The Perfect Comedy

Who doesn't love comedy? Everyone loves to laugh, and watching characters in a play or musical say and do funny things just seems to take all of our troubles away. When you leave the theatre after seeing a comedic show, you feel so happy, and on the way back home, you're quoting all the memorable lines with the friends you brought along. More dramatic plays and musical can be awesome too, but there's nothing quite like a comedy.

What sets apart an average comedy from an amazing one, though? There's three things. The first two, great jokes and funny situations, are obvious, but the last one, great characters, may not be. 

For a comedy to be truly amazing, you can't just have a bunch of gags. This is the problem with many of them. You walk away thinking that the show was amusing, but do you remember anything other than those few comedic lines? Probably not. Do you find any of the characters memorable? Not if they were just cardboard cut-outs there for the sole purpose of making jokes, and that means in a week or two, the show will fade away into the back of your memory. 

The comedies that really stand out are the ones with great characters. Take for example, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. This show is great - it has great music, is hilarious, and has very human, very interesting characters. Freddy is a bumbling, want-to-be con-artist who is looking to get rich quick. He's creative, but he's also gullible and a bit stupid. His rival, Lawrence, is the exact opposite. He's charming, smooth, and cunning, but he also has an emotional side that comes out later on in the play. Along with the side-splitting moments in the show, like the Ruprecht scene and the Oklahoma? song, there's parts, especially toward the end (don't worry, I won't give anything way), that are very emotional. We get to know the characters like their our friends, and even though I saw the show a few months ago, Freddy Benson, Lawrence Jamison, and their adventures have still stayed in my mind.

The Producers, one of the most successful comedies in musical theatre, also has the advantage of great characters. A lot of the characters are stereotypes, but Max and Leo, the two main characters, are very real. From what I've seen, most people who like this show like it because they can relate to one or both of them. Max is always looking to get rich. He's a bit depressed by his failures, and can be a bit lazy, but he always finds some avenue that will get him his way. The audience also sees during the 'Til Him scene that he can have a bit of a sentimental side. Leo, on the other hand, is shy and timid. He's neurotic and always fearful, but he dreams of life as a big, successful Broadway producer, even though he's afraid to pursue this career at first. I'm sure everyone who wants to work in theatre has had some sort of daydream similar to the one he has during I Wanna Be A Producer. These two characters help this musical stay in our minds long after the final curtain has fallen, since it's easy for audience members to find ways to relate to them.

Sure, a comedy needs to be funny. That's a given. But for a comedy to be truly amazing and memorable, it can't just make us laugh. It has to have some great characters for us to remember as well, or else it will become "just another show" instead of being one of those shows that you never forget.

- Marina