...Michael Portnoy; Evan Hill Michael Portnoy s 100 Beautiful Jokes, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2014. Photo: Ernst van Deursen. Courtesy of the artist Interview Complicating Comedy, Engineering Behavior A Conversation with Michael Portnoy Interviewed and introduced by Evan Hill When I introduce...

... clowning and partisan ridicule inflect both left-­wing satirical news and reactionary right-­wing trolling. Controversies around comic offenses occasion extensive debates about the moral affordances and limits of jokes, as we crowdsource our comic theory across social media platforms. The comic mode has...

... one of my own silences-I view this coun- try like absurd theater, the last Jewish joke, whereby the first one is the Bible. Thirty years after Auschwitz the rabbis are still discussing in detail what a Jew is. Everyone knows it, except the Jews. But only a few goys have understood...

... and turns of the story, like a run- on sentence, breathless, in double time. Nathan Lane, who performs it, has called the number a “musical nervous breakdown.”1 For the audience, the song is an in-joke, a crazy midstream retelling, full of nostalgia for the show before it’s even over, adding another...

... and that your reactions are also dependent on their presence.) I ask myself if laughter is the only parameter to judge the quality of humor. Even in the context of comedy or stand-­up while the audience members minds are tuned to receive jokes, humor can create conflict and tension. I recently watched...

...-11 Eckert idiot.ak 5/24/00 2:02 PM Page 107 the idiot variations He puts down his accordion as he addresses the joke was. But they were under heavy fire at the audience...

... and as a result the play is anything but comic. consists largely of a series of warm-up exercises There is nothing quite so sad, after all, as a joke that the O’Shea character initiates for his pupils that needs explaining. Comedians is a very sad to prepare for their auditions. The final exercise Play...

..., a shorter than usual supply of tendentious his genre scene, On the Highway, based on a short story, diatribes and strong curtain-lines, is less obvious at this and Tatyana Repina, an in-joke sequel to a sensation remove. drama by his friend the millionaire...

... of their consciousness Clean House one of your characters opines about of memories, but the grandmother is less con- heaven, saying, “I think maybe heaven is a sea of scious of what’s slipping away. She’s more untranslatable jokes. Only everyone is laughing.” peaceful, which for me makes her less ambiva- What led you...

... preserved the wartime tradition of escapism and These plays balance their epigrammatic wit with broad farce, dirty pointlessness, for fear of becoming vulgar through political jokes, pretty chorus girls, and gossipy neighborhood slander. relevance. Naughtiness and rough immediacy are intrinsic...

... requests a plaster cast of her tongue. that they miss the jokes (which are, after all, subjective):rather Her immediate response is doubly funny because, given her they fear the underlying points: namely, that the dessicated character in this circumstance, it is the only response Mrs. hand...

..., is how traveled college show, an assemblage of juggling, jokes, and this is accomplished. Juggler-comic Michael Davis, for in- audio-visual effects, skillful and (still) amusing, but hardly, at stance. made the partner he brought up on stage look good this late date, cause for alarm. Fans of Bill...

... at him. Silence.) PETER: It's not my idea of- PETER: What's the joke? ALEX: Almost over. ALEX: We are the joke. You and me. PETER: It's not my idea of joke! Twisting brains on this cold...

... are cheapy as fuck. We filled it with laughs. And dick jokes. Julie Felise Dubiner Between Two Knees was commissioned for American Revolutions, a program that developed plays about moments of change in American history. We were also very aware that, despite being in Oregon, The 1491s Between Two Knees...

... scenario for Irondale’s Ubu. The cial, never be on David ktterman. political references, jokes and parallels hen-pecked Pa Ubu is pushed by his all seem part of the overall comedic wife into leading a coup to topple King The most interesting...

... respond to all misfortune as a joke. This is a sign of decay. But the smile has many gradations. On one level a smile can be used as a reaction to terrible opponents...

..., jokes. They’ll say of the head, developed a large bump, sawed David ‘Why doesn’t he wash more often?’ and Man Is.Man. The diary entries it.off and ate it. I was enchanted: there’s And of Baal, the last period, ‘He’s in love which follow...

..., listens to the childish dirty jokes, and responds to George’s boast of how many women he can take on by asking if he could take her. “Sure I could, Mert,” he replies, “What’s left.” The chauvinism is so obvious - even in Lombard’s sympathetic portrayal...

... interest, as these yuppies have been doing throughout the sentimentalizes what she sees as Paul's infatuation with play. The joke, clearly, is on them. Greenberg does not their life-style and mourns his potential, in contrast to sentimentalize May. He does not present her as "good" and Man's more...

... nowadays, this idea of identity and purity keeps jokes which had been invented in the ghetto was one of the coming back to the surface. I think it comes mainly most shattering experiences. To understand that people in through a tendency to go back...