TWR014 - The Physics of Comedy (with Gonzalo Alarcón)
Channel: STUDIO 7 Theater
Date: 2020-06-15

GONZALO ALARCÓN (Brussels, BE)
started as a Circus performer on the streets of Chile. He then discovered the Art of the Clown, which continues to be his focus. His latest performance Chiringuito Paradise tells the story of the grand opening of a bar which ends in complete catastrophe.

This is the second part of a series of conversations spiraling around comedy. As these episodes will be quite long, you can use the chapters to jump to what interests you.

We are back in the room with Gonzalo talking about comedy. After some preliminary talk about the question "KEATON or CHAPLIN!?" we take our time to discuss the "mechanics" of the joke, the punchline, how to create a problem and finding a surprising solution to it, how to increase the "potential energy" of the joke, comparing it to music and especially concentrating again on rhythm. We find a lot of nice analogies to the laws of nature and are proud of having discovered the "Physics of Comedy"!

Chapters:
00:00:00 Keaton or Chaplin!? 
00:00:32 Back in the Room with Gonzalo Alarcón 
00:02:00 Chiringuito Paradise 
00:06:45 Visual Comedy 
00:08:28 Keaton and Chaplin 
00:25:25 Learning from the Masters 
00:31:00 Clichés, Principles, Intuition 
00:36:53 Physics of Comedy 
00:43:04 Tensions and Expectations 
00:51:13 Know your Objective 
00:58:10 Potential Energy - Building up the Problem 
01:05:02 Too Much is Not Interesting 
01:07:29 Rhythm 
01:11:50 Bonus: Jesus joke