Repetition and Recognition
In Sarah Ruhl’s essay, “Re-runs and Repetition,” she says, “I recently heard a woman on This American Life talking about television re-runs. She was an ardent re-run fan. She explained that even if she didn’t like the content of a particular show, watching it again was comforting: She said, ‘I don’t like it. But I know it. I’m familiar with it. And that’s enough. 80 percent is about comfort for me.’” This is true for many people today, the familiar brings comfort. Ruhl continues, “It is comforting to see familiar character again. It is even comforting to hear familiar punch lines. The sound cue that marks scene changes in Law and Order is pleasing.”
Being able to make the world predictable reduces the uncertainty of life and gives us a sense of peace and comfort. We find repetition pleasing because we recognize it. We find comfort in remembering phrases and mantras. Children learn the vowels by repeating “a e i o and u” and we find comfort in being able to follow along. Ruhl notes that, “Spiritual practices all involve repetition and variation – daily prayers, weekly communion, fasting, and holy days.”
Humans have evolved to recognize patters. Our ancestors used pattern recognition to determine friend from foe and those who could do so quickly had an evolutionary advantage. Considering that the smallest numbers of elements needed to create a pattern is 3, it’s safe to say that comedy writers are actually exploiting this evolutionary advantage to make us laugh. They often employ what is usually referred to as, the rule of 3. Creating a pattern as short as possible maximizes retention and leads to memorable content. According to Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com, “If you want something stuck in someone’s head, put it in a sequence of three.”
Writers of comedy use our ingrained anticipation of the third item to make us laugh. “The triple formula uses hostility, exaggeration, and a buildup of tension with a surprise ending that inflates the payoff,” according to Mark Shatz, author of Comedy Writing Secrets 3rd Edition: The Best-Selling Guide to Writing Funny and Getting Paid for lt. He shares, “The concept of a triple is simple. Whenever you have a sequence of actions, comments or categories, the magical number is three. By listing a series of three conditions, the triple builds tensions and increased the funny. The key is to make sure the funniest items appear at the end.”
From the beginning of The Bald Soprano Ionesco plays with patterns and pattern recognition beginning with the clock that chimes 17 times followed by Mrs. Smith saying, “There, It’s nine o’clock.” At another point in the play, Ionesco has written that there is a knock at the door. Knocking is almost always followed by someone being at the door in our day to day lives, however, in this case there is no one there. Ionesco ignores the rule of 3, as Mrs. Smith goes to the door 3 times and still no one is there. It’s isn’t until the 4th time that someone is actually at the door. The playwright then further throws us for a loop and attempts to justify the absurdity with the dialogue. Ionesco continues to juxtapose familiar and comforting phrases we know from childhood, such as repeating the vowels, a, e, I, o, and u, with actions that are loud, screaming, and otherwise uncomfortable, in order to deconstruct those patterns and sounds.