Introduction
Our next unit in English is the Humor Unit. Throughout this unit, we studied various forms of comedy in media and popular culture. For example, we read the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco as an example of abstract humor. We used these lessons to inform our own humor projects.
Proposal
My proposal was to do a live stand-up performance tying into my personal struggles with anxiety, and how that impacts my day-to-day life. I feel like this is a great way for me to share a part of myself with my peers in a way that’s not too difficult or heavy. Hopefully, being open and genuine about my challenges (and mocking them a bit, because they can be a little ridiculous) will help anyone else who might be going through something similar.
As for some of the humor techniques I would like to use during my performance, defusing anxiety is one of them. Considering the subject matter, it’s fitting. My material might get kind of heavy, so the humor will have to lighten the tone and defuse the tension. I’ll most likely use a lot of exaggeration, because 99% of what I say in real life is exaggerated anyway (see what I did there?). I also would like to use an anecdote or two to establish a common thread within the stand-up act and help get my message across.
Pre-Production Script
This is the transcript I came up with for my stand-up performance.
Umm hi, so, I want you all to know that I probably wrote this whole thing at 1am last night. That’s a lie though, I wrote it a week ago. Or not. It’s me, so, will you ever know the truth? Probably not! (I’m so meta, right?) Enjoy me being an Unreliable Narrator for the next 3 minutes! It’ll be the funniest thing you’ve seen in your life.
If I do, in fact, save this all ‘till the last moment, rest assured that it is not because I’m lazy. In fact, I will have spent hours of the past few nights staring at a blinking cursor. You see, I get a lot of anxiety from a lot of little things. Anxiety that keeps me from doing those little things entirely, which leads to a whole spiral. I consider it a miracle that I didn’t just skip class today, but I mean, I’m only up here for 2 or 3 minutes. How hard can it be, right? I have my water bottle, my microphone, I’m practically a professional. This is about as easy as can be… (crushes water bottle)
There’s probably something wrong with my brain. When I was three a door fell on my head. That’s all the context you’re getting, sorry! A little mystery is good for you.
It’s funny, the kinds of things I stress myself out about now. Public speaking, test scores, the Zenith project, my crippling existential dread. Just typical high school things. When I was a little kid my anxiety manifested itself completely differently. I worried about things like volcano eruptions in Seattle. No, that isn’t an exaggeration, these were thoughts my little brain ran wild with all day. Brain activity, wow… it’s been forever since I’ve had any of that.
Thank you, thank you. I can’t tell if your laughter is genuine or generous (if it’s the latter I don’t blame you), but either way thank you for humoring me in my attempts to be humorous. I know this has been pretty painful and we all want it to end, myself especially. Sorry if you’re feeling cheated, I know I promised it’d be the funniest thing you’ve ever seen or something like that, but you really should’ve seen this coming.
I did say I was unreliable!
Live Performance
You can tell that I took some liberties with the initial script I was meant to follow, in order to make it feel more natural. I felt most comfortable performing my stand-up as if it was just a conversation, without the pressure of telling every joke perfectly and following the script exactly. Overall, I’m very proud of how I stepped outside of my comfort zone and came out with a successful and funny routine.
You can watch my live performance below!
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