Hello,

I always liked the idea of getting messy, that's why I'm here on this page.

As actress in our local theater I will have the chance to do it the first time in real life. I play a clumsy mayoress in a play and shall be the target of some laughs. So it is very much slapstick and I have the chance to put in a few messy scenes aswell. Do you have any ideas for a good laugh and for some fun for me? In principle, I'm not embarrassed for anything

Authority figure who is sexy and a bit airheaded with it. Smart business suit and satin blouse with very high heels. Try to be all prim and proper while you are getting repeatedly pelted with pies. Assume you are American? Go for the Sarah Palin look!

Hi,

Sounds a lot of fun! What is the name of the play?

For sure business suit, looking smart, power dressing etc with an arrogant attitude makes it all the more funny receiving a slapstick comeuppance!

One idea is brings together water and pie. The pie is kind of classic and obvious so why not make a twist.

1. Have a build up to a pie scene - everyone will expect pie in the face but at the last minute have somebody else unrelated spill a bucket of water over you. Needs to be unexpected to get the laughs. Maybe some one cleaning or watering plants etc.

2. While everyone is laughing surprised about the water - then you get the pie!! After the water the audience won't expect it - so the double comeuppance should really get the laughs!!

Play it comic humiliation style and enjoy! You'll be the star of the play

I am German, but I know what you mean

Sounds good! The question is how a pie could be explained in the play / in this situation.

What do you mean by comic humiliation style? Do you have more ideas, you sound creative

It could be a reception/function or perhaps you have been invited to give an award to a local business who make pies!

As for water, a jug of it goes over you, or maybe a fire extinguisher could go off?

Hallo Ann Gret -

What is the play - is there a script? Even if German I'd love to know the play! I know a few German plays "Die Drachentorte" or " Een Baby om the Stelen" which feature slapstick but would love to know others.

Sounds a bit like Alan Ayckbourn's English play 'Confusions' which features a Mayor struck by lightening and messed with mud!

Comic humiliation is about your reaction. If you get pied or are soaked by water - 'over' react!! Make your reaction funny. Be mad but in a funny way if thats not a condition.... Be shocked, move in slow motion, pause, react gradually - then scream, shout at people build up gradually a funny reaction. People will love it!

To build water or pie into the scene - maybe its someone's birthday or a celebration. Or it could be deliberate - that someone brings a pie perhaps concealed in a box?

For the water bucket or jug - it needs to be 'not' obvious. What I mean is its unexpected so the audience is not looking at and will be shocked.

The audience must be focused on the pie - they will expect it to be put in your face. It can be someone upset with you, looking for revenge.

The humour will be that something else happens first - not expected. Maybe someone holding a jug of water watching the person with the pie angry with you is distracted - or is standing in the way and is pushed by the person with the pie and throws the water on you.

After that in the chaos of the moment and after your reaction to the water - they throw the pie.

By the way - I have been stage manager of a play with a pie scene so I can tell you its brilliant when you surprise an audience!!

Gre

I can give you some ideas if I'll be able to know more about the scenes as this is what I do for a living.

Comedy comes when the audience feel superior (as in seeing someone getting a pie in the face), and from repetition.

It will work great if your character would want for an instance to get revenge on another character and have the plan backfire on her again and again.

Pies and water will probably work the best in a theater. having more pies, and more participants pieing one single person who keeps getting it ups the comedy.

I would love to hear some!

It's called Hausgeisterhaus. Here is the story (translated with google):
For over a hundred years, the house spirits Lord Kielkropf, Sir Hmerling and the genie Genie live in a beautiful old house. Of course, its owner, Ms. Berger, does not know with whom she has lived under one roof for so long - and even less so does the mayor know this. She thinks the old house should be demolished to make room for a super modern shopping mall. But where should the spirits go? Luckily, Brownie, a secret agent and house-ghost, is looking for a place to live that always has a solution for everything. But soon Brownie does not know what to do. Only one thing can help: a journey into the jungle to Aunt Voodoo. Maybe her magic skills and miracle pills can turn the tide?

My role and the stage will look something like this. I even have to wear a fatsuit to look more like a mayoress

I love the idea of a wealthy, snobby, snooty baroness getting her comeuppance with a messy pie to the face or some ginger over her nice new suit! I love to see a powerful and arrogant woman get totally destroyed and humiliated. Even better if she's well-dressed in something expensive.

Seems like there's a lot of potential for the ghosts to throw pies at her, while she doesn't know how it happened and the humans thinking that she did it to herself.

Can you pm me the script? videos of other performances?

How many runs are you going to have? because you need enough sets of clothes and make sure there is no problem budget wise (rehearsals, shows, special rehearsals for the messy bits). also, cleaning the stage is a problem.

How long until the performance?

Sorry I don't have a script yet, but it is asked to bring in some laughs even beside the original script. Thats also why I thought back to this page. That's why we are very free here. It will be in June/July about 10 to 15 times.

Sitting on something would fit nicely to the fatsuit, which gives my a bigger butt I also thought about bumping into something with it... Haha, how that sounds...

Let me know when you have more details and I can help you fine tune it.
The crowd will always love pies in the face, and unless they would think it's making too much trouble the theater shouldn't having a problem with you suggesting it.
It is an automatic laugh, most times given that they don't fell sorry for you. that you are bad, that you deserve it, that you overreact over it.

At the end, when you take your bow, if you're still in the role of the villain or whatever - one or everyone can come and pie you, throw water. this is where it's free for all and if it's a reference to something that happened before in the play it will work.

Other times, quantity, repetition.
You can bring pies/cakes for guests coming to see the place. there can be another excuse.
Then when you annoy the characters the audience should like, one of them picks up a pie and you walk into it. you turn around and get another. can happen for a while.
They can make you try to run away, but run into pies.

A character walks in, and surprised what you did to yourself.

Later, you are threatened that it will happen and run off scared.
May be getting pied even though.

It really depends on a lot of things, at the end the director would want things justified and not laughs just for the sake of it.

Let me know if you'd need more guidance.

Thank you, your ideas are great! Would love to hear everything you got. I think we have to find the right amount of slapstick and clumsiness by myself versus getting pranks by others. It should be all kinds of different things instead of too many pies...

Some questions.
In the play only your character will get dirty and the rest will be clean, or will other characters get dirty and wet too?
In the photo you posted, are you acting, or are you another actress from some previous act?
Thank you.

How about a mud scene!

As far as I know only my character should get messy, because of being "the aim of laughs." Why?

On the photo there is an other actress from before.

I asked to understand some of the dynamics of the play.
I think it's admirable of you to want to do a play where you're the only character who gets dirty and wet, while the whole audience and their classmates laugh at the humiliation of their character.
I think it would be interesting if you take a day to just work on that aspect of the character, take pies in the face and get wet with clothes to see how you feel about it, do not let to see those issues at the premiere. I believe you are already arranging this.
I think it would be more interesting to leave these scenes to the climax, because pies in the face make a lot of dirt and if they happen at the end, the stage would be dirty only for a short time.
I do not know the text, it seems to be a comedy to amuse the whole family, people from 8 to 80 years.
Anyway, I wish you success.

Haha why should it be admirable?

I think we will rehearse it often enough before.

The idea of my role is getting more and more "ruined" step by step through the play, so it should be more than the climax. Like the mess and fails should be visible for me role all the time, like acting further along with messed trousers, a while later the next thing and so on...

I hope it's a success.

Any update? How are the rehearsals going? Hope you've managed to get some great comic messy scenes into the play!

I mean, last we checked, the OP said the play was premiering in June but as of late April, they hadn't written the script yet.

Haha yes, for now there is a pie in the face, some flour from a shelf, sitting on a bread with chocolate cream and getting some "itching powder" in the dress

Sounds great! See if you can persuade the director ton include some water too. For example after the pie somebody has the idea of cleaning up - only for you to get soaked and even more messy!!

Enjoy it!

I don't know how to ask for more without being weird?

Did the first rehearsals

Details please!

This thread is bonkers