"The Annual Comedy Contest" is kind of interesting.
In this era when you can see an average of one new online network every week, you have many choices, watch your sister make waves, look at your brother with hard work, listen to the cover of golden songs, and watch the stars perform to get married. Of course, you can also watch comedy.
Comedy variety shows in recent years a bit flooded, but think about it, can last a long time still laugh around the works are not many, in so-and-so comedy people, so-and-so comedy class, laughing proud of so-and-so, the audience probably only saw a bulk version of the happy twist stage drama or joined the network rotten stem formulaic cross-talk.
Then, after "Strange Story" and "Summer of the Band", the Ma Dong team will serve another dish, and they will be serious and funny, and make the absurdity advanced.
"Annual Comedy Contest" is different from "Talk Show Conference", although they are both shells of "competitions", but the latter is essentially [a large annual meeting of a company], and it is basically a circle or even a company of people who love and hate. The former, on the other hand, allows the audience to see many people on the edge of the drama who are performing hard for a bite of rice.
Figure 1: The scene of the annual comedy competition
The show introduces a concept that may be relatively new to domestic audiences: Sketch Comedy. Sketch comedy takes shape from French juggling shows and British musicals, usually consisting of a series of short comedy scenes or humorous clips, each of which is a 1-10 minute performance "sketch".
In short, it is presented in a simple scene, simplifying the dramatic structure, highlighting contradictions, and strengthening the performance tension of the "small theater" comedy performance form. Like a sketch, but not exactly a sketch, the audience enters quickly, comes out quickly, the emotion will be ignited in a short period of time, and the condensed three-turn four shake is both in line with the logic of comedy, and short and flat, which is very suitable for the cultural consumption of fragmented time. Correspondingly, this form of performance is a great test for performers, testing both the density and rhythm of baggage, as well as the level and scale of performance.
Precisely because it is funny and serious, and the only pursuit is to make the audience laugh, it shows a kind of purity, and a rich ecology derived from this purity.
Figure 2: Judges of the Annual Comedy Contest
You can see many sects and weapons in it, some are practicing muscles and bones, some are practicing one breath, some are practicing the "Yi Jian Jing", and some are practicing the "Sunflower Treasure Book", on this stage, you are willing to be angry and calm, and then you can play a trick "Kang Long has regrets", you are willing to step on your toes, sprinkle lime, and hair, as long as you catch the rat, you are a good cat.
Under this premise, interesting things grow out on their own. Some works are exquisitely crafted for stage design, some works are ingenious in structure and logic, and some works are put down, stand funny, scratch the arm socket and pick the navel, and sprinkle dog blood to amuse the audience.
Figure 3: Wang Zi's mime performance "Karate Master"
Drama breakouts, talk shows, imitation shows, comics, musicals, puppet shows, ventriloquism, body dramas, mimes, clown plays, opera arts... Over the past five weeks, the cast has been on and off, allowing the audience to see almost all forms of performance that carry comedic elements, and you can even hear bel canto and see hip-hop.
This game, which is not quite like a competition, captures a lot of small luck and small helplessness for the audience, and the details are tasted again and again, and the return may be something other than performance and laughter.
The following has spoilers, those who have not yet watched the show, please slide directly to the end of the article.
【Electronic Trap】
Figure 4: Jiang Shimeng, Liu Siwei, Guo Dabao, "Internet Physical Examination"
"Internet Checkup" is a large-scale ridicule, everyone has experienced personal information leakage in the Internet age, paying to become a member but also ahead of the demand, endless advertising and pop-up windows, and the huge difference in download speed between RMB players and ordinary players. When this irrational and even robbery business idea is grafted with the medical system about life, the laughter will naturally come out. Jiang Shimeng's neurotic sentence "How to lose money?? "It made the audience laugh.
Figure 5: Dasuo, Sun Tianyu, "Where Has Time Gone?"
"Where Has Time Gone" personifies WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin, not only to discuss the problem of procrastination, but also to look at social anxiety, in which everyone sees their helplessness to be kidnapped by mobile phones, which is not only Internet addiction, but actually the pain of "having to integrate into the lives of others and being forced to form a social circle". For a penny of red envelopes "thank you boss", the leader who keeps a flow account of the circle of friends "likes", knowing that it is invalid information but reflexively clicking on the screen... Bored? But each of us does this subconsciously and gets used to it.
Comedy originates from life, but sometimes it may be lower than life, and the audience sees itself from it, but most of the time it is standing on a high place looking down on the details of life that have been exaggerated after being refined, and secretly breathing a sigh of relief in my heart: "Fortunately, I have not yet reached such an exaggerated level ~ ~ " The secret of good comedy lies in this, it makes the audience not feel offended, and even has a strange sense of superiority.
【Dog Crucible】
Figure 6: He Wenjun and Song Muzi,"Three Dogs Live Room"
The main creator of "Three Dogs Live Room" is a long-established funny short drama producer, one of the judges Li Shi called the comedy style of Hewenjun and Song Muzi "Dog Lump", which is unreasonable funny, when the comedy abandons the sense of form and internal logic, every design and action of the actors is unexpected, uh, it is not reasonable, it is "hard to come", there is no cushion between the baggage and the baggage, no matter whether your last baggage is loud or not, the next baggage immediately keeps up, the audience does not need to think and reminisce, and the laughter is over. For example, in "The King of Comedy", a classic long shot at the beginning, he has to change a reaction expression every second under the director's nonsense request and the completely illogical script requirements, which is actually a typical "dog lump" acting method.
This "dog lump" style is actually more like returning to the essence of performance, in the early years of the old Beijing Tianqiao, the artists, it is by this performance logic to win over the passing audience, after the performance people feel good to give you money, the so-called "flat land cake". Such a performance may not be on the stage in the eyes of the academics, but the audience buys it and laughs happily.
【Eight Generals of a Thousand Doors】
Figure 7: Fat Talent Group Comic Talent's "Strange Neighbor Seat on a Bus"
Chengdu's fat talent group brought a comic performance; mime actor Wang Zi let the audience see the wonderful physical performance, named his two hands "SING LINGLING" and "CANG LANGLANG" respectively; "The Voice of Father and Son" used musical theater form to restore the living state of housewives; "Sanmao Defense War", "Magnetic Field Discord", "Mr. Please Come Out of the Mountain" fully demonstrated the comedian's physical flexibility, did not rely on lines and text, and danced with his hands. It is a more advanced original flavor; Wu Liuqi's "Crusoe" is a pure clown play, telling adult fairy tales from the perspective of a child...
Figure 8: Yin Bexi and Chang Cheng, "Drama Spirit Navigation"
In the first five episodes of the show, good actors appeared in an endless stream, each with special skills, such as Yin Bexi, such as Shi Ce, such as Guan Chao, such as Jiang Long. These people graduated from art colleges, but there are no good employment opportunities, like Jiang Long, the most eye-catching experience is to appear in "Dream Showbiz" (Douban score 2.4), but he and Zhang Chi showed strength in two works, people marvel at such a sea of pearls, actually living on the edge of the showbiz circle for many years, waiting for opportunities.
Figure 9: Jiang Long and Zhang Chi, "The Last Lesson"
Jiang Long and Zhang Chi's "Last Lesson" is the first five issues I think can be compared with "Laugh! Piolević", a good actor who graduated from the acting department, has no job to take, can only play zombie Number 26 in the escape room, and then accidentally encounters his teacher and apprentice, is publicly executed in the eyes of everyone, and repeatedly dies. When the teacher finally hugged Jiang Long and said, "Child, out of the play, out of the play", the audience laughed, in fact, Jiang Long has been outside the play, but the teacher has been in the play, this huge contrast, so that the entire work of the artistic conception sublimated.
Figure 10: Iron Man, Yang Fan, Guan Chao," Laugh! Piolević
Laugh! "Piolević" is a work that tests the audience's opera and opera cultivation, if you are familiar with traditional cross-talk, two-person turning, and commentary, it has a very high laugh bonus, so the threshold for appreciation is relatively high. When humor and laughter become crimes, comedy becomes a belief, and once you accept this setting, every baggage can accurately poke the laughing hole in the scene that the screenwriter prescribes for you. Yang Fan's "Go to Moscow, go to Petersburg~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This sentence directly reminds people of the famous commentary work "Lenin in 1918", and the effect is full.
Seeing this, you don't feel that this is a competition, but you are full of expectations for the works that follow, looking forward to what unconventional operations will be encountered, which actors will be found to shine, and, for the boundaries of comedy, how these people will explore.
Figure 11: Jiang Long and Zhang Chi, "The Last Lesson"
Once upon a time, our understanding of comedy was the Spring Festival Gala sketches, or the New Year movies, and later, in various comedy competition variety shows, the comedy star collections that were packaged and pushed by the B station up master, but most of these works had a problem: sorry, you can't be funny purely for the sake of being funny, in which you must have a tragic core and reversal, and at the end you must sublimate your values. If you can make the audience laugh and cry, that's right. Funny, sometimes instead of being put in second place.
But does comedy have to be like this? Can't be funny and unscrupulous, can't it be unethical? When comedians are creating and performing, they always have a string of "I can't be too funny", and the sensitive audience must be able to feel it, and then laugh less happily. Fortunately, "The Annual Comedy Contest" is more or less trying to reverse this setting, which is simply funny, which is very good.
truly.
Let's be funny first, comedy is too funny if it's not funny.
Author: Zuo Tianchi
Editor: Li Ci
Supervisor: Liu Yingying