Comedy Acting for the Theatre: The Art and Craft of Performing in Comedies by Sidney Homan and Brian Rhinehart
Paul Willcocks
Friday, March 1, 2019
Informative but aimed at too general a readership. Published by Bloomsbury
In this informative book on comedy acting, writers Homan and Rhinehart state their aim is to ‘better enable actors to reach an audience and play the characters’. So are they successful?
To a point. Starting from the sensible viewpoint that ‘laughter is something real, not theoretical’, Homan and Rinehart analyse why laughter happens, often linking it to ‘incongruity’ – a sense of tension. There are some very useful sections in this book which will aid the comedic actor: improvisation exercises; advice on timing; playing the through-line; and, towards the end, a handy chapter on four forms of comedy: farce, physical, romantic and social-political.
However, as the subtitle of the book suggests, there is a blurring here between ‘art’ and ‘craft’. A lot of advice offered is on comedy in specific plays (such as Reza's Art or Frayn's Noises Off) but notes on craft are sometimes buried beneath overlong analysis of what makes that play ‘tick’. Furthermore, not all the ‘comedy plays’ chosen by the writers seem particularly funny. Of course, this is a matter of taste but a few more examples from Moliere and fewer from John Pielmeier might help.
In their coda, Homan and Rhinehart identify two audiences for their book; ‘actors wanting to perfect their skills as comedic actors’ and ‘general readers who…like to see comedies’. And herein lies the problem. Balanced somewhere between the two, there is a nagging feeling that this comprehensive treaty on the art and craft of comedy will satisfy neither.