By Contributor Pam Victor
Introducing “Geeking
Out with … ”
This will be a series of interviews with well-known, highly experienced
improvisers. It’s a chance to talk about stuff that might interest only
hardcore improv dorkwads like me. And probably you (and I mean that in the most
sincere, loving way.) For an extended, full-frontal geek-out version of this
interview, please visit my blog, My
Nephew is a Poodle.
The first time I met Chris Gethard, I was handing him a demi-cup, lace bra in the ImprovBoston green room. He and his troupe were embarking on a cross-country comedy road trip in an RV, and I asked if he would deliver the bra to another comedian I hardly knew in L.A.
The first time I met Chris Gethard, I was handing him a demi-cup, lace bra in the ImprovBoston green room. He and his troupe were embarking on a cross-country comedy road trip in an RV, and I asked if he would deliver the bra to another comedian I hardly knew in L.A.
“Did you put perfume on it?” Chris simply asked in
response to my request.
I blushed and snatched the bra out of his hands to
smell it in confirmation of what I already knew. (Why did I need to smell my
own bra in front of Chris Gethard?! To this day, I still can’t answer that
question.)
“Actually, it’s essential oil,” said the
fragrance-free gal from western Mass., before choking out, “cinnamon.”
And that was pretty much the sum total of our
interaction.
The whole bra/RV stunt was an attempt to perform
again with a comedian who once plucked me out of the audience to have a
date on stage during the Del Close Marathon several years ago.
Believe me, it’s not a pro-feminism story I will be writing in to the Smith College Alumni Quarterly any time soon. But I will say that, to his great credit, Chris Gethard
successfully transported my lingerie across the continent.
Since the age of 19,
Gethard has been at Upright
Citizen’s Brigade Theatre, where he teaches classes and performs
with The Stepfathers. He has a host of choice gigs on his resume, such as guest
writing for Saturday
Night Live and the "Onion
News Network," multiple appearances on Late
Night with Conan O’Brien, and last year, starring in Will Ferrell and Adam
McKay’s sitcom on Comedy Central, Big Lake, which also featured
Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell. These days, he has his own cable access show The Chris Gethard Show, billed as “the
most bizarre and often saddest talk show in New York City.” Recently, we sat down to chat virtually about improv. And neti pots. Gethard was suffering through a sinus
infection.
Pam Victor: Sorry to hear you’re sick. I’m just getting
over something. I’m a neti pot user.
Chris Gethard: Oh, I do the neti pot too. I’m at the point though where I know it will hurt really badly. You ever have that? Where the sinuses get so bad that the neti pot is like pouring glass into your own head?
Pam Victor: Yes. That’s when I stop doing it usually.
Chris Gethard: Oh, I do the neti pot too. I’m at the point though where I know it will hurt really badly. You ever have that? Where the sinuses get so bad that the neti pot is like pouring glass into your own head?
Pam Victor: Yes. That’s when I stop doing it usually.
(Opening an interview with neti pot stories: Worse
or better than smelling your own bra? You be the judge.)
Pam Victor: How did you get into improv? What’s your training?
Chris Gethard: Well, I started in high school. A teacher who knew I was kind of a wise ass sort of twisted my arm into signing up for her drama class, and we just did improv the whole time. I was pretty immediately obsessed. [Then] I went to Rutgers, auditioned for their short form troupe, and had a year of just desperately trying to get into this short form group. I fought and fought to get in … took me three semesters to get in. Then was like ... obsessed with it, but [short form] burned out fast. I enjoyed short form, but I figured out very quickly that there were tricks to it, and I felt the ceiling of it fast.
Pam Victor: How did you get into improv? What’s your training?
Chris Gethard: Well, I started in high school. A teacher who knew I was kind of a wise ass sort of twisted my arm into signing up for her drama class, and we just did improv the whole time. I was pretty immediately obsessed. [Then] I went to Rutgers, auditioned for their short form troupe, and had a year of just desperately trying to get into this short form group. I fought and fought to get in … took me three semesters to get in. Then was like ... obsessed with it, but [short form] burned out fast. I enjoyed short form, but I figured out very quickly that there were tricks to it, and I felt the ceiling of it fast.
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| Chris Gethard!
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So after my sophomore year, I started taking
classes at UCB. My first class, I think, was a week before my 20th
birthday … and from there I was just obsessed. I’m lucky; my group in college was
good and motivated. Everyone was good, but there was a crew that all went to
UCB, to long form, that I lead the charge on. And I think all of us are still
doing it professionally.
Pam Victor: I get the obsession
thing. What about improv obsesses you so much?
Chris Gethard: The thing about
improv that obsesses me so much is that any show could be your best show ever.
Every time you step on stage, you might hit a rhythm you’ve never hit before,
say something funnier, connect harder with your teammates, whatever. It’s
addictive, but I find myself chasing it even after eleven years of doing it at
UCB.
Pam Victor: Are you a risk-taker
in real life?
Chris Gethard: Yeah. Big
time, to a stupid degree. I am mocked for it.
Pam Victor: So
that’s where your style of comedy come from, you think? That sense of, “Let’s
get Chris to do it ... he’ll do anything”?
Chris Gethard: I don’t know. It’s
definitely hard to know how you’re viewed on stage, but I actually think on
stage I tend to be the one more in control. I think I lean more straight
man/pointing things out. I’m not very good at characters or object work. Most
of my characters are very similar to me. But that’s where being a semi-strange
person gives me an advantage, because I think I’ve had a decent amount of life
experience, so playing close to myself isn’t a hindrance. I am pretty good at
adjusting and playing most situations with a certain degree of integrity.
Opening an interview with neti pot stories: Worse or better than smelling your own bra? You be the judge.
I
think, eleven years in though, I focus more on taking my attitude from improv
[than performing it], the things I’ve discovered with it, and putting them into
things like storytelling, my talk show, and stand up. Improv is my base that I
apply to everything.
Pam Victor: That last sentence makes me smile. Ok, The Chris Gethard Show, your cable-access show. Tell me about what you’re going for there — it’s so unlike anything that’s out there right now, sort of Theatre of the Absurd, sort of Fellini, sort of Howard Stern. It’s fascinating.
Chris Gethard: Thank you! We’ve definitely all built it together over time, all the people on camera and organizing it on my end … when you’re comfortable with each other and you let your guard down and realize that the people up there with you are your safety net, your limits can really get stretched. So we get really revealing. We sometimes get violent. We see how far we can push each other.
Pam Victor: UCB seems very masculine energy. I don’t know if you read the WICF piece or not, but Joe Bill and I have been going back and forth a lot lately on masculine vs. feminine improv.
Chris Gethard: I would say one of the biggest assets of the UCB is that I think it’s unquestionably the punk rock theater. It’s a little dirtier and less polished, but very, very ballsy and in your face … if you divide comedy up by masculine/feminine, it’s probably fair to say that UCB is on the masculine end of the spectrum.
Pam Victor: Can you tell me about how you are trained for that there?
Chris Gethard: You know, the game is at the core of the UCB style and philosophy, the idea that you can isolate one central core funny idea in each scene, that each scene can have its comedy defined by one core principle that you then make a pattern out of. And I think on some level, there’s a math-like quality to that … on some level I wonder if that might give UCB that more masculine energy. It’s based on patterns and there is something of a formula in the way they teach people to communicate.
Pam Victor: So that’s your go-to on stage? You’re listening for the game of the scene?
Chris Gethard: It’s not even a go-to. Game isn’t a go-to, that’s not even the way to phrase it. It’s a language.
Pam Victor: Ok. So for me, personally, defining and develop the relationship between characters is what I think of as my go-to. How would you phrase it?
Chris Gethard: I kind of don’t get when improvisers say relationship is at the core of their scenes. I literally don’t understand it because that’s like saying that breathing air is at the core of living. That’s a starting point. People knock UCB, knock the game style, say relationship is the alternative, but relationship is a given. Game basically says, “Focus on what’s unique about THIS relationship.” What’s interesting or weird or funny or unique about this particular relationship? And how do you extend that to apply to all other aspects of the world these characters live in? And on top of that, I think if you only think about relationship, you cut off the part of your brain that does presentational things, abstract things, all the things that happen in improv that don’t even happen between two characters …
Pam Victor: That last sentence makes me smile. Ok, The Chris Gethard Show, your cable-access show. Tell me about what you’re going for there — it’s so unlike anything that’s out there right now, sort of Theatre of the Absurd, sort of Fellini, sort of Howard Stern. It’s fascinating.
Chris Gethard: Thank you! We’ve definitely all built it together over time, all the people on camera and organizing it on my end … when you’re comfortable with each other and you let your guard down and realize that the people up there with you are your safety net, your limits can really get stretched. So we get really revealing. We sometimes get violent. We see how far we can push each other.
Pam Victor: UCB seems very masculine energy. I don’t know if you read the WICF piece or not, but Joe Bill and I have been going back and forth a lot lately on masculine vs. feminine improv.
Chris Gethard: I would say one of the biggest assets of the UCB is that I think it’s unquestionably the punk rock theater. It’s a little dirtier and less polished, but very, very ballsy and in your face … if you divide comedy up by masculine/feminine, it’s probably fair to say that UCB is on the masculine end of the spectrum.
Pam Victor: Can you tell me about how you are trained for that there?
Chris Gethard: You know, the game is at the core of the UCB style and philosophy, the idea that you can isolate one central core funny idea in each scene, that each scene can have its comedy defined by one core principle that you then make a pattern out of. And I think on some level, there’s a math-like quality to that … on some level I wonder if that might give UCB that more masculine energy. It’s based on patterns and there is something of a formula in the way they teach people to communicate.
Pam Victor: So that’s your go-to on stage? You’re listening for the game of the scene?
Chris Gethard: It’s not even a go-to. Game isn’t a go-to, that’s not even the way to phrase it. It’s a language.
Pam Victor: Ok. So for me, personally, defining and develop the relationship between characters is what I think of as my go-to. How would you phrase it?
Chris Gethard: I kind of don’t get when improvisers say relationship is at the core of their scenes. I literally don’t understand it because that’s like saying that breathing air is at the core of living. That’s a starting point. People knock UCB, knock the game style, say relationship is the alternative, but relationship is a given. Game basically says, “Focus on what’s unique about THIS relationship.” What’s interesting or weird or funny or unique about this particular relationship? And how do you extend that to apply to all other aspects of the world these characters live in? And on top of that, I think if you only think about relationship, you cut off the part of your brain that does presentational things, abstract things, all the things that happen in improv that don’t even happen between two characters …
The thing about improv that obsesses me so much is that any show could be your best show ever.
I get defensive
sometimes. I think sometimes we get a bad rap in the improv community … but I
think sometimes people say, “UCB is aggressive and loud and fast and no one
listens,” but I don’t think that’s true. You have The Swarm, one of the most
patient teams ever. You have Respecto [Montalban], balls to the wall rockstar
improv, and they all have at their core this engine driving things, called
game.
Pam Victor: You wrote on Facebook once, “The question behind every comedic choice I make on stage, every joke I write is, ‘Would this make teenagers in northern New Jersey laugh?’”
Chris Gethard: Yeah. I just want weird kids to like what I do, anything I come up with, that I put my name on or whatever. That’s in my head, “Would me and my brother have liked this if we randomly found it in 1995?” Like we used to find shows on the UHF channels and public access channels.
Pam Victor: You consider yourself to be a “weird kid?”
Chris Gethard: One of the weirdest!
Pam Victor: Last question: You gallantly transported my cinnamon-scented, ivory, lace, demi-cup bra from Boston to L.A. First of all, thank you. I envisioned the bra ending up in a truck stop somewhere in Texas or gathering road dust on the side of the road in Nevada. But you got it there and into the hands of its intended. Where did it travel?
Chris Gethard: Your bra was tucked away safely and secretly in the bag where I store my laptop. My laptop is where I keep everything I’ve ever written, every project I’m working on, every outline for a show idea for my talk show that I have. What I am telling you, no bullshit, is that for some reason I took the cross-continental transport of your underwear VERY SERIOUSLY. I put it where I knew it would be safe.
Pam Victor: Wow. The treasure chest of hiding places. I really thought it would be hanging from the rearview mirror with shit written on it. Thank you.
Chris Gethard: No, no. You gave me a mission, and I executed it. It was my pleasure.
Pam Victor: You wrote on Facebook once, “The question behind every comedic choice I make on stage, every joke I write is, ‘Would this make teenagers in northern New Jersey laugh?’”
Chris Gethard: Yeah. I just want weird kids to like what I do, anything I come up with, that I put my name on or whatever. That’s in my head, “Would me and my brother have liked this if we randomly found it in 1995?” Like we used to find shows on the UHF channels and public access channels.
Pam Victor: You consider yourself to be a “weird kid?”
Chris Gethard: One of the weirdest!
Pam Victor: Last question: You gallantly transported my cinnamon-scented, ivory, lace, demi-cup bra from Boston to L.A. First of all, thank you. I envisioned the bra ending up in a truck stop somewhere in Texas or gathering road dust on the side of the road in Nevada. But you got it there and into the hands of its intended. Where did it travel?
Chris Gethard: Your bra was tucked away safely and secretly in the bag where I store my laptop. My laptop is where I keep everything I’ve ever written, every project I’m working on, every outline for a show idea for my talk show that I have. What I am telling you, no bullshit, is that for some reason I took the cross-continental transport of your underwear VERY SERIOUSLY. I put it where I knew it would be safe.
Pam Victor: Wow. The treasure chest of hiding places. I really thought it would be hanging from the rearview mirror with shit written on it. Thank you.
Chris Gethard: No, no. You gave me a mission, and I executed it. It was my pleasure.
Read the rest of Pam's interview with Chris Gethard at My Nephew is a Poodle.
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| Photo credit: Jeff Hausthor |
Pam Victor is the founding member of The Ha-Ha’s, and she produces The Happier Valley Comedy Shows. Pam directs, produces and performs in the hot, new comic soap opera web series "Silent H, Deadly H". Pam also writes mostly humorous, mostly true essays and reviews of books, movies and tea on her blog, "My Nephew is a Poodle."
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