Comedy as a Peculiar Brand of Solipsism

There are things worth enjoying in life created by people who aren’t me, and I understand this. SF Sketchfest is among such things, and tonight was the Closing Night Cabaret. The sketch comedy presented on stage, however, was not the only species of amusement on display at tonight’s performance.

While some contend that tragedy, together with time, amounts to comedy, I humbly posit an umbrella theorem, a more general formula that equates comedy to tragedy—whether temporally proximate or remote—that befalls somebody who is not oneself. (Doesn’t time simply enable one to view one’s past self as someone divorced from one’s current self?)

Here’s the case at hand. Before the start of the show, there were two people, a man and a woman, sitting behind me in the theater engaged in what at first blush resembled a congenial conversation between two old friends. Below is my best attempt at reconstructing their exchange.

Man:

And how’s New York?

Woman:

It’s great. I love it.

Man:

So… you’re finding work?

Woman:

Well, I haven’t gone in for auditions in a while. Did I tell you? I’m teaching classes now. Acting classes. So…

Man:

So you’re teaching and not doing it much anymore.

Woman:

Sometimes I do wonder, “Did I go to drama school to do this?” (Laughs self-consciously.)

Man:

(abruptly) But you have a job. And live in a city that you like. That’s important.

Woman:

Have you been?

Man:

To visit. Not to live. I could never live in New York.

(Awkward pause.)

But the classes are going well?

Woman:

You know, it’s funny, when I think about teaching acting classes… When I was twenty-seven, I thought I was too old for acting classes, you know, but now that…

At this point in the conversation, I leaned over to one of my comrades and lamented that I didn’t have a notepad or digital recorder on me because I desperately wanted to have a verbatim document of the masterfully executed passive-aggressive torment this man was directing at this poor woman. His remarks, delivered in a condescending tone but spoken softly so as to suggest genuine concern, were somehow at once a bald-faced attack on her life choices and a subtle act of malice deftly disguised as friendly interest. Even now I’m not entirely certain whether the woman was artfully dodging and parrying his intended blows to her person or whether she was merely oblivious to his somewhat dissembled patronizing abuse.

I was more bemused than amused at this point, baffled by the complicated relationship between these two friends evidenced in their conversation. By now I had missed a good portion of their dialogue, but with my curiosity piqued, I tuned back in.

Man:

Well, it was good seeing you.

Woman:

Good to see you, too.

Man:

And let me know about the job. We could use you in our sales department.

Woman:

Oh. You know, I do miss San Francisco.

Man:

It’d be great to have you back here. (Gets up to leave.) Take care now.

Woman:

Uh-huh. You too.

This is the moment at which, in my mind, I muttered incredulously, “Sales department?”

With that one comment, this man—a man whom I never saw because I had the courtesy to refrain from turning around to cast disapproving glances—went from resembling a real person, with a rich, inscrutable psychology, to conforming to a stock bad-guy character, in caricature, from a second-rate, probably independent, film about how hard it is to be an actor, writer, director, painter, dancer, or musician in this heartless, artless world of ours when the road to success stretches so tortuously uphill. And thus a situation initially fraught with complexity and veiled cruelty devolved into bromidic farce.

It is in this tired burlesque that we find some comic elements. Who is this Naysayer, and does he consider himself a sensible realist, or does he possess the self-awareness to label himself correctly as a grade-A douchebag? Who is this Failed Actress, and is she also a failure at making friends who are not douchebags? Indeed, these figures would be tragic and nothing more if they weren’t such gross parodies of themselves and if, of course, one of them were me and not some individual entirely distinct from me.

All in all, the closing night of SF Sketchfest was a good time. I’ll probably try to go again next year.