Tuesday, May 3, 2011

collective # 58 - the laugher

there's one in most crowds
—hooting one out

so that a mildly amusing line
in a subdued theatre gets

unfunnier on account of those
(zealously encouraging?)

guffaws.too loud, too long,
and ill-timed.

(egad, am I one of those
laughers?)

3 comments:

Lodo Grdzak said...

Its all the more irritating when they laugh at a line that was already seen featured in the trailer or the commercial. As though they're laughing because they feel expeceted to laugh like a trained seal.

Pearl said...

yes, the more I hear a joke, the less I laugh. others find the more repetitions, the funnier. which should be good for them giving the upcoming repetitive joke of politics the next few years will be.

sandra said...

Once I got laughing at a production of something only moderately funny, and I was a theatrical agent at the time. Totally inappropriate and career-threatening, and the more I realized it the more I laughed. Not a breakdown, a liberation. Feeling badly that people in the audience didn't get how funny it was to laugh too long or at all, no disrespect to the actors or director, just a chance to laugh, then get back to the play. Spontaneous laugh break. It's been done.