Steve Martin

If you don’t love Steve Martin, you either haven’t seen his stand-up, or you’re on the wrong medication. Steve Martin takes old-school conventions and turns them into something entirely whacky.

Well dressed in his signature white suit, Martin poses as the straight-laced intellectual. But nothing he does conforms to this persona. In fact, his comedy stems from the dichotomy between the cool and slick guy he presents and his absurd, nonsensical and unpredicatable actions. The more seriously he seems to take himself, the funnier he gets.

What makes him truly great is that all of these seemingly random bits are skillfully crafted for maximum effect. I wonder how much improv Martin used in his comedy. My guess is very little. In fact, I bet that he never went on stage without lengthy preparation.

The Great Flydini, shown here, is a perfect example of Martin’s use of an old-school convention, that of the stock magician act, spun with Martin’s absurdist humor.

In his book Born Standing Up, Martin explains how his performing began with a magic act at Disneyland. Later, in college, he studied philosophy and existentialism. This was the perfect foundation for his comedy.

Stock, community-fundraiser-style entertainment, like:

• Balloon animals
• Arrows through his head
• Playing the banjo

Mixed randomly with absurdist, philosophical bits like:

• Comedy is Not Pretty
• Let’s Get Small
• The Cruel Shoes

Although no longer playing to sold out arenas full of King Tut fans, we’re fortunate that Steve Martin is still writing. Novels like The Pleasure of My Company and Shopgirl give us a deeper look into the curious brain of Steve Martin. Unsurprisingly, in both novels, his main characters struggle to break the boundaries of their own psyche.

Photo by Flickr