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“Play increasingly has the function of containing anxiety through displacement”

-Douglas Davies [1]

Jami Gong, who has run the Takeout Comedy Club in Hong Kong for many years, once gave me the most simple and profound piece of advice I’ve ever heard in comedy.

I had just come off stage, having done well on the show. Entering the backstage area, amid the noise and clapping he quietly said to me, “Enjoy the moment.”

I thought about that advice for years. I want to enjoy, but often do not.

Joy should be at the root of all we say and do. Yet oddly enough (or perhaps this comes as no surprise to you) comedy clubs are often environments bereft of joy and happiness.

Maybe you imagine clubs to be all giggles and laughter, the comedians backstage getting warmed up by smashing pies in each other’s faces (not a terrible idea come to think of it…), or howling with laughter in appreciation of the camaraderie we share.

What if it were like that? Open mic transformed into a playground of silliness and mirth rather than free group therapy for dudes sippin’ lager.

Imagine a comedy club where the entrance to the stage is one of those big metal slides that playgrounds used to have back in the 1980s. And every performer goes down the slide to get onto the stage. Doesn’t matter who you are: woman, man, small, large, famous, or a nobody – everybody goes down the slide to get behind the mic. There is really nothing so undignified as an adult human going down a slide on the playground. You must abandon yourself to the appearance of ridiculousness.

And allow me to pile on another crazy idea while I’m at it. The club owner, who wears a trench coat in the summertime and has the demeanor of Willy Wonka sits in the back corner with a slide whistle. Anytime somebody tells a failed joke he blows the whistle to fill the void of silence left behind after the punchline. The whistle means no disrespect – it’s merely there as a reminder. Don’t let the ego overinflate, return to humility, remember your mortality.

Just don’t worry about it. Stop trying to murder, destroy, crush, and kill. Don’t worrying about bombing, dying, tanking, crying.

Just, enjoy the moment.

Why not play a while? Not all play is comedy, but all comedy starts with play. Playfulness is proto-comedy that may evolve into something else. Lord willing it’s not completely crushed under the wheels of our adult lifestyles.

All that nonsense onstage is just a farce of violence, anxiety, and fear. Like kids in the schoolyard playing war, playing house, playing dress up, playing police and firefighter, we are trying to understand our world.

When children play, all the elements of solid comedy are present. There is a lack of self-consciousness that enables an abandonment to foolishness. Kids understand and comment on the world and its painful contradictions. Children use play to work through the traumatic in a powerful and cathartic way. Playfulness displaces anxiety and other uncomfortable emotions. There is a profound creativity that comes from using their imaginations: Imaginations which haven’t yet been corrupted by our adult systems of thinking.

Some comics are still able to play, and comedy is a whole lot of fun. Quite obviously it’s a pleasurable activity making others laugh, otherwise you wouldn’t have people driving 3 hours to Dayton Ohio to perform for 35 audience members in the back of a bowling alley.

Comedy is either a job or a hobby. If you’re not having fun doing comedy as a job, I cannot think of many forms of employment that are so uniquely low paying AND tiring.

And if it’s just a hobby, why would spend your hard-earned free time not enjoying the moment?

1. Davies, Douglas Child Development: A Practitioner’s Guide. (2011) Guilford Press (pg. 268)

Enjoy the Moment