Rubber Room #20 and 21: Capricious Laughter

The Friday night audience was in a laughing mood, but curiously enough many of the laughs in the two performances came at different times. 

This is a small illustration of how the shows are different.  Certain lines always get a laugh because the humor is in the words.  Other times, the humor is in the pause after the words; if the actor does not pause, then there is no room for the laughter to happen; the audience misses its cue.

Certain lines get a laugh because of the delivery.  Sometimes the actor doesn't seem to see the humor in the line, and so neither does the audience. 

Some of the humor comes out of the situation, and has nothing to do with words.  Some of the humor has to do with body language and facial expression; it precedes words. 

See the next post for examples.