked towards the dark hallway. I noticed her poop had pieces of corn in it, and they looked like gold teeth, too.”

Pryor continued to focus on Baylor’s body language.

“At one point when you’re talking about Grandma, find your place,” she said. “And then if you have a line where little Chrisy says something, at 6, and then come find a place in your body for her.”

Baylor got off easy—other than the pacing, her feedback wasn’t harsh.

The others weren’t so lucky.

Unger became increasingly irritated at their stops and starts as they struggled to remember their lines or to find their place in their notes.

“I’m sorry,” said Zack Green, of Sparks, MD, after a halting performance. “Sorry. That was really rough right now.”

“Total blank,” apologized Vera Gabriel, when it was her turn. “Total blank. Um …”

“I’m behind the eight ball,” said Jason Swieczkowski, of White Marsh. “Sorry.”

Unger had none of it.

“Guys, I’m going to be honest with you about something,” he said. “You’ve got a week to memorize your stories. It’s your story, and you have a week. You should be able to have it memorized by then. And if you don’t, wing it.”

Unger stressed that committing to their prepared, written words was not as important as simply letting the story flow.

“Here’s the thing,” he said, when Kat Homan Soul paused during her story about a canoe tipping over. “You know this story so well. And I know you know this story so well, because you’ve told this story 150 thousand times.”

Unger directed Soul to go through her story again, on fast-forward.

“I want you to tell the story as fast as you can,” he said. “I want you to blaze through the story.”

Soul obliged, but still tried to stick with her script.

“I was in a canoe,” she began, using the same words she used during her original performance, but trying to speak quickly. “On a spectacular day. On a peaceful lake. With a good-looking man.”

She stopped.

“I can’t do this fast,” she said.

“Yes you can,” Unger insisted. “You know the story. It happened in your life. Tell the story. I really want you to just throw the words at us, as fast as you can. There’s no wrong answer. The only wrong answer is you thinking. Anything you do beyond that, as long as it’s you speaking to us, is right.”

Soul started reciting, fast, her exact lines, yet again.

But this time, as the story progressed, she deviated from her script and started talking, more conversationally, to the students in the audience.

Her tone changed—she became more comfortable, more effusive. She delivered lines that made the class laugh, which hadn’t been in the story before. She was more sarcastic, when got to the part where she emasculated her date, and her in-character voices were snarkier and more cutting.

Unger looked like he wanted to throw a party.

“Did you guys think it was good?” he asked the class, already knowing the answer.

But his satisfaction was short-lived. Bruce Clara, who performed next, apologized for stumbling through his script.

“I tell ya,” Unger said, “directors get angry when you don’t have stuff memorized. You’ve got to memorize your stories. As a director, it’s the most frustrating thing, because I have nothing to direct. Until you can do what we talked about, which is spit those words out, I’d rather see …”

He trailed off in frustration.

“You got a week, guys.”

After class, Unger expressed his annoyance again.

“If I see anybody read off the paper, I’m going to lose my mind,” Unger said. “Next week’s the last class. So hopefully the most important thing is that everyone has to have their stories down. They have to be memorized, or they have to be prepared to commit to whatever words come out of their mouth.”

Unger likened his teaching style, and Pryor’s, to boot camp.

“Rain and I can tweak their performance, but next week, that’s the drill sergeant class. That’s basically, you guys are going to war, in a week, and you better learn which way to point your gun.”

Editor’s note: You can continue reading Part V .