LAUGHTER

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 January 1937, Page 10

LAUGHTER

SOME CASE HISTORY“Laughtor is no laughing matter.” This dictum, which I recently came upon in a book by Mr. Gerald Gould, set me thinking anew of something which happened some years ago, but which I have never been able to account for satisfactorily, writes W. C. Scully, the South African poet, in the “Cape Times.” ' The occasion was trivial, the surroundings commonplace. The effect was enormously out of proportion to cause. Laughter suddenly burst like a tempest out of a tranquil sky and seemed to hurl us, a small crowd of more or less normal people, almost against the cliffs of tragedy. To change the metaphor, one was somewhat in the situation of the fisherman told of in the “Arabian Nights,” who,opened a small jar out of which emerged a mighty • genie, overshadowing earth and sky. Having been unable to explain this phenomenon to myself, it is unlikely that I shall be able to do so to others. However, I will try. The theatre was a native schoolhouse in a village of the eastern section of the Cape Province.. The aceasion was a cencert in aid of the school, the performers all being natives. Johannes Balasi, our one and only village constable, had a promising son, Johnny, who had, with his sister Lizzie, just returned from Lovedale. It was Johnny and Lizzie who organised the entertainment. The former had a pleasant baritone voice; The. latter performed on the little American organ with some skill. There two were the principal soloists. All the native talent locally available had been enlisted for the choruses and part-songs. The Europeans of the village were sympathetic; we filled the four front rows of the hall.

Old Johannes was generally respected; many of us took a kindly interest in Johnny and Lizzie. The former was a strongly-built lad, with a rather handsome face, the most striking feature of which was a pair of very prominent eyes, which showed a great deal of white around the irises. Lizzie was a tall girl with a graceful figure; otherwise she was not distinctive. THE TROUBLE BEGINS The entertainment began with a hymn; this was followed by a song from Johnny, Lizzie accompanying. And here the trouble began. Johnny stepped forward on the stage; Lizzie seated herself with due decorum at the harmonium. Johnny was dressed in striped trousers, black waistcoat and morning coat, a blue silk necktie and much-protruding cuffs. I stress his appearance; possibly it was an element in the catastrophe which followed. His sartorial. get-up was exaggerated, certainly, but not very, much so. Lizzie was tastefully attired Jn a print frock.,. The song was “Juanita”, one I have always Tiked. Johnny, rolled his eyes —the"whites being very much in evi-dence-opened his shapely mouth, and began to sing; Before he had finished the /first two lines, : at least one-third of the European audience, myself included; were literally .rolling on the floor. . Johnny, quite unperturbed, warbled on. More people sank down. I stifled a paroxysm and looked up. I had a lightning-like impression of elongated cuffs, a blue necktie, and the whites of eyes—of a handsome, black visage wearing a wrapt, ecstatic expression. I sank back in torment. After .a. few ..violent . seconds I glanced up again. Once mpre the cuffs and the eyes smote xhjejiiU fjJso ' the heroic- imperturbability of The singer. I sank back once more *a nd struggled .with the agony-which tore ; Mt my heartstrings. " ' v >• ,

/Tragedy seemed to be close at hand; I felt that if I looked; again I might die. “NIT-A” “Juanita” sounded sweet and clear above the gurglings and gaspings of the demented Europeans. I could not note how the native audience took it; from my prone position they were out of sight. That was all. I have : exaggerated. After the song had ceased, I got back to my seat with feelings of bewilderment and shame/Zso did the other victims. Providence/jiere decreed an interval. r’W'

As I passed from theMmill 1 swept a shamefaced glande over the back benches. There sat the native elders, black-garbed, stolid and dignified, their faces unmoved as. that of the traditional Red Indian at the stake.

What did they., think of this fearful lapse cn the part of a representative gathering of members of the ruling race, this abdication of rule'over one's own spirit, the necessity' for which the wise Solomon stressed? Did “Juanita”, appeal to them at all? Probably not. Did they regard Johnny as a martyr (as he certainly was)., or as a mountebank? Johnny and Lizzie stood in the middle of the stage and watched us pass out. Johnny’s arms were folded; Lizzie’s right hand rested. on the harmonium. They looked dignified, nothing else. There was no indication of anger, surprise, disdain, or contempt. How can one explain it? To this day I do not know what we were laughing at. And I have Sought widely for a clue —from Democritus to Kant’s “Antinomies.” Herbert Spcticer.’s "Physiology of Laughter.” and Freud. The explanation still chides. I did not return after the interval, so lost the second part of the programme. Afterwards 1 consulted with various members of the audience. None could explain. One or two admitted having thought Johnny "funny”, but failed to doline how or why. Things merely funny do not act like psychic T.N.T. A CLASH OF CULTURES? Was the convulsion-provoking influence due to the clashing of two radically different cultures in Johnny's sub-consciousness? Did a spectre of Some long-forgotten nature-cult emerge atavistically and grin through John's performance? If so, such was evidently imperceptible to the performer, who seemed to he floating in a sea of sentiment. Did the offended genius of Andalusia bellow at us through those long, immaculate trumpet-like cuffs? Whatever the influence, the effect was appalling, agonising, and, I firmly believe, dangerous.

Herbert Spencer’s explanation of the phenomenon of laughter—that it i the result of a sense of descending in congrulty—of a stream of emotion suddenly turned into a channel too small to carry it (laughter being the overflow) has always seemed to me more philosophical than that of Bergson: “The transposing of natural expression of an idea into another key.” For the transposing of pathos into

tragedy does not amuse, no matter how sudden it may be. But the Spencerian explanation does not fit Johnny’s case; nothing fits it. I respectfully offer the foregoing for the consideration of psychologists. I have never heard of an analogous case. It has left me with an increasing sense of bewilderment, with a conviction that, but a thin partition divides the (so-called) civilised man from the | dancing dervish, and that Mr. Gerald Gould was profoundly right, in statingthat laughter is not a laughing mat-

Laughter is often cruel. It. lurks close to that involuntary sense of satisfaction which suddenly seizes upon the mind when one hears of a misfortune happening to another. We have no name for this emotion, although we all feel it, in one form or another. The Germans have; they call it “schadenfreude.”

Man is the only animal that laughs; the hyena’s voice is a mere howl with an accidental cachinnation at the end, highly suggestive of the sardonic. The horse smiles very rarely; the dog occasionally, but the smile in such cases is like that of a baby, insofar that, it is just an expression of appreciation, of pleasure.

The Greeks loaded the smile of the dog with preposterous meanings; hence “cynic.” and so on. But real, genuine laughter is the monopoly of man—and, perhaps of devils —if such there be. But. Johnny Balasi’s case remains unexplained.