Gags: When the joke eats the scene
We all know that moment on stage: the scene is finally hitting its stride, the tension is building — and someone fires off a punchline. The audience roars, but afterwards? Afterwards, the air is gone. The story has vanished, the characters have flattened into cartoons, and we honestly don't remember anymore why we were watching in the first place.
I've seen improv troupes lean so hard into gags that they wrecked the scene completely. The same gag kept coming back, the audience went wild, but the play itself was a bore. A bit like the whoopee cushion at Grandma's birthday party.
In the improv world, "gags" are a real minefield. Some people demonise them as an absolute no-go, others see them as a perfectly legitimate tool. But why is that? And when does a laugh actually become a problem?
The Johnstone doctrine: gags as a flight reflex
For Keith Johnstone, one of the founding fathers of improv, a gag is often nothing more than a "narrative killer". When you make a joke at the scene's expense, you're blocking the story. You yank the audience out of the shared reality just to score a quick win.
Why we do it anyway: Johnstone is blunt about it: it's fear. When we don't know what comes next, or when the intimacy of a scene starts getting too close, we flee into humour. It's a defence mechanism to break the uncertainty. His advice sounds simple, but it's brutally hard: "Be average. Be ordinary." Real humour, after all, doesn't come from the punchline — it comes from the honest failure of the characters.
Del Close: the truth about the joke
In Chicago, Del Close took an equally strict view, but with a different focus. His credo: "Truth is funny." For him, a cheap gag was a betrayal of the ensemble and of the audience's intelligence.
Anyone who "gags" steps into the spotlight and leaves their partner out in the rain. Close demanded "high art": we should play at the top of our intelligence. A good improviser isn't searching for the joke — they're searching for the emotional truth of the moment. When you're trying to be funny, that's usually exactly when you aren't.
Other parents, other rules: there are grey areas too
Not everyone is as dogmatic about it as Johnstone and Close. Over time, approaches have grown that take a more relaxed view of humour:
Viola Spolin (the game is what counts): For her, a gag is a distraction from the actual "game". When you focus on your task (a physical action, say), the comedy emerges all by itself out of your sheer joy of playing. The gag here is just unnecessary "showing off".
Mick Napier (trust your impulse): Napier is the rebel. He says: if a joke pops into your head and you're really feeling it — go for it! The fear of breaking a rule (like "no gags") only paralyses you. He'd take a confident player having fun over a tight-lipped theorist any day.
UCB / Will Hines (the systematic joke): Here a distinction is made. A "bad gag" breaks the logic of the scene (suddenly an alien shows up). "Good humour", on the other hand, deepens the unusual pattern of the scene. If your character has a quirk, every escalation of that quirk is technically a gag — but one that supports the scene instead of destroying it.
How do I spot "bad" gagging?
Here are a few warning signs that your joke is backfiring:
- The story stop: The joke ends the conversation instead of pushing it forward.
- The cartoon: You're no longer playing a real person, just a comic character built to mine laughs.
- Stepping out of the role: You're basically winking at the audience ("Look how funny I am").
- The victim gag: You make a joke at the expense of your partner's offer, and in doing so make it ridiculous or invalid.
Bottom line: so what do we do with all this?
In the end it's all about balance. A gag is like a sharp spice mix: a pinch can lift the scene, but if you tip the whole jar in, you can't taste the actual dish anymore (the story and the characters).
Rule of thumb: ask yourself briefly (and only briefly!) — is this joke serving my character or the story right now? Or am I just chasing a quick approval from the audience because I'm scared of the silence? If you dare to stay in the discomfort of the scene, the moments that arise are often much deeper — and ultimately much funnier — than any pre-cooked punchline.