October Review Challenge, #6 - Funny line

October Review Challenge, #6 - "What's a funny line you wrote?"

I have been preoccupied for years with the notion that I am way funny than people give me credit for. In recent time it's become an obsession. I've always written good jokes and amusing lines here and there, but I've tended to mostly write dramatic pieces that just needed leavening. But I've been interested in writing comedy much more lately, partially as a source of levity in pandemic times, and partially to prove to people that I am fucking funny, God damn it.

It's this that led me to my major Quarantimes project, Dream Machine— a sitcom written in screenplay form, read and performed over Zoom, loosely inspired by my repeated insistence that somebody should let me do my own version of 30 Rock. The whole point is that it's supposed to be funny, and though I can't do anything where there isn't some real character and meaning in it, and so I've been pouring all my effort into making them laugh-out-loud funny. It's been a refreshing change of pace, and has made for a new project I'm genuinely getting joy from. I'm also very close to having a finished performance draft of Gentlemen Never Tell, the Mrs. Hawking spinoff starring Nathaniel's older brother Justin, featuring one of his Wodehouse-style romantic adventures. It's also explicitly a comedy, and has the problem, now that I'm trying to edit it, of how every line is an attempt at humor and it makes me not want to cut. And that's beside all the dramatic pieces I've written that also having funny one-liners to lighten up the mood.

But if I had to pick one that's not only funny but discussible... I'd probably have to go with one from Mrs. Hawking IV: Gilded Cages, in the scene where Nathaniel is describing how he and Clara fell in love through letters when he was away in his year in the service, when he was stationed at Newcastle. This moment starts funny when Mary asks him how he knew Clara was the one for him, and his response is "When she broke things off with my brother." Implying that the moment she was free, he was certain they would end up together. Mary is impressed with his winning over Clara after that, and doing it from a distance in writing no less. So Nathaniel grins in a secret sort of way, and says in an understated tone, "Well. I write quite the letter."



I love this joke because of the levels to it. First the understatement of it amuses me, attributing their relationship purely to a little bit of epistolary flair. But I like how Nathaniel's comment could be taken multiple ways. Is he being euphemistic— subbing in his ability to "write letters" for some other thing he does well that made him an attractive romantic prospect? Or perhaps he is indeed referring to a skill at letter writing, which is amusing if you know that erotic letters were considered something of an art form in the Victorian period. Is he so good at composing that particular kind of missive that one can understand why a lady might be charmed? I kind of love both or either of these possibilities. Especially given that Nathaniel is a bit of a prude, embarrassed to talk about such matters directly. But the idea that the shy guy whose big brother loves to make him blush having a bit of a secret wild and sexy side. He just isn't as obvious about it as Justin is.