Answering the Smart-Ass

If an immersive production offers the audience any opportunity to speak, chances are actors are going to get some smart-ass remarks.

Design can do a lot to reduce this problem: invest the story with importance, make the stakes personal, have the actors take the story seriously, deliver a realistic world so the audience isn’t embarrassed to be “caught” playing along. All of these things can help communicate to the audience that it is in their best interest to go along with the world. But there’s inevitably still that person who would rather watch the world burn.

And The Man From Beyond has lots and lots of opportunities for the audience to speak.

Why Be a smart-ass?

While audiences may not be aware when they are disrespecting the actor, smart-asses know full-well what they are doing. A smart-ass wants to assert his/her power, usually at the expense of someone else. There’s a “Gotcha!” edge to these remarks, whether they are pointing out a technicality in your language or just screwing around with you.

The story of The Man From Beyond climaxes with a very hard question. It’s jolting, it requires a deep belief in the world we’ve built to answer, and it’s HARD. (And we know it. We have a complex decision tree for the actor to memorize for this moment.) Some teams sit in silence, barely daring to breathe. Sometimes, a brave soul steps up. And every once in a while, a wild smart-ass appears. Or 2 or 3 at the same time.

The audience has paid good money to enter a new world and to play along. Why would someone want to break it? Some theories…

• Believing in the world makes you emotionally vulnerable. A “smart” comment keeps you in control and emotionally distant (= safe).
• Your friends are watching: you don’t want to appear foolish in front of them and instead you want to show them how “smart” you are.
• You want to see the actor squirm. Treating the performer as an actor instead of as the character also translates to enforcing your emotional safety.

All of these motivations are ultimately about maintaining power. But no worries, smart-ass audience member. I get it. Emotions are scary, powerful things. You don’t have the dark anonymity of a traditional theatre to protect you. You don’t want to betray your “weakness” under the lights of the show or in the eyes of your friends.

It’s okay. Your behavior is totally justified. But you’ll also never be moved.

What happens next?

When smart-asses play “Gotcha!” they are expecting the actor either to:

1) Flinch momentarily, and then keep plowing through the script, or

2) Break character, so that “they win.”

Which means the actor should respond with…

3) Taking what was said as truth and responding to it honestly from the character’s POV as much as possible.

They aren’t expecting that at all. The world is not supposed to be that real. This tactic has the two-fold advantage of not-rewarding the smart-ass (so the behavior won’t continue) and making for a better, more truthful scene. At the end of the day, the smart-ass is my scene partner. I need to take as true whatever text and subtext they give me. For me, even more important than the planned script is the truth of the moment. I follow that truth wherever it takes me. And most often my audience quickly follows in my wake. (And then I can get back on script.)

The mantra to not take it too personally is important here. The goal is not shaming or revenge; it’s honesty. You don’t want to answer your smart-ass with anger. In fact, upping your vulnerability may work best. I advise against aggression and recommend making a positive claim: “I thought we were friends. Please help me,” etc. It’ll depend on the situation. But I do sometimes tell someone who’s obviously lying, “You’re lying.” They guffaw and agree—I’ve just won them with that response.

But this technique does come with a risk of escalating the situation, in a way pretending you didn’t hear them doesn’t. It feels really, really good to the actor and potentially puts down the smart-ass—this is a power-play situation, after all! But 95% of cases I’ve seen won’t fight when they realize I can fight back within the parameters of the world.

But when they smart-ass me again, and again, and perhaps a fourth time, I bow out. They clearly want nothing to do with me.