The Nest

When I went to see, in December of 2022, the Brothers Karamazov at the Geneva Comédie, I was expecting the unexpected. A three and a half hour epic swiss production of an epic russian novel, where the director is also playing one of the main characters! If you know anything about Theatre, you know that this is going to be… interesting. 

Sure enough, for the first two hours, it’s par for the course. White minimalistic design – which the Swiss Theatre industry seems to go nuts about for some reason – galore; grand lighting schemes; use of multimedia; weird eccentric costumes; everyone is drinking, smoking, shouting, throwing crap around the stage; it’s what you’d expect. However, at around the two and a half – maybe three – hour mark, for the first time in a while, I was caught off-guard during a show. Completely alienated. Not for anything that happened onstage, but for what happened in the audience.

A quick recap: Joe Karamazov (not his actual name, but I can’t be arsed to look it up right now) is accused of murdering his father – a greedy, corrupt, evil drunk. (Joe’s actually being framed, and a lot of the evidence is circumstantial – but that’s besides the point.) He stands trial and has a famous defence lawyer representing him. During a recess, a reporter and his cameraman walk up to the defence lawyer and ask him questions. The lawyer’s head – with help from the camera – is projected against the back wall, and he gives his speech:

(Taken from project Gutenberg and edited. If you want to read the whole thing, it’s ch. 13, book 12, worth a read! The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

“It’s not only the accumulation of facts that threaten my client with ruin (…) what is really damning for my client is one fact—the dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the evidence (…) But it’s not an ordinary case of murder, it’s a case of parricide. That impresses men’s minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompleteness of the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to an unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if he committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what every one, almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart.

“Yes, it’s a fearful thing to shed a father’s blood—the father who has begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such a father—that’s inconceivable. (…) [I]n the present case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, did not correspond to that conception of a father to which we have just referred. That’s the misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a misfortune. 

(…)

“[S]uch a father as old Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be created from nothing: only God can create something from nothing.

“ ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,’ the apostle writes, from a heart glowing with love. It’s not for the sake of my client that I quote these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. (…) ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.’ Yes, let us first fulfill Christ’s injunction ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves. ‘What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again’—it’s not I who say that, it’s the Gospel precept, measure to others according as they measure to you. How can we blame children if they measure us according to our measure?

( . . . )

The sight of an unworthy father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature, especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his companions. The conventional answer to this question is: ‘He begot you, and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.’ The youth involuntarily reflects: ‘But did he love me when he begot me?’ he asks, wondering more and more. ‘Was it for my sake he begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity to drunkenness—that’s all he’s done for me…. Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after?’

This speech, and not just these bits but most of it, was practically used word for word in the play, as I remember it. To me, it was the climax of the play, the author’s message if you will. As a matter of fact, in the novel, this speech is met with applause from the public. But it wasn’t met with applause at the Geneva Comédie – and this is where I am perplexed. Rather, it was met with laughter from the audience.

I was as confused as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. (Not a bad simile, eh?) Here was an eloquent, sensible speech spoken without a trace of irony, that made a fair point, and everyone was laughing at it as if it was a farce. Not the characters in the play. The audience in real life! I immediately started looking for the gag. Was someone doing pratfalls in the background? Was the lawyer actually a shyster lawyer or something? The more I thought he was making a good point, a fair speech, the more the audience howled with laughter. I desperately looked to my neighbours to see if they were perplexed as well, but the Swiss are adamant about never acknowledging someone sitting next to them. 

The ending was a bit of a blur for me. I walked out of the Theatre rethinking my life and moral ethics. Was it silly to think that a child’s love and respect was not to be demanded, but earned? Did Dostoievsky have a secret agenda? Was George Carlin wrong? 

Before continuing, I want to clarify something: you might think the lawyer’s defence here is brilliant, you might think it’s desperate; under the circumstances you might think Joe Karamazov is innocent, you might think he’s guilty; there are a great many factors that might influence the way you think about the case, but is there any scenario in which you would find this speech comical? If so, please write to me, I would love to hear your reasoning.

It was to be that, the night I went, there just happened to be a Q&A session with the director – Sylvain Creuzevault – after the show. I decided to hang around the bar and listen to the Q&A, hoping someone would bring up the subject of my confusion. Surely I wasn’t the only one? Obviously, I couldn’t bring it up myself, as that would require me to ask a question at a Q&A session – a strong no-no in my case. 

(I cannot ask questions at Q&A sessions. That is a rule I live by. Because I might ask a question that everyone knows the answer to, a question so simple a toddler could answer it, a question so stupid I’m dragged out of the Theatre while everyone laughs at me, a question so idiotic my face is put on the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers with headlines reading “Dumb,Stupid Idiot Asks Dumb, Stupid Question” and my family is then forced to disown me; a question so insanely inane that everyone in the room simply stares at me, not uttering a word or sound for several minutes while I laugh nervously and try to convince them “It’s a joke, guys! It’s a joke! Obviously, I know what ‘incumbent’ means. Everyone knows what ‘incumbent’ means! Ha! Ha! See? I’m laughing! ‘Cause it’s a joke!” and you start crying, but it’s too late because everyone is kicking you, and you are shunned from society, left to fend for yourself in the woods, living off of berries and mushrooms and being condemned to never tasting the sweet juices of an instant ramen pot noodle ever again, and I’ll be damned if I ever let that happen to me!!!)

Anyway, I asked my question, since no one else brought it up: “Why were people laughing at what the lawyer was saying? Was the comedy intentional? If so, what was the gag?” The director smiled and said it was a good question (success!). He then explained that, in Dostoievsky’s time, the idea of a father (or general patriarchal figure, like a Tsar) taking orders from a son (or servant) was laughable. Dostoievsky was apparently pushing back against that type of mentality. An interesting thought, but it didn’t really answer my question, as I was asking about the modern day audience’s laughter, not the characters’. (Besides, the characters on stage weren’t laughing, and Dostoievsky specifies in the book that the crowd is silent while the lawyer talks.) My confusion must’ve been obvious, because fellow audience members and Q&Aers came up besides me and started speaking on behalf of the director, explaining that I “didn’t get it.” “It was funny because it was a joke.” “That’s why we were laughing.” And other such nuggets of wisdom.

Eventually, I went home, but this question kept nagging me. The source of laughter is always something I’ve found fascinating, and I’ve always struggled to find writings on it – surprisingly. 

What makes a person laugh? I had a professor once who stated laughter was fear being expelled from the body. Throw a baby in the air – it gets afraid of falling. Catch it – the fear disappears, and the baby laughs. That’s why there are so many jokes about spousal infidelity – fear of being cheated on; slapstick – fear of pain; guy walks into a bar joke – fear of becoming an alcoholic. 

It is possible that you found my little rant earlier – if nothing else – amusing. Maybe even funny. Perhaps you snorted, exhaled through your nose. (I would certainly hope so; it’s why I wrote the damn thing.) If you did, then you should know that I was playing on a fear of yours (and mine): the fear of the ridiculous, of humiliation, of exclusion, rejection, banishment, loneliness, ignorance, stupidity, all that jazz. The greater your fear of this (according to this teacher), the more you’ll have found that bit funny.

It is a fact that building tension and then releasing it causes laughter, but is that the only explanation? What fear do puns and absurdist humor tap into? Is there some deep-ingrained trauma lurking behind every knock-knock joke? I find it hard to believe; but I also find the (potential) answer ‘yes’ fascinating. This same teacher, while we were doing mime exercises, burst out laughing when I imitated a duck. One of my regrets in life (yes, like in my entire life) is not asking him why – according to him and his theory – did he find that duck imitation so goddamned funny? What fear was being expelled at that moment? I started putting everything in the light of this theory. I looked back on friends of mine who’d laugh at all times, about everything and nothing. What did it say about them? What does it say about me, when I laugh upon hearing bad news? What does it say about us when we are caught by a convulsive fit of laughing hysterics? What does it say about an entire audience, when they laugh politely at the statement that a child’s love should be earned and not demanded?

Obviously, I don’t know. And I’d be cautious of anyone who said they did. The ability to cause laughter is a powerful tool and can absolutely be abused. I’m not sure exactly how or why, but you don’t have to look far to see examples of fear of humour. Comedy – like language – is often controlled and suppressed by authorities – with examples ranging from the catholic church in medieval Europe to modern-day China’s censorship of Winnie the Pooh. 

I don’t really know why I’m bringing up these last examples. No doubt it’s to make myself sound smarter, or a last ditch effort to justify this post’s existence by making it seem more important than it actually is. (It’s 1 AM in Gatwick airport, I’m tired, and I really wanna get this article over and done with.) Whatever the reason, I hope to have touched upon something here that was worth reading and that perhaps sparked something inside of you. So much so that, next time you find yourself laughing at something seemingly innocent, hopefully you’ll walk away from it just a tiny bit more disturbed than you normally would.

P.S. As a side note: I can’t believe – while looking for paintings of people laughing – how many images came from AI-Art websites. It shouldn’t be so difficult to find a painting of people laughing, should it?

P.P.S. The painting used as featured image is a painting by chinese artist Yue Minjun and was taken from here.