Comedy often serves as therapy

The Podgorica audience has long been open to the stand-up form. Therefore, it is not surprising that more tickets are required for every stand-up performance in the capital of Montenegro. To ensure that there is "room for everyone", the Croatian comedian Goran Vinčić who will perform at the Bemax Arena on March 21st, and he is sure that he will not be the only one telling jokes that evening, but that he will also hear some good ones.

As someone who dreamed of studying acting, Goran is living his dream today, performing as a comedian throughout the Balkans, and recently got the opportunity to play a cameo role in the cinematic hit "The Wedding".

Vinčić talks about all this for "Vijesti"...

Goran, you dreamed of being on stage, you tried to enroll in an acting academy, but that didn't discourage you. You could say that you're living your dream, but in this day and age when people are sullen, depressed, and full of anger, how hard is it to make them laugh, and have you regretted choosing stand-up as your calling? Would it be easier for you to be a philosophy professor or a karateka?

I wanted to be an actor, but I became a comedian! I don't regret it at all, quite the opposite - I do what I love, I travel, I socialize... I even manage to satisfy my first love, acting - I have acted in several short films, and I also have a cameo role in the most watched Croatian film ever, "The Wedding" by the director Igor SheregiI doubt it would be easier for me as a professor because the job of an educator is very demanding, and karate is always there, it has never left me, because karate is not just a sport, but also a skill, a way of life.

I found information somewhere that actor and comedian Robin Williams was your role model. We all know how tragically he ended, and it's not uncommon for people who make others laugh to actually struggle with depression themselves. Laughter heals and connects people, but it often hides inner sadness. How much do the jokes you write for your performances help you preserve your mental health? Do you and those around you have to laugh at them first to know that they will be interesting to the audience?

I think the biggest problem is that those of us who make people laugh get bored and tired, especially when we have a lot of work to do. Comedy often serves as therapy, both for the audience and for us comedians. Like all my colleagues, my perspective always looks for the funny in both good and bad things, so what makes me laugh can easily find a place in my performance and make others laugh.

Humor can be a mirror of society, but also a way to avoid difficult topics through cliché jokes about male-female relationships. Do you think stand-up loses its power when it relies on safe, superficial jokes, and do you ever use humor to change the way the audience sees things?

I believe that a stand-up comedian is primarily there to make people laugh, and only then to “get smart”. Likewise, it takes a lot of experience and knowledge for a comedian to gain the depth that is expected of him. Jokes about male-female relationships do not necessarily have to be clichés, but they can be used to make serious comments on our society. Superficial jokes are not limited by topic, even some serious things can be superficially treated, and some seemingly banal things can be dissected in a very serious way. I don't want to be the one who gets smart, I'm here to make people laugh and have fun.

There's a fine line between provocation and insult. We're not all the same, some people have a low tolerance threshold, they're sensitive to jokes about themselves. How do you deal with these differences in your audience and do you prefer to choose jokes that provoke thought without crossing a line that people find difficult to tolerate?

We can't know where the boundaries are if we don't cross them here and there. I've crossed them many times and I still cross them, the only difference is that I have a lot more experience and "games under my belt" so it's easier for me to navigate the rough edges. People who are offensive to jokes either don't choose my performances or take the back rows, which is perfectly fine. I don't know if people think because of my jokes, but I know they make them laugh and that's enough for me.

What is also characteristic of stand-up is the interaction with the audience, where jokes are created in conversation with people in the audience. How do you choose the moments when to involve the audience and do the audience's reactions ever completely change the direction of the joke or its meaning?

Interaction with the audience or crowd work is characteristic of only a part of stand-up comedians, not everyone does it, and those who do - they do it with different intensity. On our scene, I am one of those who communicates with the audience a lot, because I love it and find it fun, but the audience must understand that stand-up comedy is much more than the aforementioned interaction. I have had great moments talking to people in the audience, often things would go in a completely different direction than initially planned. I do not prepare my crowd work, I do not look at people in advance and choose what to talk to them about, it happens spontaneously because that is the only way it is fun and honest. It cannot be prepared, but it can be trained. In the end - that is the essence of the difference between stand-up comedy and a theatrical performance. When you prepare a performance, you go through a process that consists of two or three months of rehearsals, and stand-up comedy is developed together with the audience on stage.

Nowadays, everything is recorded and comedians' performances often end up on social media and YouTube. Does it happen that the audience comes "ready" and knows the ending even before you tell it, and does that force you to improvise more and come up with jokes on the spot?

I'm glad that more and more colleagues have decided to record their stand-up specials and post them on YouTube. It doesn't happen to me that people know the jokes from the specials in person, because when I post a special, I don't talk about those things anymore, but I write new ones and go on a new tour. So far, I've had two tours and two specials, and with the new tour I'm coming to Podgorica on March 21st at the Bemax Arena. I definitely like to improvise, so jokes often happen on the spot.

The audience expects a singer to always be ready to sing, and I assume a comedian to always be ready to joke. But sometimes we don't feel like joking. Do you feel pressure to always be "up to the task" even in a cafe, a store, ... wherever people recognize you? Do they ask you to tell them a joke?

I don't mind when people recognize me and expect me to be funny and witty, it's part of this job and you have to appreciate the fact that these people know who I am and follow my work, so I'm grateful for every interaction like that, even when I'm not in the mood or in a rush. I always try to respect everyone.

As you mentioned, you will be performing in Podgorica in March. The capital of Montenegro is also slowly opening up to this kind of humor, but Montenegrins are said to be funny. How difficult is it to prepare a program for an environment that is labeled like that, and do you expect to hear some good jokes during your stay in Montenegro?

Montenegro has great funny people, great comedians, actors and musicians and it will be a real pleasure for me to perform in Montenegro again. What would my friend say, if I have never read a single book, at least I have watched “The Books of Knjige!” I have already had the opportunity to perform both solo and at the Opuč festival organized by a great stand-up comedian Andrija Dabanović, so I can say that the Montenegrin audience has been very open to this type of format for years and I hope that they will come to Bemax Arena in large numbers to hear what I have to say to them. So, see you on March 21st in Podgorica.