Analysis of Strategies for Creating Histrionic Comedy Show - Differences between Manzai and Histrionic Comedy Skits with the Same

Abstract

To reveal methods of making effective pauses and communicating as a character in a comedy skit, we have analyzed strategies for creating a histrionic, i.e., exaggerated and overly theatrical, comic performance that is often observed in comedy skits. We compared a manzai performance, which is considered to be a realistic comedy skit, with a comedy skit that had a histrionic performance by the comedy duo ``Sandwich Man'' doing the same material, in order to investigate the differences in the inter-utterance structure and posture-configuration structure of the two comedy styles. The results for the inter-utterance structure indicated that there were differences in the pauses between utterances, but there were no differences in the speech rates (sec/mora) between the comedy styles. Additionally, we found that in the posture-configuration structure, one of the performers turned his face toward his partner's face for a longer time in the histrionic comedy skit than that in the manzai skit. Also, in the histrionic comedy skit, the sum of the performers' shoulder-widths was shorter as seen by the audience than that in the manzai performance. Therefore, we concluded that utterance pauses and the performers' shoulder-widths are important factors in creating a histrionic comic show.