Yawp Mag ISSUE 16: SKETCH COMEDY | Page 6

DEL CLOSE: The fatherof improv sketch If you — like so many — are unfamiliar with the name Del Close, you might be more au fait with names like Dan Aykroyd, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, John Candy, Chris Farley, Harold Ramis, Shelly Long, John Belushi or Amy Poehler. These comedy greats were all students of the late Del Close, whose legacy to long-form improvised sketch is widely recognised as unmatched. While various forms of sketch were certainly being explored, performed and publicly appreciated pre-Close, as far as impro sketch goes this man was kind of like the Colonel Sanders to fried chicken. The Walt Disney to cartoon animation. The Mark Zuckerburg to time suckage. Sure, sketch was "a thing" before Close, but thanks to his influence it would never be the same again. The American comedic innovator was born in 1934 to a family in Manhattan, Kansas. Throughout his career he was repeatedly referred to as wacky, if not certifiably mad. While teaching improv Close would tell his students, "If it feels weird, do it more." Possibly the best example of this eccentricity was his dying wish, in 1999, to donate his skull to the Goodman Theatre, where it would be used in its productions of Hamlet. He also requested that a performance artist ingest some of his ashes on stage. Ostensibly, both these things happened. Various biographies have suggested his bizarre, often counter-cultural behaviour stemmed from an estranged relationship with his alcoholic father. Jeff Griggs, author of Guru: My Days With Del Close, recounts a story of Close's father ending his own life by calmly drinking a glass of jewellery cleaning acid mid-conversation with his son. "Del Close may not be well known outside of comedy circles, but inside them he's a giant." - New Yorker While the story's details would waver over the years, the impact of his father's dubious mental health remains unquestioned; in response to Close's drug abuse and repeated suicide attempts, the master of impro sketch would often state "suicide is hereditary, I just didn't get as bad a case as my father had". Following a string of turbulent experiences growing up, at 17 years old Close left home to join a touring side show — add 'professional fire eater' to his long list of performance credits. Five years later, at the request of David Shepherd and Paul Sills, he would travel to St Louis to join The Compass Players: a cabaret revue troupe where the founders of sketch company The Second City would begin their collaborations. In 1955 Close and the gang began to build on the improvisational teachings of Viola Spolin, taking only a few weeks to pitch the concept that improvised sketch could in fact be its own genre of performance.