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 | Participation Award Interview by Peter Lynn |
Could you explain the origin and meaning of your troupe's name: the "Participation Awards"?
The origin of the term comes from those crappy exercise things that everyone had to do in elementary school all across Ontario. If you were really good at sports and did everything well – the shuttle run, the 200 metre dash, the flexed arm hang-you got an Excellence award... if you were a wheelchair-ridden spaz you got a "participation award." Now, why we are called that is because it was about two minutes to showtime and someone said "We need a name for you," and someone blurted out "The Participation Awards!" and we thought, "Well, that's better than the Gay-tards."
What's it like working with this group and how is it different from your past work?
Well, in the past [with former troupe Spontaneous Combustion] it was all improvised, so it was a bit more of a tightrope, but it was also a bit more accepting people, you know, if you're like, "Hey... uh... ass poo-poo bum fart!" people are like, "That's kind of funny, because I remember 'poo-poo bum fart' was a suggestion I made." So people are a lot more responsive, they feel more part of the show, so they tend to laugh a lot easier. Now, we have the safety of being prepared, although, we're never really that prepared I guess, but we at least have lines before the sketch starts that we're supposed to say, and it's I would say a similar dynamic, I mean Elan and I have been in both troupes together, but it's a different genre of comedy, really.
What is it like to get up on stage and try to make people laugh?
Well, it's a lot less rewarding than getting up on stage and making people laugh. It can be nerve-wracking. There are times you're going through a sketch and you're like "I thought that would have gotten a much bigger laugh than it did." But after a while, I think we've been at it long enough that we just tune it out, like. Between the improv and the sketch comedy we've learned to say, "Well, if they don't like it, screw them. We're going through with it, and we're going to entertain ourselves if nothing else." You've just got to stay committed and have a good time.
Is it intimidating to be working on the same stage as all the famous Second City alumni of the past?
Not really. It's more an honour than an intimidation. You look at it and think, "Wow, these are a lot of great people," but I think to be successful in comedy you have to have a bit of an attitude, you have to try to think, "Well, I'm the funniest thing out there, and if people don't get my jokes it's because it's their fault, not that I wasn't funny enough," and you've got to just keep trotting it out there and we've been lucky enough to get a good enough response that we haven't felt like, "Oh God, we're committing sacrilege by crapping up the stage where John Candy's ashes are scattered."
Where do you think your strengths and weaknesses lie as a writer and a performer?
I think my strength has always been in the writing. I do a lot of the writing for the troupe. I come up with a lot of the ideas, and everyone else edits it. I don't really get into the production and the direction side of things. I come up with the dialogue and other people say, "Well, this is how I see the scene unfolding," and a lot of the time it unfolds the way I saw it, but there are other times when there are things that I didn't see that make the scene a million times better. Like, for instance, the "swearing at a baby" scene... I wrote that sketch, and it went in verbatim, but I think it was Rob who said it would unfold really well as a Southern courtroom drama, which definitely adds a lot to the sketch. It would have been a cute little sketch otherwise, but I think it becomes what it is because it is that.
I also think I do solid characters when I'm acting. That's always been my fortŽ, tossing on an accent or being the guy with the twitch or whatever. I'm just trying to put a different spin on every character I put out there.
Speaking of characters, you've portrayed a robot that goes door-to-door giving people cancer. What makes you laugh, and how does this inform your writing process?
A lot of what makes me laugh is sort of the shocking humour – not like the Howard Stern, "ha ha, sex, I had sex with Bette Midler, I had sex with Bette Davis' corpse" stuff, but if something's taboo, I think it's a good way to relieve tension by laughing at it. The Cancer-Bot's a good example. It's something that completely shocked everyone, but I think everyone seemed to get a kick out of it, apart from the guy in the back row who has three days to live and was in tears by the end of the show. I think a lot of humour bases itself on "this is what's supposed to happen," and "this is what happens." The worst possible thing happens, or the most unexpected possible thing happens, so it's just toying with expectations, and if you can do it in a way that's creative and maybe a bit shocking, then I think you're halfway there.
Who should and should not come see one of your shows?
People who are not going to enjoy something if it's a bit risqué or offensive or maybe sociologically-troubling, if they're not willing to say, "Well, that's satire," or "Well, that's obviously just toying with the stereotypes" or what-have-you, if you think any kind of mention of something negative is negative, then you won't get as much out of it as someone who's there to have fun.
I think people who are looking for an alternative to the typical "Bill Clinton sure likes sex!" jokes would probably get something out of our show, because we try to throw something different out there. We try to screw people over. One of the things that we like doing is coming up with the typical ending to the sketch and having it branch off into an entirely different sketch from there. So I think people that want a different kind of humour and are willing to experiment and go along for the ride would probably enjoy it the most.
Where would you like to see this going in the future?
I would love to get a TV show with this. There's been talk about maybe approaching some people from Comedy Now and the Comedy Network and I think that's the lower end of the scale where we'd like to take this. Ideally, I'd like to do sort of a Kids in the Hall thing where we've built up a Canadian audience and from there expand on to HBO. We've got something good here, and I think we can take this as far as we want to so long as the time and opportunities exist.