Corpsing in Shows: Good or Bad?

Corpsing on stage is common in improv shows. It’s something you’ll have almost certainly seen, and almost certainly done at one point or another. But, is it a part of the fun, or something to be avoided?

You will all have your own opinion on this, which you are perfectly entitled to. And it will not surprise you to hear that my answer is “it’s complicated”.

To help, I’ve devised a little ‘corpsing scale’. It is fully scientific, took months of work, and is therefore uncritiquable. Here’s how it goes:

Alex’s Corpsing in Shows Scale

• Genuine Corpsing
  The improviser was committing to playing their character super hard and something genuinely caught them off guard. They tried to hold it together but could not.
  
  
• Loose Play
  The show as a whole is pretty loose and casual. Players commit just enough to make everything work, but let themselves laugh at the things they find funny from each other. The laughter is genuine but they could hold it together if they tried.
  
  
• A Trick
  The improvisers are faking their corpsing, using it to get the audience on board with the fun of them ‘making it up’. Could they hold it together if they tried? Absolutely. Did they actually find what happened funny? Probably not.

Allow me to dig into these a little more. I’m going to start with either end of the scale then discuss the larger ‘middle’ section.

Genuine Corpsing

A genuine uncontrollable moment: the gold standard of corpsing. The improviser did not want to corpse, they were trying to be committed, remain in character, and were probably trying to be very serious. Something dumb happened because it’s improv and it got them.

You want to commit hard and do the art form well. But the little glimmer of spontaneity is always there and it’s alive when someone genuinely gets caught off guard. The corpsing is funny by virtue of exactly how hard the performer was trying not to do it. It’s many audiences favourite bits of any show.

And that’s sort of the problem. It is funny. And if people who like being funny catch wind of something that can make an audience laugh, that’s risky!

Trick Corpsing

This leads us into the trick, the bottom of the scale. ‘Trick Corpsing’ I would define as not actually finding something that funny, but knowing you can fake a ‘little corpse’ to maybe heighten the ‘see we’re making it up’ element of the show and get an audience on board.

Here’s the problem: Comedians are desperate to figure out gimmicks, patterns, and ways of gaming the system. Everything we do to break down why things are funny is essentially to try and find a replicable way of getting laughs.

So, if we as comedians figure out there’s a move you can do that can get you bonus laughs and make the audience like you... you better believe we’re going to try and figure out a way to fake it.

Personally, I think ‘trick corpsing’ is bad form. To be avoided. Just not cricket etc. Pretending to do an ‘I-just-couldn’t-help-it laugh’ is not why I do improv. You should be genuinely discovering and surprising yourself and your teammates. BUT, I would be barefaced lying if I said I hadn’t pulled this out of the bag in a tough show to try and win an audience over.

There are certainly moments where you can feel that this trick will work in a scene or on an audience. But it is less satisfying than getting audience buy-in from your commitment. It’s natural to want to pull on something that works when you’re struggling a bit, but if you find yourself going for a trick corpse, ask yourself why? And think about if maybe the solution isn’t more ‘breaking’ but perhaps more ‘commitment’ to the scene.

Loose Play

This is a much wider category. I would say that a lot of different shows fall into this one.

Whether this is good or bad starts to become more about your personal tastes here. What you like as an audience member, what you are going for as a performer and so on. As a player, I think it can also vary from show to show. You can be in one show where you commit hard and another where you play much more casually.

There are some teams I love watching because of how loose they play and how much they clearly enjoy making each other laugh. With those teams the corpsing is part of the way they play and the fun they have together. It’s infectious.

But crucially, I also like it with those teams because I think the teams themselves are very good and they play in a way I like. They play well enough that the corpsing is sort of part of it, not a replacement for the ability in the team. When they want to, they can commit and make anything work, but they are choosing to be more open with when they laugh. It’s not a trick, they are just being much less strict with themselves on having to hold back from laughing at the things they like.

I would find it unwatchable if I thought the team weren’t funny and they kept laughing at each other. So, I guess I’m being picky here. It’s down to my taste. And my taste might be different from your taste.

I think I would also find it very difficult to watch a narrative team that corpsed a lot. As a style of show, narrative is reliant on making you care about the characters and what’s happening to them, which is at odds with breaking and making each other laugh. That to me feels like a style that requires commitment first over everything else.

So, in this broad middle stretch of ‘loose play’ what I’m saying is - it depends! If it’s good or bad will sort of come down to how much you like the team themselves and what they do.

Your Style

As an improviser, this is something to think about in the type of show you do. Do you want to play in a show that’s looser and more casual, are you aiming for a more committed, grounded style of play?