The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 49

21 Thursday 20 July 1989 Green Guide Doctor Hyctaft Unas the si'Ecom answers thirtysomething dollars on Moonlighting, and China Beach. By DAVID HAY, Los Angeles r. fV Mary Tyler Moore: subject of many an academic treatise. I ANY of these performers are very ex on a sitcom," he argues. "The stories are all pretty much the same but it's the characters and their reactions to a situation that people tune to see." Half-way through the class.

Hudnut stops the free-for-all improvisations and asks everyone to claim credit for something they have done recently. Victor, a burly fellow with a black ponytail. has just landed a role on a new series created by Michael Mann of Miami Vice fame. A young blonde performer has been working on the new inter-racial soap opera. Generations.

Yet another shouts out that he sold "40 minutes worth of stand-up comic material Ujl Jay Someone else has been doing a movie at Disney, another was on a recent rerun of Cheers and yet another laughs that he finally got a residual cheque from an episode of Hill Street Blues he had written years ago. Everyone cheers and claps after each announcement. In a fickle industry like show business such boosting is important. Of his technique, Hudnut says, "I don't beat you up or tear you down." The final part of the class has groups of the performers doing on-going bits of ssit-coms they have been working on, often ones from earlier weeks. "With comedy you can't make up too many hard rules.

The process of learning comes from seeing it, doing it," he says. HutV nut sits up at the back of his class on a tall director's chair with his name on it. He blows on an old rubber car horn if someone makes an off-color or poor joke. "You should know what you have to do in order to get a laugh. A lot of things that the actors do are not funny.

But in here through repetition you'll find ways of getting a laugh so that one day when divine inspiration isn't there for you you'll at least have your technique." Not suprisingly, Hudnut says, "To me, sitcom's an art form." As for the future of this livingroom comedy, Hudnut thinks it is assured. "A lot of comedy films today are much broader they're full of vaudeville schtick," he says. "Whereas sitcoms are getting more realistic more full of real people." Identifying with such people in not too strange but different enough situations has been the stuff of TV laughter until now. Neither Hudnut nor his hyperactive students see any reason for that to change. They are ready to pump into the genre at any time.

perienced. Some come from stand-up comedy. (Two had roles in the Sally SO, AS we sit waiting for the workshop to begin, everyone knows that whatever the drawbacks to the genre, there is the holy grail out there for those who land a role in one of the top shows. The 25 veterans who are present it is the advanced night at the workshop are far from sombre. They laugh and act out even before Bill Hudnut starts them off.

Hudnut, a veteran of 25 years in Hollywood, is wonderfully cool and friendly. This compact, grey-haired man in a pink polo shirt and white jeans personnifies experience. He warmed up audiences for Bob Hope and his USO tours. He was part of a singing group. Celebration.

He has been in acting classes with Robin Williams. He has done sitcoms himself. Hudnut, however, is quick and methodical. As a warm-up exercise, Hudnut asks each actor to turn to the person sitting next to them and start a furious argument. The lead-in to the argument is the line, "You break everything you touch." Not five seconds has passed when the room is in an uproar.

This diverse bunch of actors is ready to scream. One thing that is immediately evident is that sitcom, like most comedy, attracts all physical types. There are few handsome Don Johnson clones here. And the women, almost half the class, are not so much concerned with their appearance as with being loose and crazy. Hudnut calls for the screaming to stop.

It does so after everyone cheers. All through the almost four-hour session, the participants feel free to laugh loudly. They also clap, cheer and hoot, turning the class into more of a pep rally than anything else. For the first exercise, Hudnut picks out class members in twos. He places them into improvisations whose underlying tenet is "this is the worst day of your life and this scene is the one that breaks the camel's back this person you're confronting can make things worse for Hudnut suggests a situation for each vignette: the hospital emergency room, the bureaucrat at the Department of Motor Vehicles, the car repair shop.

The actors snap right into both locale and predicament. And they take a crazy, free-wheeling impromptu view of their characters. What is more they are funny. Very funny. FOUR nights a week on the lot of the local Fox Television station, a sacred Hollywood ritual takes place.

In through the guarded gates, up the stairs to Rehearsal Studio C. come the hyperactive participants. Laughing, throwing out gag lines, limbering up their bodies, these men and women are about to enrol in one of this city's most unique classes. A sitcom workshop run by Bill Hudnut. It is a private class given by one of this true cognoscenti.

"I don't advertise," says this coach. "People come only if they are recommended. That's how I keep out the axe murderers." Hudnut not only gives classes in sitcom, he is also a sitcom doctor. When CBS cast the Sydney model Lisa Patrick in the sitcom Live In it is about an Australian nanny living with an American family in New Jersey it had to get around her lack of acting experience. (She had been cast from her appearance in a commercial.) They called HudnuL Patrick went to his class and now Hudnut comes on to the set when Live In is being taped.

During a break in the class I attended, Hudnut tells a story about a show he has been asked to save. "I'm usually only called in when there's trouble when the director is making it too dramatic or the lead is unsure of him or herself." Despite his prestige in this world of plastic living rooms and squeaky clean families, Hudnut is hardly a household name. He has to deal with the general lack of approbation afforded this television genre. Yes, it is true. Critics hate sitcoms unless they have been made respectable by time.

American classics such as as I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners and The Mary Tyler Moore Show are the subject of many an academic treatise, and even more late night watchers who view the re-runs over and over. Outside of these few, there is little approval of sitcom performances. But this is a genre with millions of adherents. Year after year, the most watched TV shows in America are sitcoms. This year, Roseanne and The Cosby Show are on top.

Fifteen years ago Archie Bunker and All In The Family occupied the number one spot. And sitcoms are cheaper to produce, which leaves the networks more room to spend big Fields-Tom Hanks movie Punchline.) What is more, Hudnut has worked hard to establish an ensemble atmosphere in the class. Some have been coming for more than four years and all know each other. Whenever a performer is called to the stage to participate in a routine, there is a sense of expectation and a few more cheers. "The first half of the class focuses on isolated techniques, such as slow-building arguments, entrances and exits and cheating for the camera," Hudnut says.

The latter is especially important, as unlike film and TV drama, sitcoms are taped before live audiences. The cameras, like the audience, are out front. Thus, as in a stage performance, the routines have to be played out front "In a sitcom, it all has to be a little bigger," Hudnut says. Comedy, after all, is in the face and particularly in the eyes." Hudnut stresses the importance of "the likeability factor in This is a must, he says, because unlike movies or theatre where people go to be entertained, the sitcom comes right into a viewer's living room. "People tune in to see the characters Buying Power means Savings to You Miniscribe 21MB and controller 32MB and controller 42MB and controller 64MB and controller 32MB HARDCARD $410 ssia $515 $cs $595 Binary XT $1690 640K 4.7710 MHz V20 CPU.

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