peta LiLY
  • Home
  • Workshops
  • Shows
  • Clown, Dark Clown, Theatre Practice Blog
  • Presentation Skills Coaching
  • Contact

how not to laugh

8/27/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
the patron saint of deadpan - Buster Keaton
How can I stop laughing, they ask me…

Of course a clown can provoke feelings of sadness, pity and wonder, but, as Philippe Gaulier once said: 'A clown is someone who is paid to make the audience laugh.'

When it comes to comedy in general many professional funny men and women succumb to laughter* during film and television takes - usually (but not always) due to something a fellow performer has done. Blooper reels provide ample evidence of this and I remember watching vaudeville as a child and seeing my parents delight in seeing performers taken by something unexpected in the moment. 

But the clown is different to a comedian. The clown is um, different in general.
​Clowns  operate by alternate rules. They inhabit a different state of mind and spirit.
Whether or not they wear the red nose they are a mask, no?
Even hybrid clown / comedians like Jim Carey or Steve Martin stay in state - if they laugh or smile it's at something happening within the reality of the character /clown they have created - see this Steve Martin video.

Occasionally students ask how they can stop laughing at their fellow 'trainee idiots'. Or at the reaction the audience is giving.
It strikes me that a better question is: 'how can I stay more securely in clown state?'. How can I not 'pop' out of clown state?

One answer: practice.
Spend longer in clown state. Immerse. Feel it in your body. Inhabit it.
Feel the differentness to normality and savour that state more.
Enjoy otherness.
Develop a taste for non-plussment. 

An investigative / trouble-shooter answer:
We are always surprised into laughter - so, once you are back in your chair after the exercise, ask yourself what surprised you...
Then - see if you can interest yourself in making your wonder greater than your surprise.

Another version of the 'practice' answer might be: stick with training and have a few substantial failures, then you will have gained some more gravitas. It's natural for energy to run high when you are in a playful group and enjoying your first experience of learning clown. To be tough one might say: be humble. If factors conspire adversely, or if skill is lacking, laughter can evaporate from an audience as quickly as moisture in a desert. Keep your stakes high.

Another answer, and perhaps the most readily applicable guide in the moment:
Be more with the audience than with your fellow clowns…be more interested in what's happening.
Be in a  state of curiousity - be interested in the laughter not not infected by it.

As the wonderful Avner the Eccentric says in his 15th principle: Be interested not interesting.

Use the Buddhist story I mentioned in my previous post - adopt the mental attitude of 'I don't know if that's good or bad'.

I love problems - I look forward to generating a new exercise or two for this...

Other thoughts:
Which bit of your ego can you release?
The wonderful Jeremy Stockwell says that 'nerves' are vanity. 
Is excitement at having fun something that you can notice, and 
release?

Cultivate the joy of not-knowing.
Buster Keaton looks other-worldly in this image. Impossible to read his expression as either despair or hope. It's like a face in a Giotto fresco. A divine mystery. Sublime. That's how it can affect an audience.

But as practitioners, we need to be practical, so let's demystify:
Master Cabaret performer, Compère and teacher Paul L. Martin uses this as his clown mantra: expect nothing, accept everything.
I love it - so Buddhist. Contact your inner existential 'one-flavour'.

If the clown is to be a true mirror for humanity, then they should be as well acquainted with despair and desolation as they are with mirth...
Jeremy Stockwell invites his students to think of the yin yang symbol - there is a seed of tragedy in comedy and vice versa.

Clowns have their own thought process, they are sincere at seeking solutions, but ultimately ready to see all possibility. Circumstances can change on a dime.

Hm what about the Clown in  Trickster  mode - well, might it be that they are sincere in wreaking chaos, curious to see the results of their actions...? Tricksters exist liminal-ly - also refusing polarised opinions with their mantra 'maybe...maybe not'. 

About Buster Keaton's deadpan. His parents had a variety act. they played a couple who fought. They told their son to sit at the edge of the stage, expressionlessly. Water would be spilled amongst all the onstage roughhousing. Keaton's father would pick him up by his braces, and use the boy to mop the floor, then dump him back on his seat.

*it's called 'corpsing' in the theatre
2 Comments
Charlotte Fox
8/29/2017 12:09:59 am

Hi Peta,

How are you?
I'm a trained actor from Jacques Lecoq who has recently written and performed my first solo show at Edinburgh Fringe. The show is being programmed at Theatre N16 during october and also the Vaults in January.
I wondered if you might offer one on one sessions for clowning? I would be really interested to discover more about the work, it would offer great assistance for the development of my show.
Let me know if you can help,
Thank you
Charlotte Fox

Reply
Peta Lily link
11/3/2017 03:55:08 am

Hi Charlotte -
Thanks for getting in touch. I don't think I have heard back from you yet.
if you scroll down any page on this website you can use the form to send me an email.
That way I'll have your email address and be able to contact you to speak further.
All good wishes,
Peta

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Scroll below the brief biog + click to topics in previous posts​​.

     ​​Author Biog: Lily has been performing and making work for herself and others for many years. Her training was with Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux, Theatre du Mouvement, Yoshi Oida, Carlo Boso (Commedia dell' Arte), Sankai Juku and Mike Alfreds (Theatre Direction). 

    She pioneers a unique body of practical research in Dark Clown. Her paper The Comedy of Terrors - Dark Clown & Enforced Performance was delivered at Bath Spa University. The work is mentioned in Clown - a reader in theatre practice by Jon Davison, Palgrave MacMillan. 

    Lily is also a director, playwright, script doctor and Creative Mentor.

    Categories

    All
    Absurd
    Absurdity
    Acceptance
    Actions
    Adversity
    All Over Lovely
    Anais NIn
    An Die Musik
    Archetypes
    Aristotle's Poetics
    Arnold Mindell
    Audience
    Autobiographical Theatre
    Backstory
    Bim Mason
    Buster Keaton
    Carlo Boso
    Carthasis Of Laughter
    Catharsis
    Chaplin
    Character
    Chastity Belt
    Chinese Clown
    Circo-therapy
    Circus
    Circus Lumiere
    Claire Dowie
    Clown
    Clown Doctors
    Clown Genius
    Clown Poem
    Clown Power Symposium
    Clown State
    Colin Watkeys
    Comedy
    Compassion
    Conditions For Comedy
    Confessional Theatre
    Conflict And Pain
    Corpsing
    Costume
    Coulraphobia
    Courage
    Creativity
    Crystal Lil
    Curiousity
    C-words
    Dark Clown
    Dave Pickering
    Deadpan
    Design
    Devising
    Dina Glouberman
    Dramaturgy
    Emotions
    Enforced Performance
    Ensemble
    Facilitation
    Failure
    Failure As Success
    Flow
    Gaulier
    Gender
    Genres
    Getting Your Message Across
    Half-Masks
    Hamlet Or Die
    Heart
    Honesty
    Horror
    Imagework
    Inner Critic
    Innocence
    Intention Of The Dark Clown Work
    Interview
    Interviews & Auditions
    Invocation
    Journals
    Keith Johnstone
    Laugh At
    Laughter
    Laughter To Implicate
    Lisa Wolpe
    Mamet
    Marx Brothers
    Mask
    Mime
    Name Game
    Negative Emotions
    NLP
    Okidok
    Pantomime
    Pema Chodron
    Performance
    Perseverance
    Peter A Levin
    Philippe Gaulier
    Pip Simmonds
    Plot And Character
    Poetry
    Power
    Preparation
    Process
    Props
    Rehearsal
    Reviews
    Rule Of Three
    Rumi
    Satire
    Sedona Method
    Self Compassion
    Shakespeare
    Shame
    Shows
    Sobbing
    Solo
    Solo Theatre
    Stand Up Theatre
    Stand-up Theatre
    Storytelling
    Strange Forces
    Tarot
    Teaching
    Teaching Hygeine
    TED Talk
    Theatremaking
    'The Circus'
    The Death Of Fun
    The Fool
    Tibetan Buddhism
    Timing
    Tips For Learning Lines
    Tonglen
    Topless
    Tragedy
    Trickster
    Trilogy
    Troubled Laughter
    Truth & Fiction
    Truth & Lies
    Useful Principles
    Warmup
    Wendy Darling
    'what If'
    Women And Clowning
    Women Clowns
    Writing
    Zen

    Archives

    March 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    September 2016
    July 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    RSS Feed

the joy of being connected


join Peta Lily Theatre Workshops on Facebook
visit Peta Lily Shows on Facebook
follow #theatretips and updates on twitter
curious to know about 'urban art'? click here


Curious about Dark Clown? get your FREE ebooklet when you sign up to the mailing list - see the form to the right!
Picture

    CONTACT me - OR JOIN THE MAILING LIST & GET YOUR FREE ebooklet

Submit
✕