"For me, making the show work was getting belly laughs - like most variety artists. But the straight actor believes you fix your performance in rehearsal and that's it"
About this Quote
Comedy, in Ron Moody's telling, isn't a sculpture you perfect under rehearsal lights; it's a live wire you keep grabbing until it shocks the room. His split between "getting belly laughs" and the straight actor's faith in a performance "fixed" in rehearsal isn't just shop talk. It's a quiet declaration of class, craft, and risk: variety performers survive on immediate feedback, while straight actors can afford to treat the audience as a passive receiver rather than a co-author.
Moody's phrasing does a lot of work. "Making the show work" sounds mechanical, almost blue-collar, like you're keeping an engine from stalling. "Belly laughs" is bodily, unpretentious, and slightly vulgar in the best way: proof of impact, not taste. The subtext is that comedy doesn't respect your plans. Timing, energy, and crowd temperature change nightly, and the performer has to be willing to adjust without announcing the adjustment. Rehearsal gives you the map; a laugh gives you the weather report.
Context matters, too. Moody comes out of a British performance ecosystem where variety, music hall, and revue traditions prized adaptability and direct audience rapport, while the prestige lane of "straight" acting carried a whiff of fixity and textual reverence. He's poking that hierarchy: the supposedly lower form demands a higher tolerance for failure, a sharper ear, and an ego flexible enough to rewrite itself in real time.
Moody's phrasing does a lot of work. "Making the show work" sounds mechanical, almost blue-collar, like you're keeping an engine from stalling. "Belly laughs" is bodily, unpretentious, and slightly vulgar in the best way: proof of impact, not taste. The subtext is that comedy doesn't respect your plans. Timing, energy, and crowd temperature change nightly, and the performer has to be willing to adjust without announcing the adjustment. Rehearsal gives you the map; a laugh gives you the weather report.
Context matters, too. Moody comes out of a British performance ecosystem where variety, music hall, and revue traditions prized adaptability and direct audience rapport, while the prestige lane of "straight" acting carried a whiff of fixity and textual reverence. He's poking that hierarchy: the supposedly lower form demands a higher tolerance for failure, a sharper ear, and an ego flexible enough to rewrite itself in real time.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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