Here, Sarah Kendall tells us about her Fringe show, A Day in October...
My show this year is called ‘A Day In October’ and it’s definitely got a much darker underbelly than anything I’ve done in the past.
For me, it’s been a very rewarding challenge to create something that is comic and tragic in equal doses. All of my favorite comedy comes from this same place: laughing through the tears (or crying through laughter).
For me it feels like that’s when comedy is doing it’s best and most important work. And yes, I know that sentence made me sound like a w*****.
I saw a documentary years ago about the film-director Mike Nichols. I had first seen The Graduate when I was 15 and fell in love with it instantly. It was so sexy and unsexy and funny and depressing and optimistic but really not optimistic at all.
In the documentary they interviewed Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman about the production of the film. Mike Nichols had come from a very strong improv background, as one half of the legendary double act Nichols and May, and he encouraged the actors to improvise. Some of the finest comic moments in that film were ad-libbed.
One of my favorites is the moment Dustin Hoffman clumsily places his hand on Anne Bancroft’s breast, and her devastatingly underwhelmed response - trying to rub a stain out of her sweater. Humiliated, Dustin Hoffman goes and simply bashes his head against a wall.
There was a moment in this documentary that was a total revelation for me. Dustin Hoffman said that he and Anne Bancroft and Mike Nichols were all on the same page creatively: they were just trying to play the truth.
They weren’t playing it as a ‘comedy’ or a ‘drama’, because life doesn’t work in genres. It’s just life. It’s everything happening all at once. I realized that this was the common element to all the comedy that I love. The Apartment is another one of my favorite films.
It’s become so famous as a rom-com that it’s easy to forget the suicide attempt, the stomach pumping, and all the loveless extra-marital sex. Billy Wilder loved switching it around; Some Like It Hot begins with a massacre.
A massacre for God’s sake! The darkness in both of these films makes the comedy so much richer, because something is at stake. This isn’t just a bunch of jokes hanging off a plot; people’s lives are in the balance.
These are characters whose backs are against the wall. They have nowhere to turn. They’re desperate. So what do they do? Something unbelievably stupid that gets them into even deeper s***.
I totally agree with Dustin Hoffman’s philosophy, but playing the ‘truth’ isn’t always a pleasant space to be in creatively. These ‘truths’ can be confronting. Sometimes the truth is that you are a coward. Or that you betrayed your closest friend to save your own neck. Or that you’re greedy. Or a lousy parent. Or hateful. Or envious.
You have to be willing to shine a light on the behavior you’re probably least proud of, because - let’s be honest- that’s the stuff that makes us interesting. And for me, it’s what makes us funny and bizarre and terrible and wonderful.
The truth might be that you’d seduce your best friend’s college-aged son, or let your boss use your apartment to cheat on his wife in the hope it scores you a promotion. But you might fall in love while you’re doing it and be the best person you’ve ever been. You might find some courage after all. It’s everything happening all at once. It’s life.
See A Day In October at Assembly George Square Studios – Studio Five until August 31st.
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