All in the Timing
Jean Schiffman
January 8, 2004

What is comic timing, anyway? Is it a skill or technique, or is it merely a fancy way to say "good comic acting"? And, if it exists, is it innate, or can it, must it, be taught?

These questions came to mind recently after seeing three knockout comedies: Charles Mee's Wintertime and Michael Frayn's Noises Off, both by San José Repertory Theatre, and A.R. Gurney's The Fourth Wall (Palo Alto's TheatreWorks). Some of the West Coast's best comic talent appeared in these plays. How did timing, if it exists as such, figure into the mix?

"Actors are a little afraid to talk about timing because it makes us seem like Borscht Belt hacks," says Danny Scheie, an actor/director who teaches drama at U.C. Santa Cruz and played, ironically, a drama professor in The Fourth Wall. "That's part of the embarrassment that goes back to when actors were [considered] whores. Musicians and dancers aren't afraid to talk about technique! But if actors talk in this way about how to get a laugh, you're just a cheap hack."

Nevertheless, he and a few others were happy to rattle on about comic timing?which they all agree exists, even though no one came up with a conclusive definition.

"An actor can only give half an answer to what comic timing is," muses Scheie. "It has something to do with the timing of a pause, a line, an exchange. In movies, the editor can fix all that. But theatre involves a handshake between actor and audience: 'I'm going to hold a little longer here, and you're going to laugh.'" In other words, it doesn't function independently of the audience; it has to do with knowing when, and how long, to hold for a laugh, when to begin speaking again, when to move physically, how to surf the crest of a wave of laughter. "Sometimes if you wait a hair, a huge laugh comes that you didn't know was there," Scheie continues. "Or [things] suddenly stop, and that's comic in the way that cartoons are funny when they speed up or go in slow motion." He adds ruefully, "You can work on your timing for a month during rehearsals, and the stagehands are laughing, but it's always a surprise when it gets in front of the audience."

Scheie means it's a surprise to the actors but, more important, timing has to do with surprising the viewers.

Dan Hiatt of Noises Off agrees. It's about having an odd reaction that catches the audience off guard, he guesses. Also, he says, "It's knowing when to throw away or undercut a line, or when the audience is expecting a different response?knowing when to give up a laugh here and there for a bigger payoff later." He confesses that he generally goes for all the laughs because he can't figure out how to sacrifice a few.


Funny Ha Ha

"Actors have talked about comic timing ad nauseam over the centuries," observes Kimberly King. She wafted around the stage as a drolly spaced-out housewife in The Fourth Wall. "We're obsessed with it. Fortunately we have a hundred years of film and television to draw upon." Both she and Hiatt say they've had a funny bone since childhood. Hiatt got his first laugh in a third-grade play and was hooked. He thinks it's natural for the youngest sibling to be the family clown, and he came from a funny family. King thinks her ingrained sense of the absurdity of life gave her an advantage, plus she grew up watching the old comedy routines over and over: Nick and Nora films; Topper; Jackie Gleason and Art Carney; Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett; and Donald O'Connor, who, she says, refined the art of the triple take. More recently she's learned a lot from her colleague Jimmy (Charles) Dean, currently appearing in Wintertime, and she admires such contemporary masters of comedy as John Leguizamo, Janeane Garofalo, and Bill Cosby. "But what is comic timing?" I persist.

King believes it's related to the way the lines are written. Commedia dell'arte, Molière, Shakespeare?the funny lines have a certain inherent rhythm, and if the actor can tap into that rhythm, and, presumably, trust it, then the timing plays itself.

Getting your timing down is a trial-and-error process, which is what previews are for. Scheie thinks preview audiences should be credited in the program because they help make the show what it is. King, playing Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, says to Bottom-as-donkey that she wants to kiss "thy fair large ears," but she never got a laugh until one night she crooned, "thy fair large ears," and the audience hooted.

The catch is, once you have it figured out, audiences can trick you. Hiatt thought he had a guaranteed yuk in Noises: After a long exchange between two other characters, there was a brief silence, then he'd mutter, "Sorry," and the audience would crack up. But all of a sudden the audience started guffawing right after the long exchange. Thus Hiatt, through no fault of his own, lost the window of opportunity, and the resulting laugh, for his "Sorry."

Not only that, but your timing can work for one audience and not for another. King says comedy in general exists in a kind of microclimate, varying from culture to culture, town to town, and night to night, and each performer must adapt his or her sense of humor to that microclimate. Sunday matinee audiences, for instance, are notoriously reserved, so actors know not to hold for laughs as long, if at all. As Scheie says, "Like blackjack, there are ways to beat the house if you're consistent. But there's an element of chance and unpredictability, too."

Maura Vincent, a Los Angeles actor and teacher, hesitated to take on her role in Noises Off because she does not consider herself to have natural comic timing. She says her co-star, British actor Jane Carr, is so comically adept that in rehearsal she could point to a bit of business and say with assurance, "That's not going to be funny." Confides Vincent, "I'm utterly simple and direct, combined with emotional intention." That translates into comic timing in well-written plays like Noises Off. "When you try to overdo it, it becomes general, and it's not funny."

Hiatt agrees that you can go astray by trying too hard. "Comedy comes out of intentions," he says. He recalls the old theatre adage about Alfred Lunt: The famed actor had a line in which he asked for a cup of tea, and it got a laugh every night. Then suddenly it didn't. Lunt tried doing the line faster, slower, taking a pause before, during, and after it, and nothing worked. He complained to the playwright, Noel Coward, who said, "My dear boy, why don't you try just asking for a cup of tea?"

Honing Humor

If we haven't established precisely what comic timing is, we've perhaps ascertained that it does exist. But can it be taught?

"No," says King firmly.

Hiatt wavers: "I think it's somewhat innate or learned early on."

"Like singing or dancing, you're born with it." Vincent theorizes. "People like Danny Scheie, Dan Hiatt, Geoff Hoyle, Maureen McVerry [all Bay Area?based actors] have an instrument that's highly tuned to that specific skill. It has to do with what you observe and what you don't observe in the world. Maybe it can be taught to a certain level, but not to the level of genius." Jane Carr advises Vincent that if audience laughter is too prolonged, move physically and they'll stop laughing and you can come in with your line.

"A lot of aspects of acting can be taught," says Scheie. "But you can't teach, for example, talent. I think people are born with a gift for timing. Maybe there's a timing gene. You can also acquire it through experience, but it can't be taught by the numbers like geometry." When he was appearing in the wacky The Mystery of Irma Vep, an actor who'd played the role before him counseled, "If this costume change takes two seconds, you get a scream of laughter and applause. If it takes two and a half seconds, you don't get anything." Says Scheie, "Trying to scientifically explain that is really hard. But at the same time, I'm resistant to saying it's magical or mystical." He notes that directors can calibrate the tempo to assure comic timing; it's not entirely the actor's responsibility. He concludes, "Comic timing is not technically acquirable, but experience hones it.

"If only we could figure out the formula," he adds. "Rehearsals could be a lot shorter, you could hire actors more easily?and it wouldn't be as much fun to go to the theatre."