Out to Lunch

STEPHEN SCHIFF

STEPHEN SCHIFF gets the Martin Short end of the shtick

Martin Short, the funniest man on the new, improved Saturday Night Live, doesn't look funny. He looks tired. He looks as though he's dying for a drink, or for pasta, or just dying; one eyelid is drooping, and his naughty-elf's face refuses to beam. At Manhattan's Castellano, an elegant peach-colored Italian restaurant, no one recognizes him. But then, Short isn't easy to recognize. He's always melting into the characters he plays—a quavery Katharine Hepbum, a Robin Williams whose brain switches manically from MASH to CHOP to PUREE. His most famous character is the woefully sincere Ed Grimley, who has a grimacing smile and a greasy hairdo that climaxes in a stalagmite at the front of his head. Grimley displays Short at his richest and strangest—half Science Club president, half unicorn.

"I'm warning you," he warns me,

"I'm allergic to shellfish. I balloon up in the face. So now I go out and just order shrimp sauce. And then I pretend the bread is shrimp."

"I'd hate to see you balloon," I say.

"It's bad. I wouldn't go so far as 'frightening.' But we could toss the word 'homely' around."

"Just now you look a bit worn out,"

I tell him as he orders green noodles in a basil pomidoro sauce (I go for some pleasantly lemony swordfish).

"Yeah, well, the show is very hectic. See, the week starts at noon on Monday, when you meet the guest host. For the next forty-eight hours, you literally are there. I mean, people sleep over in the office because all the material is selected by Wednesday, and no matter what happens, that's what's going to be on TV Saturday night at 11:30. Live."

"And if you don't have any funny ideas by Wednesday?"

"You'll be 'light in the show.' There was one week I couldn't think of a thing. And I was light in the show. I was very, very light in the show."

His face darkens at the thought. Then he flashes his round, dolphinlike grin.

"Anyway. Thursday and Friday is blocking the show. On Saturday there's a dress rehearsal with an audience, and then we do the show, with a different audience. And then there's the traditional party, and you get home at four in the morning. You sleep till one in the afternoon Sunday. You go out for lunch, make some calls. Then it's Sunday night and you're starting to think, Monday—oooh, what am I going to do this week that's really funny?"

"So what is really funny?"

"It's funny if I laugh. You know, people are either funny or they're not funny—it's so obvious. You can tell from having lunch with them, or you can tell from being with them for ten minutes. They don't have to say funny things. There's just something about them that's funny."

"But if you had lunch with Woody Allen, you might not think he was funny, because he's always so serious."

"Well, I think that kind of thing evolves. I bet if you had lunch with Woody Allen in 1955 he would have been really funny. But after a while, being funny becomes your job. So you're only funny when you're working. You don't do it in your spare time."

"What if I said, Be funny now. Could you?"

"No. Um.. .no, no." There's an awkward moment as Short stares dourly into his noodles. Something tells me he's light in the show this week.

"Fortunately," I offer, "you can do almost any kind of joke on Saturday Night Live. Right?"

"Well, hopefully that's in the past. In the early days, people would put needles in their eyes and roll around onstage, and the audience laughed | hysterically. But then, do you just ⅛ keep showing that? People in 1985 | cringe when they see blood being poured over a set. It's dated. The tasteless stuff doesn't play in 1985, the same way 'Knock, knock. Who's there?' doesn't play."

"What does play? Are there rules?"

"Well, for some reason, the number three works best. You know, 'We're talking with three guests today...' One's not enough, two is predictable, four is too much. And if you're doing physical comedy— well, it has to look real, but it can't look dangerously real. You can't believe that anybody could have gotten hurt. And, you know, you have to wear kneepads to do a fall. But basically all you really have to do is relax. I've always been able to just.. .fall down! It's saved me in many a scene."

"What else can save you?"

"Luckily, a lot of it is a matter of perception. You get the goodwill of the audience, and people think you're funny even if you're not. If someone made you laugh before, and later you catch sight of him over at the bar, just seeing him makes you smile. Where if you see some senator's aide, you don't smile."

Short has to leave. It's almost two on a Friday, and that means there is blocking to be done, and rewriting, and restructuring. As he scurries away, looking harried beneath his floppy haircut, I'm reminded of Edmund Kean's famous last words: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Then I catch sight of Martin Short as he passes by the bar, and just seeing him makes me smile.