Shawn Left Them Laughing, Confused

In my early, impressionable years, images of humor were marked indelibly on my mind while watching the family Philco. One image that persists is of Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and a woman I no longer remember dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns, sitting stiffly in theater seats, facing the live audience of “The Show of Shows,” and wordlessly driving it into a frenzy with a raised eyebrow, a cough or a repositioned elbow. Then they would stand, bow and leave.

It was as an echo of these youthful experiences that I found myself with two friends at the “Evening With Dick Shawn” a few weeks ago. For me, he was to comedy what Dali was to art. His opening scene, involving his head as a silver-haired centerpiece on a red-clothed table, seemed so natural. The head watches us, mimics us and makes us laugh. Lights out, then up, and the body appears all in black, attached once again to its head.

“People go to a university to look for alternatives. What they find is confusion. Like you. All confusion,” he says, waving his arm as if in blessing. “What if everybody out there died except for us?” he asks, with an evangelical tone. “We could re-create civilization, right here in this room.”

Again he sweeps his hand over the crowd. They feel “Yes!” I notice his fencer’s pose. His right arm is stretched toward the ceiling, his palm up. His left arm joins it. “AND I . . . COULD BE . . . YOUR LEADER.” We are screaming “YES!” and clapping, true believers.

He breaks his pose and takes one step forward and to his right. Utterly in control. We go silent. Not to miss the word. He sinks to his left knee. He is going to sit on the floor and talk to us, I think. From immortal to mortal in a moment. I marvel. As an actor trained to portray death as the highest form of grace, he falls gently onto his right arm, his left leg sliding out behind him, his left arm toward the footlights, a moment poised, then a slow roll onto his chest and his right cheek slaps the stage just hard enough to make you wonder. We roar and recede and wait.

And wait. His body is lost in the shadows, his white hair haloed by an unmoving spotlight. The laughter grows, yet he does not move. Another wave of laughter. Still, he does not move. The wave recedes, and the audience becomes as silent as he. No audience can take silence long. Especially from a comic. He is noted for the bizarre. “Nobody seems to know exactly what to expect . . . “ the show’s previews had cautioned.

A restlessness stirs. I came to laugh, but I feel contemplative. I join the observers. I admire his courage to confront an audience with an audience. Themselves as entertainment. The act just died. If the show must go on, it is up to you. Are we up to it? Some try to be. A shrill whistle. How long has it been?

“Hey, Dick!” someone yells. “We’re still here.”

The tension releases. A very young girl begins to laugh the genuine laughter of a child, and it ripples forth, taking the audience with it. When the audience wanes, she giggles again, and the pond ripples once more. Then the comics of the dark claim their territory.

From the left rear, “Wake up!” Laughter. From the center, “Give us our money back!” More laughter. Competition appears. A new gig. The comic falls on his face and the audience is in full voice. The front rows warm to the challenge. A man stands, twists down, looks closely at Shawn’s face with his, then sits down. Loud snoring is suddenly heard. More laughter.

His left ankle, crossed over his right, twitches. Many laughs again. Even his ankle is funny. Just like Sid Caesar’s eyebrow. Many murmur and look side to side, finding little comfort. “Come on, dude,” says an impatient surfer. A couple rises to leave. “This isn’t funny ,” he says, but she pulls him down.

“We’ll give you the other six million,” someone shouts. Oral Richard.

The laugh meter’s off the scale now. The ultimate in victimless humor. The mute comic. “Go ahead, insult me,” he implies, lying there. “I’m defenseless.”

It’s been a very long time. Then I shiver. “Look at the audience,” I say to my friends. “He’s re-creating civilization. Some are laughing, some are angry, some are confused. Everyone is here.”

Rythmic clapping starts, fades quickly and disappears. It does not seem right. The snoring again. A man scurries from the wings, pushes Shawn’s shoulder, whispers “wake up” loudly and scoots offstage. The laughter returns. We’re sure now it’s part of the joke. They would know. Could he be asleep?

The derision thickens. “This is bull, man” a woman says. A sit-down comedian shouts: “We’ll leave if you give us a refund!”

Fewer are laughing now. Some leave. “Grab his wallet!” shouts a familiar voice. The man from the wings nudges his shoulder twice and retreats. The snore thickens. So does the laughter. The ankle jerks. I wonder. . . . I look from side to side at others looking from side to side.

Too long. He cannot be funny enough to glue this audience back together. The absence of laughter must be an earthquake to a funnyman. A thin man in a pale suit says, “This is crazy,” and leaps onto the catwalk leading backstage.

Someone says, “Is there a doctor in the house?” The laughter strains.

“I’m sure it’s all part of the act,” the woman next to me says, unsure. “What if it isn’t?” her friend replies. The thin man hurries on stage and kneels down by Shawn’s brightly lit head. “What if he wants us all on stage?” I think. That’s crazy. There’s too much confusion. It’s out of hand.

Then: “What if it’s real?”

The man shakes Shawn’s shoulder. Nothing. A shudder sweeps through the audience. He puts an arm under Shawn’s chest and rolls him onto his back, out of the spotlight that burns onto the empty stage. The group gasps. An ear to his mouth. “This is ridiculous,” someone close says. “Omigod!” says another.

People run from the wings as the thin man beats Shawn’s chest with his hand.

A man in a panic mask sprints up the aisle while others scream for doctors and others still laugh, not only at the unfunny business onstage but also at those leaving because they are not enlightened enough or patient enough or do not believe enough to watch the great man rise on the shoulders of his crew and triumphantly go to the wings, followed by laughter loud as thunder.

It is not to be. An unconvincing woman pleads for us to leave. She does not say it is real. She thinks we’re worried about refunds. Sirens whine, and we know it cannot be part of the act, and yet we’re still not sure. Not sure until we’re waiting in the chill on the chance it is his most outrageous act and he will rise and have the last laugh on death.

But death is laughing instead. Then he is gone, a siren and an amber light receding into the night. Sensory punctuation at the end of his final sentence.

Dick Shawn laughed himself to death tonight. At the pulpit of the church of the cosmic joke. If he looked back like Durante marching into the upstage darkness for that final exit, I’m sure he knows he left us laughing. And confused. As if there is a difference anymore.