I’d Like to Tell You About Our Sketch Comedy Troupe
We Are the Comedic Voice of a Generation — Anxiety-Ridden, Verging on Despair, Unable to Feign Enthusiasm For Anything.
Some collaborators and I have formed a new sketch comedy troupe. And believe me: this is not your grandfather’s sketch comedy troupe. Or your father’s, even. Ours. It’s ours. Did I not make that clear?
If, in its litany of genocides and famine, history has taught us anything, it is that the desperation of a culture is written in the faces of any fledging sketch comedy troupe’s promotional photos. Archeologists will ponder over these images — wondering if perhaps this was a group of POWs forced into antic poses for their captors’ amusement, or a ragtag group of scientists attempting to generate and gather flop sweat as an energy source.
We’re not like that, though. We won’t be doing “wacky” — there will be no Hawaiian shirts. There will be no ball caps turned sidewise.
We dress like undertakers, or real estate people. We’ve been described as “nondescript.”
We do not wear wigs, we do not prance, we do not do topical sketches or impressions of anyone famous. There are no quick changes between scenes.
There will be very limited use of “adult” language, and almost no jokes about sex or bodily functions. Nudity will be brief. And consistently ashamed.
There is very little shouting or rapid movement. We will speak in measured, no-nonsense tones, and will get straight to the point.
There will be no rhetorical flourishes — no metaphors or similes, no hyperbole of any kind. We will not exaggerate. Ever. We use plain speech, mostly.
We don’t use props of any kind. Or mime. If a sketch calls for us to open a window, for instance, we aren’t going to insult your intelligence by pretending to do so. We will open a doggone window. Or, if no window is near at hand, we will forego this bit of business. No mime phones, no mime steering wheels.
There are long stretches when nothing much seems to be happening — when we are taking a meal, for instance, or pumping gas. There will be extended sequences when we just sit watching TV. Less frequently, we can be seen reading.
We will not drag you out of your seat. We will not call you up on “stage”. We will not take suggestions from the audience.
Rather than incurring the expense and risk of renting a theater, our work takes place in office buildings and dog parks. We will appear — individually, or in pairs and small groups — for eight or ten hours at a stretch in a call center, say, providing tech support for folks who bought a Dell that’s been acting screwy, or we’ll sit behind a desk at a car dealership, waiting for you to come in. If you bring your dog in for grooming, we’ll be there, wearing a smock.
Our sketches, we concede, often verge on the formless, so loose is their structure. They are usually about 70 years in duration, give or take. Till we die. Shorter if we get hit by a car, or something. It’s a rotating cast. And the running time of the show is pretty open-ended, really.
The “pay off” of our sketches is, if we’re being honest, pretty hard to see, most of the time.
When one of us expires, in our beds or in a hospice, on a boat or in a fire, and we don’t show up at the car wash, or the admissions office, or the food truck, there is always a scene where they have to interview the guy who will replace us. The guy is usually, with some not-too significant variation, more or less the same as the guy he’s replacing.
After some deliberation, we have opted to call ourselves Clown Fart. Because as the name suggests, our work probably seems silly on the face of it, but is in point of fact quite mortifying to all present.
We are everywhere. And the show is ongoing.
So when you hear the glum exhale of the slide whistle, you will know a sketch is over. Or when you hear the forlorn ballad made by the gently squeezed bulb of a bicycle horn, you will know a punchline has been delivered. Whenever a wiseass online types “sad trombone,” you will know we have lost a cast member. And when you hear the dim and faraway strains of the calliope, or of a retreating train whistle, you will know that some number of us have been claimed by The Great Callback.
Watch for us. In the cubicle next to yours, or at the bus stop. If you have adequate perspective, the show is super, super funny. Keep watching. You’ll get there.
You can find longer essays, satire, fiction, and info on the workshops I teach in Chicago on my site: ianbelknap.com — also, check out the WRITE CLUB podcast
