Many years ago, I was driving somewhere and feeling rushed. I was ahead of myself, wanting to get through the task I had been burdened with (in the days before I learned how to say no), so as to get back to things I really needed to do. I ran into a bollard. A powerful reminder of how mind and body work together and how being in synch with yourself and fully being in the present moment is optimal.
 
Every day I find fresh evidence that grounding in the body, breathing in the body, sensing in the body and using receptive seeing is key to clown work, and to all of theatre and performance work.
 
‘When you look, remember to see.’ 

One of my key teaching phrases for Clown (intended to be playful and memorable via it’s seeming tautology) is: ‘when you look, remember to see.’ This instruction (guidance) helps the clown player remain in the present moment, and to stay open to connection. If you look and see an audience are momentarily unenchanted, it is highly important to avoid ignoring it and to rush forward, hoping to achieve something in the future or (more likely) to escape the emotion that started to rise. 
If there’s been a failure* – even for a micro-beat, if you gloss over or avoid it, you are missing a connection beat. This is the clown’s job – to connect, to create community with and, ideally, within its audience.**
 
Once a clown teacher sets an exercise, they keenly look for the moment when the trainee clown is guarded, thinking ahead, or when they have suppressed an impulse – the pedagogical step then is to use the friendly coach voice or the ‘grumpy clown professor’ voice to guide or provoke the trainee clown into the moment, into their body, into their relation with the audience or into their relation to their scene partner (or all of the above).
 
I use the wonderful ‘casting the net’ exercise I learned from Alison Skilbeck. The first application is casting the net over your audience – but once learned, you can cast the net over yourself. The ‘net’ is a very efficient metaphor for where one’s attention is placed. When setting up clown pair work, I often say: Get with yourself, get with your ‘friend’ (playing partner), get with the audience (no specific order for the last two – obey the impulse / happenstance of the moment). 
 
Fay Simpson talks of the importance of being willing to encounter one’s own no-go areas (the emotions that choke us or prickle our skin or tense our shoulders or grip our guts). She advocates for exploring them (and offers a coherent methodology to do that in her book The Lucid Body). Whatever is suppressed takes effort, causes tension, blocks flow and diminishes presence. The more one has had the courage and humility to experience/ transform/integrate all they humanly are, the more they are ready to ‘portray the glory as well as the horror of life’, and the more they can bring to a scene with a co-player (and they can bring it more safely, without bringing in any tension caused by suppression) … and also, the more they can offer the audience. 
 
‘When you do, remember to be.’

A few years ago, impulse brought me another teaching phrase: ‘when you do, remember to be.’
 
I opened Viola Spolin’s book ‘Theatre Games for the Lone Actor’. When I read, on page 18: ‘Feel your skull with your skull!’ I entered an altered state. Sensing the body is an act of dedicating your awareness. It’s an act of imagination and an act of faith (‘but I can’t feel my skull!’) as well as a sensory practice. It’s an investment. An actor with dyspraxia recently shared that at the beginning of their journey of actor training, they had not believed that ‘feeling their body’ was possible, but through practice, they came to appreciate the abundant gifts that investment brought to them as a performer and as a person. 
 
You are doing the exercise - but are you doing it in your head and are you forgetting the body? Are you able to lower your centre of gravity (even when playing high excitement)? Are you viewing the world in a blur, or can you still see your scene partner and sense or see the audience? Are you in panic or over-excitable mode and unable to even notice that your breath is shallow and unresourced and that you need to ground and feel?

Opening up the no-go areas
 
Dina Glouberman offers a metholodogy for people to get present to blockages by inviting in a metaphor. The metaphor enables a psycho-physical state to become viewable, open to dialogue and it is truly amazing how you can gain perspective and transform it. Dina always encourages the new image to be danced – so that new state is now worked through the body and its energies.
 
Arnold Mindell has a process for working with a symptom. You identify a pain or niggle and allow it to choreograph you – you can discover it as a character or maybe a landscape or a song – as you shift through modalities, the symptom is allowed expression; you can get present to it, rather than ignoring, suppressing, sedating, resisting it. When I do this exercise in class most people report at least 50% reduction of the pain or discomfort.
 
Back when I was practicing Five Rhythms, I was, on many occasions, able to transform physical discomforts and unresourceful mental states during a 3 hour class. 
 
Warm up
​
For both theatre and clown, warming up is key. I am currently teaching an evening class. I set an exercise close to the start of class, aiming to build on ground gained the previous week. A class participant reported: ‘it’s hard to come in from the outer world and gain the open state’, so we switched to exercises and processes to re-gain and re-install the open state. My warmups (using the wisdom of many beautiful teachers I’ve been privileged to work with) are full of invitations to sense the body: ‘feel your feel on the floor’; ‘taste the moment’; ‘be on the hara’. I use Avner the Eccentric’s instruction - ‘put the weight on the undersides of the body’ (to which I add ‘include the interior of the body - the undersides of your heart, eyeballs, brain’). 
 
When the attention is on the body, the brain is less busy, more open and resourceful. When the attention is on (or with) sensation, the body gains in flexibility. 
 
I also use an exercise learned on my Sedona Method training of opening up the heart, then the head, then the gravitas zone. It’s a great way to help people access the undefended self in preparation for clown work. Fay Simpson quotes one of her teachers: ‘the more (you) reveal (your)self, the more the audience will be revealed.’
 
Be-ing while doing

In clown work embodiment is key because we are interested in impulses over ideas, and a body that is warm and inhabited and paid-attention-to, is more conducive to heeding and following up on impulses. Impulses are the moments when unexpected magic can happen – and when impulses are ‘swallowed’ everyone in the room feels it. Becoming able to work with impulses brings freshness and energy to your clown and/or your acting self, it allows everyone to experience the instinctual, our humanity, and it generates what Monika Pagneaux calls ‘life-fullness’.
 
Once you have been able to achieve a good level of embodiment, to tune into your own psycho-physical self, it should be able to support you while being in relation to your co-players and your audience, and, if you are a clown or improvisor, your imagination.  
 
There’s a further step to the story. For a professional clown, like Slava Polunin, doing the same act with set beats every night, they create the spirit of freshness, they have the experience and skill to generate (or re-create) the spark or surge of an impulse at will, and the result for the audience is a feeling of the ineffable, of something transporting or even sublime.
 
Early Clown work is a lot of fun but people often ask – how do I develop timing? How can I be in clown state and improvising and be in connection with the audience? Deepening the practice of embodiment means growing your awareness multidimensionally: the awareness of the interior of your body, of the state of the audience and of the space/potential between you and your co-players and the audience. I use Declan Donnellan’s wonderful exercise ‘There’s you, there’s me and there’s the space in between.’, co-opting it for clown work as: ‘There’s you, there’s me and there’s a world of possibility in between.’ And, further, ‘There’s you there’s me and there’s them! (the audience) - and there’s worlds of possibility in between.’

When you are in action onstage (or in the rehearsal room) are you with your breath, are you awake to impulses? Are you able to respond to your scene partner? If clowning - how much can you interest yourself in your audience?

Breath, body, and process.


NOTES:

* About that micro-beat of failure: when something non-optimal happens, allow that to register with you and share yourself with your audience. If you are not intent on closing down and rushing away from that moment, then your body will be available to react. Something non-optimal happens – and if your body is open and responsive and connected and undefended, something will be visible - there will be an expression, possibly even a micro-expression of eyebrow, skin surface tension, a change in your breath – if you take the micro-second of time or the metaphorical ‘space’ to allow this response to happen, the audience can see it and feel connected to you. The audience loves to see the clown fail. Don’t deprive them of your undefended self. This is the clown’s job - to show the ’sad normals’ their humanity. ​(Sad Normals is a playful phrase I use when teaching clowning. ‘It’s the clown’s job to show all the thought processes, failures and feelings the Sad Normals (i.e. me in the supermarket) would prefer to suppress and hide.’)

**A wonderful example of this was Jamie Wood's show about tennis champion Bjorn Borg 'Beating McEnroe'. Wordlessly and gently, he threw tennis balls into the audience and we had to work as a community to deliver them back onstage. His gentle demeanour communicated to us and we emulated it, helping each other find the fallen balls and admiring each other's throws.

What is embodiment? 
 
My movement colleagues use ‘embodiment’ regularly now to mean a performer (or student performer) awake to and inhabiting their physical presence.
 
​Some definitions:
​
oxfordselearnerdictionary.com says: 
embodiment /ɪmˈbɑdimənt/
[usually singular] embodiment of something (formal)
a person or thing that represents or is a typical example of an idea or a quality synonym epitome He is the embodiment of the young successful businessman.
 
Miriam Webster says:
1 : to give a body to (a spirit) : incarnate. 2a : to deprive of spirituality. b : to make concrete and perceptible. 3 : to cause to become a body or part of a body : incorporate. 4 : to represent in human or animal form : personify men who greatly embodied the idealism of American life— A. M. Schlesinger born 1917.
 
This paper expresses it nicely:
‘Embodiment or incarnation is defined as the giving of human form to a spirit – to make manifest or comprehensible an idea or concept, through a physical presentation. In the biblical definition, incarnation is the manifestation of the holy spirit in human form. Similarly, in performance, the body is the canvas or the medium for expressing and bringing to life a concept, emotion, story or idea, before an audience.’
'Embodiment in physical theatre practices and actor training methods refers to the eradication of a perceived separation between mind and body, allowing for a “pure” communication between dramatic impulses and bodily expression on stage.'
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/299025/498832

Just look at this face ... adjectives come firing at you.

Pompous, boastful, pushy, arrogant, none-too-bright, belligerent, but also capable of being charming (or smarmy). Can you also see his ultimate cowardice?

This is the Capitano - just one of a set of 11 Mask Types* made according to XVIIth-XVIIIth century Commedia dell'Arte tradition. It's a stunning collection of masks that never fail to release play in the wearer and provoke squeals of recognition and excitement from the viewers. 

I am incredibly privileged to work with this collection, which has multiples of each type - allowing for different flavours of interpretation and delightful encounters between Masks.
​
The collection was handmade by Alexander McPherson. Read more about Alexander on his website. 

Commedia dell'Arte was innovated and thrived during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It was born in a specific context - for an intriguing and thorough history of the beginnings of Commedia, read Dr Peter Jordan's excellent book, 'The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte'.  Far from being stuck in a specific historical setting, the form re-invents itself regularly. Earlier this year, I taught Commedia for the MA Theatre Lab at RADA. Each student dazzled the class with fresh, vigorous, relevant iterations of the Capitano, Il Dottore, Arlecchino, Brighella, The Lovers ... and more.

One performer showed the evils of Military power, evoking a dandified brute - by turns frightening and risible. Another took us to a shocking place of transgression, subjugation and revenge.* And we marvelled how the 'other-worldliness' of the sculptural nature of the mask allows us to encounter a rainbow of feelings while keeping full horror at bay. Another player created a demented, frantic, self-deluded Pantalone, with strong notes of vaudeville/panto/cartoon comedy business. Another did a chilling portrayal of Il Dottore, showing the petty authoritarian horror of impenetrable bureaucracy. Another did a resounding please against Climate Change in the guise of a poetry recital by Il Dottore. When I teach, students of any gender expression play any mask of their choosing, ready to critique, celebrate, own and subvert the enduringly familiar types. When we approached The Lovers, all students, including same-sex couples released exuberant, embodied portrayals of joy, longing, lust, folly and vanity. 

These performances gave us, the audience, an experience of witnessing humanity's flaws played out - emotional truth and ludicrous, flamboyant exaggeration in alternate moments; in simultaneous moments. And we the watchers were afforded the ability to  experience and name the fear and embody the aversion and also to experience catharsis via gasps, laughter and other emotional reaction sounds. 

A note about these times: yes, we must be careful to investigate everything at the moment. RADA is committed to de-colonising the curriculum. It's an ongoing process. Abuses of power are always present in history (including the history of theatre) but the joy of theatre is reinvention - reclaiming and bringing new, relevant life to theatre forms. I recently worked with Queer Jewish theatre practitioners, they requested specifically to work with Commedia characters and I suggested adaptations of the types for their consideration. I now teach the Paterfamilias, Pantalone as an expression of privilege. Pantalone de' Bisognosi (the needy) has privilege, but it's never enough (think of the man in the airport security queue who cries out in outrage:  'Don't you know who I AM?!' 

By portraying Comedia characters, we acknowledge the flaws within ourselves at the same time we critique power holders. Commedia is about community. Its meaning is in the meeting of a group of people with their various wants and desires - somehow in the playing through of all their clashes, affronts, plotting§ and subterfuge, a resolution of sorts is reached.

‘Commedia shows all the worst excesses of human stupidity and the conflicts that arise, and proposes nonetheless the possibility of democratic co-existence and harmony.’ - Carlo Boso

​I studied Commedia dell'Arte in the late 1980's, with Carl Boso - alongside other practitioners including Oliver Crick.
 
***

Oliver Crick is a highly accomplished Commedia dell’Arte exponent who has authored a wealth of publications on Commedia.
He has made an interesting proposal, to bring the invigorating joy of Commedia into the 21st Century – and into 21st century communities. This document gives examples based in the UK, but it could be employed in your own country. He’s entrusted me with this document and I am sharing it with you. – Peta Lily

The words, and the offer which follow are by Olly Crick:

COMMEDIA IN THE COMMUNITY – by Olly Crick

Olly Crick says: I am of the very strong opinion that what is needed, in the UK and in independent nearby republics, is more Commedia dell’Arte: specifically, a Commedia Company in every County and Region, responding to that region or county’s needs and issues. I can help you set up your very own local Commedia Company. This might be for you, students you care for (or not) , or for another string in the bow of your already existing theatre endeavours, and it might be an alfresco summer, festival or pub garden event, or an indoor autumn/winter community venue event…read on….

The Accepted Strengths of Commedia:

1. It is funny and has broad comic appeal, and highly capable of tragi-comedy.
2. It has a strong visual appeal, attractive to most audiences and appeals to a wide age range.
3. Its stock types are, with a bit of work, immediately recognisable to any audience.
4. It easily assimilates, song, dance, stage combat, acrobatics and other virtuoso displays of skill. 
5. (the masks, costumes, characters are all recyclable from show to show)

I have, I believe, a strong dramaturgic framework to support a potential county-based company and, as far as I can be sure of anything, lead it towards success, engagement and financial survival. This project has been developed out of my long and extensive interest in Commedia, both as a performer and enthusiast, and as an academic researcher. My proposal creates a framework or structure out of which each geographical zone can create bespoke and engaging comic theatre for the people within its territory. You may even want to deal with politics or issues!
​
Some Useful Observations:
1          The historical names and origins of the characters function as a barrier to contemporary audiences. From working with Old Spot Theatre (2004-14) an experiment to relocate the characters in Gloucestershire, complete with localised names and professions, proved successful.
2          That the historical masks all originated in adjacent regions, all of which had ‘attitude’ to the other regions. Each mask both represents for and caricatures people from that region, or area within that region. Commedia is ‘theatre of place’.
3          That one historical reason for the success of the genre was that each character occupied a single rung, with its own social class or gendered social class, so that the performance of a full troupe performatively shows the working of a complete society. Every member of the audience will have a representative of their social class on stage and sees how society works from that point of view. They will also, of course, have ‘attitude’ to the other social classes being performed in front of them. Commedia is a comic performance of a full societal spectrum from the Aristocracy or ruling classes, through the bourgeoisie to the working classes and precariat.
4          That though we remember the gags and laughter from a Commedia show best, it is a strong storyline that an audience engages with, that both keeps the audience’s attention for longer stretches than a series of good gags, and is the skeleton upon which the gags are based.
5          Politics is not something to back away from in a show. In my examination of current practice there are three models of commedia performance upon which to base your shows: entertainment, engagement and ideological. I strongly suggest that the ‘engagement’ model is the way forward for commedia. For those who are worried about being ‘political’, and alienating your audiences, I suggest that you actually mean ‘ideological’, because no one likes being preached to.  Politics can be seen as the discussion or negotiation over the availability of resources, and that, mainly, is the business of most drama. Another useful definition of politics is ‘ the performance of ethics’.
6          Commedia is not a masked form, it is a hybrid form of masked and unmasked performance. Each has a separate mode of reception which, when played to the strengths of each mode, creates a wide range of audience experiences, utilising different meta-theatrical conceits and reaching different parts of the brain. The audience experience of masks and unmasks is literally different.
7          Commedia dell’Arte characters are fixed social types (Tippo fissos) , not archetypes. Each one exists in an immediately recognizable position of power (social type) and a Jungian archetype is an inner state, experience by an actor, which they can employ, channel or interrogate to help perform their character.

Dramaturgy

1. Keep the hierarchical commedia system intact but transpose it your region. Who is the equivalent of Pantalone and Brighella, for example? What are their names? Where do they come from within your region? How do they speak, and in what dialect?
2. What are the characteristics and received ‘wisdom’ of each regionally based role, and who are their regional allies and enemies? What are their needs, wants, passions and fears?
3. What is the social hierarchy encompassing your regional based types? Have you created a hierarchy for your whole region, or just the bit you are interested in? Have you got power figures, middle classes and lower classes? Here below is an example chart of how Old Spot Theatre adapted their characters.

 
a.     There is an issue with the historical social types, in that the models 90% of commedia teaching is carried out through, and a 100% of the Masks commedia is performed with, are based on Renaissance and Baroque power structures and recreations of Renaissance and Baroque masks. These masks do not quite correspond with today’s types, so thought may be required to note what today’s societal hierarchy is (an examination of UK  census class divisions, for example, is useful here), what are its types, and which ones are masked (and whether we have to design new masks).

4.               Use a conventional 3 act neo-classical comic structure to build you story: Act 1 Introduction; Act 2, complication; Act 3, further complication and resolution.
5.              Each mask, based in a region, will have an immediate reaction to any change in the allocation of resources.
a.      For yourselves, how does each member in your hierarchy react to a particular stimulus that matters to your County?: the council offers the choice of a new leisure centre or a new railway station; a factory is being closed and relocated ; there is a lack of affordable housing etc. 
b.     Research the issues associated with your and map them onto the socially appropriate roles within your cast. 
6.               An unmasked role shows human ambition and the full range of human wants and needs, proposing the actions that start and develop a plot, and they exist in fictional dramatic time. A masked role is a fixed type and can only see things from their point of view, being locked into that position by the societal coding present with the mask-object’s design. A mask can simultaneously exist in dramatic time, and in the same time-flow as an audience. 
7.              As Commedia characters are social types only, their animation on stage is entirely dependent upon the actor portraying them. In rehearsal the question that should be foregrounded for each actor, is who is your ‘Pantalone’, ‘Doctor’, ‘Lover’ etc. Archetypal psychology from Jung indicates, perhaps, that the Masks’ drivers are basic human needs. Otherwise ‘archetype’ is an imprecise term and has been used spuriously to define ‘depth’ within a mask. A mask cannot be a stereotype because it is animated by the individuality of the actor performing them: they are simultaneously an individual representing the agency of their class, and a symbolic representation of that class.
8.             Other Things of Relevance
a.     Order of creation: Storyline, Storyline related gags, music, character related gags, surreal gags.
b.     You must have both masked and unmasked roles within your cast. With a small cast (of course) a workable approach is that each actor plays three roles: a major role, a supporting plot related role and a chorus role. Of the first two -  one should be masked, and one unmasked, to aid multi-roling.

Method
1.     Apply from your local Arts Council (or other funding bodies if outside the UK) for a grant to pilot a community Commedia dell’Arte company, reflecting through a comic framework the needs and wants of a community: three weeks of rehearsals and a week of shows, at a variety of traditional, community and non-traditional venues.
2.     I will run an introductory workshop with the aim of
a.     Meeting your cast
b.     Deciding on casting and local issues, and how best to map them onto which roles
c.      Negotiating a scenario.
3.     I will, under your advisement, write you a scenario or storyline
4.     I will loan masks, costumes etc for your pilot show
5.     I will act as mise-en-scene /director for your first show
6.     The above should be enough to get you on your way to establishing yourself locally.
 
Addenda
Obtaining good masks is an issue. There are various ways of solving this, from buying them, commissioning them, or running a mask making workshop with an established maker. I can recommend several.
Several of these approaches to Commedia are from original research, (see my PhD and extant papers), so you can always cite me or, if you use these in performance, credit the ideas in your program or publicity materials. 
Working with existing networks of community venues saves a lot of time in booking.
Never mention that what you do is Commedia, or mention masks, because bookers and the public all have very different views on what Commedia is, and some have ‘views’ about masks (“they’ll scare the children”). We adopted this strategy with Old Spot Theatre, calling ourselves” family friendly theatre from the merrie England that never was”, and it worked for us. No venue ever complained about mask use having seen them used.
Commedia may appear an esoteric and virtuosic theatre art form, but all its elements are aimed at clear immediate communication. It is an inclusive, non-elitist form, and you are there to entertain the public, and be their servants. Performing in a community venue means you are performing in someone else’s manor. Be respectful, be humble, and non-elitist.
 
A potential rationale - from the Old Spot Theatre website http://www.oldspottheatre.org.uk
…A long time ago, before DVD, VHS, PCs, Apple Macs and the steam wireless, entertainment was different, and watching it was done in larger groups than now. The skills of its practitioners were designed to entertain as wide an audience range as possible, both structurally and by each performer’s individual skills. The epitome of both skills and structure was the Italian Commedia dell’arte; in which highly refined specialists performed complex comic plots through a mixture of improvisation and rehearsal. Each performer played a role from a different social class and wore a stock mask and costume to make them easier to recognise.

The overall effect was of instantly recognisable character types that an audience could relate to viscerally and immediately, and hence dispense with large amount of comically redundant theatrical exposition, so beloved of psychological theatre. In other words, once the characters were onstage, you could cut to the chase immediately, get involved in complicated plots, multiple disguises and the like because the whole audience intuitively understood each character. Even better, the characters were recyclable, in that the same roles appeared in all the Commedia dell’Arte shows, but with different relationships, much in the same way the television series Blackadder or The Carry On films functioned.

Who were these characters then? Generally they fell into economic categories: Masters, Servants, Children, and Lovers, all with distinct Italian regional characteristics. Pantalone, the Venetian Miser, for us becomes Titus Dallymore, the Berkeley Vale farmer and Doctor Lombardi, the Bolognese lawyer, pedant and know-it-all becomes, Dr. Ignatius O’Reilly, the London trained expert in everything you need to know. Their children, Florence and Jack become anglicised and fight for their ever-growing love with both Italian passion and English embarrassment. They are the lovers, whose eventual consummation provides the drive for the plot. The servants of the commedia: Brighella, Colombina, Harlequin and Zanni become respectively landlords, waitresses, labourers and labour-migrants, all with their own desperate individual desires and difficulties.

So, in order to create a style of theatre that can survive for a wide a range of audience as possible, and all at the same time, we have borrowed the masks and comic relationships of these Italian antecedents and brought them to our own theatrical never-never land (the merry England that never existed), to tell parables about today, to remind us all that no one person is better than another, that we are all capable of good and evil, that we all live in Gloucestershire (or whatever your region), that Gloucestershire is as good a place as any, if not better to start, to celebrate farming, wild life, thrift, generosity, love, revenge, town, country, eels, sheep, our history and our future.

As living becomes faster, as car journeys become more and more necessary for the everyday graft of living, then at least once a year take the time to walk to your village hall, to see a show, with your family, with your neighbours, with the folk who live in your village and sit down and enjoy some truly excellent live theatre.
 
WE NEED COMIC THEATRE THAT PUTS ISSUES IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, AND MAKES THEM LAUGH AT POWER, ENCOURAGING THEM TO DEBATE ISSUES.
Go ON, I dare you….
Olly Crick 02/03/2020
Contact Olly Crick by email:  oldspottheatre@aol.com

Books and publications by Olly Crick include:
 
·       Commedia Dell'Arte: A Handbook for Troupes by  Oliver Crick  (Author), John Rudlin  (Author)
·       The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell'Arte (Routledge Companions)  – Illustrated, 8 Dec. 2014
·       Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century: Practice and Performance in the Asia-Pacific (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)  2021 by  Corinna Di Niro  (Editor), Olly Crick  (Editor)
·       Commedia dell'Arte Scenarios Hardcover – 12 Nov. 2021 by  Sergio Costola  (Editor), Olly Crick  (Editor)
·       The Dramaturgy of Commedia dell'Arte  – 31 Dec. 2021 31 Dec. 2021 by  Olly Crick  (Author), Sergio Costola  (Author)
·       Olly Crick’s PhD dissertation: https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/approaching-aesthetic-positions-for-neocommedia-19462016-a-dramat

​Contact Olly Crick by email:  oldspottheatre@aol.com

* Many MA Lab students are from abroad. One expressed excitement at the opportunities this enduring form offered to theatre being made under conditions of restriction of expression. Because the form is so absurd, you can create scenes which, while delivering a strong visceral punch of recognition and catharsis of emotion, are free from specifics which would make them overtly contentious.

Dark Clown Methodology 
If you know me, you know the old story about how, watching a particular scene in a play circa 1980, I was compelled by the particular quality of laughter I experienced.
 
I was compelled and wanted to recreate this experience of what I now call Troubled Laughter. I was already teaching Clown – and towards the end of the course I’d ask the participants whether they were interested to try an experiment and thankfully, they always said yes.
 
Early Exercises
And I’d try out various improvisations. Early provocations included: ‘do something extreme’ or ‘can you eat your own body?’ and ‘can you despair each time we laugh?’. One of the more successful exercises was ‘my body is full of holes’: a solo player explores the idea that they are horrified by owning a mouth, and nose holes – Where do those holes go? Why are they there? Am I hollow? What is this? Why? 
 
Over many years and workshops a step-by-step process is now in place. People’s bodies and minds are prepared for the work. 
The links to Red Nose Clown* are made overt and the differences articulated. You’ll see, for example, in the description below the principles of repetition, clocking, calibration and accumulation. 
 
We love to see the Clown think and feel. Clear body and eye movements indicate thinking and feeling processes. And breath of course. When you are devising Clown work and building a scene you create beats to tell the story.
 
There are a growing number of Dark Clown exercises and a growing number of Dark Clown Scenarios.
 
One of these is Body Horror.

N.B. Please note that the course is designed to lead up to the Scenarios. People's well-being is attended to along the way. There is an introductory talk on the aims and ethics of the work (perhaps one day I'll post that), so people are aware of where the work is leading. I have spent 30 years creating, devising and designing a teaching methodology for my Dark Clown work. As with many Dark Clown I describe the exercise so people can opt out if needed (no one has elected to opt out of this exercise - most people find it energising and fun to explore). Course participants in the audience have reported feeling the pain and pity, while still laughing heartily. Dark Clown represents Humanity in Extremis, so it can be witnessed. I always emphasise that the aim of the work is NOT to laugh at suffering, but to create laughter in a dark context. To implicate the audience with direct gaze (and other awarenesses and techniques). The aim of the work is to give the audience the experience of Troubled Laughter. The work is layered and needs to be done well to get the result. It's a rewarding, cathartic challenge and really boosts your awareness of the performer/audience relationship. 
 
It starts with players standing in the space. Players are invited to choose a body part. Use your intuition (Why did I choose my elbow?) – just go with it. 
 
Everyone tries in plenary.
Here are some suggested beats. Mapping beats is strategic. Well-plotted beats mean the play (the ‘game’)can go on for longer and the build and journey you talk the audience on are fully satisfying.
 
Start with sensing something is wrong. A feeling of dread and dawning horror. You must find the source of the unease.
You locate it! Maybe the aversion only lets you glimpse it. 
You want to look but are afraid.
Repeated attempts to see it.
You manage to look (body part permitting!) and are horrified.
You are repelled, lean or spiral away, maybe close eyes …
but you are compelled to see.
Is it still there? Exactly how horrific is it!
Does it make you gag? 
Do you touch with other hand? And now do you have the problem that that hand is infected? (Wipe the hand and now there are 3 spots of aversion! Ergh … ergh!  ERRRGH!)
Try to run away from it.
Try to shake it off.
 
Then two or three people can be chosen so the audience can learn by watching. Then one is selected to play further.
 
Once the body horror is established … the player becomes aware of the audience.
Take time to look and have all the unspoken questions – What is that? People on chairs? How did that happen? Why? Who are they? How long have they been there?
The shame of being seen (this can be vocalised).
Then - why are they not alarmed? Why are they not helping me? 
Look / show / calibrate understanding … 
What kind of world is this? 
Whether they have blank faces or are laughing – either way the player takes I to mean that they don’t understand.
So show them. Show them more clearly.
Then beg: help me help me 
Really look to see if audience are about to help.
Allow their inaction to affect you and add to your plight.
Why won’t you help me?
 
… then you can go the further step of begging them to chop it off.
Repeat the beat of horror and frustration that they do not do as you ask.
Sob in despair.
Look up and appeal to ‘God or the godless heavens’.
 
There’s more but that’s enough for this blog post!
 
* There are many kinds of clown but I use Red Nose Clown as a handy way to distinguish from Dark Clown (regardless of whether the little red nose mask is actually used).

The image below shows the power of costume. This is a creation of a then student designer in 2016. A woman wanting cosmetic surgery looks almost flayed.

Costume, Movement and Comedy workshop on Aristophanes' The Women of the Thesmaphoria, MA Costume Design for Performance at UAL:LCF. 
Performer: Ramona Metcalfe 
Concept and realisation by: Georgia Clark
Movement director: Peta Lily
Project leadership and photography by Donatella Barbieri for UAL: LCF

What makes a great story? 
Chorus lean in eagerly. 
All great stories must deal with blood, (le sang) sperm (sperm), and tears (des larmes).
- Gaspar Noé / The No Way Brothers

Content alert: knee-jerk violence and the ever-ongoing oppression by those in power. Mention of body fluids.
 
Summer 2022 - the latest ''Tis Pity She's A Whore' clown play adaptation. The third iteration of 'Tis Pity - but (because of Covid-19) the FIRST one to be seen before an audience.

This post is a tad long – apologies. The start looks at the process including useful communications and framing for the process.
You can scroll down to find more jokes!
 
Preproduction
As mentioned earlier I have a process for creating clown adaptations for a classical text. This is on RADA’s MA Theatre Lab – dedicated to develop theatre-makers. (When we worked The Revenger's Tragedy, the student cohort would be tasked with drawing a storyboard for the play (stickmen or geometric shapes for the characters are fine!). Also some years I asked them to draw a family tree to get fully acquainted with the complex relations in TRT. The text of ‘Tis Pity reads much more easily and the family tree is not so complex so we skipped this step)

Skills and Clown Council
Clowns bring their skills to create magic as well as laughter (the superb clown Tweedy has an astonishing level of horsemanship - among other skills). We set aside time to make a collection of people’s skills: Singing, Martial arts, the ability to crush a watermelon between one’s thighs (!) … all was noted down.
As described in a previous post, the clowns discuss the themes and give their responses to the play in the Clown Council process. This year one clown stood up and said: 'I wonder how they got the heart out of the body?'. The clown's direct, simple curiosity added a clarity of overlooked detail to an already shocking event. Now we can't help thinking - at what point did Giovanni prise his sister's ribcage apart?
 
Process questions
We had had one discussion of the play where it started to spin off into issues and ideas. Our work would be built beat by beat, so I like to help people think concretely. Ideas need to be grounded in detail – what are the audience actually going to see? Character is plot and plot is character. And Clown Dramaturgy is where jokes meet heart (I haven't fully articulated this as a theory, but it's intuitively sound and at least kinda pithy).

The cohort were set 4 homework questions: 
1/ What is your potential interest as a performer for our Clown adaptation of ‘Tis Pity?
For example: ‘I want to explore stillness’, ‘I would find a rewarding challenge in playing a tragic scene’. Are you interested in speaking classical text? Are there monologues from other plays that might make a point (e.g. a student in a previous year brought Wilde’s Salome’s love/hate speech for Hippolita). Or are you interested in Mime performance? What scene might you enact using Mime?
 
2/ Regardless of any gender expression, what is a character role you are interested in? And what character would be a stretch/challenge for you as performer? Feel free to include ‘lesser’ characters from the play. Clown world is open to the overlooked perspective. There is also the possibility of playing a character from the conceptual ‘world’ – see #3. Also there can be Clowns who play representational roles e.g. the clown who played Vengeance in one TRT production and who literally stopped the show for an entire minute, to great hilarity.
 
3/ Think about the possible ‘world’ for the adapted piece (or one of the chapters -might we have a different world for each ‘chapter’?
By this I mean what is the ‘game’ – i.e. why are the clowns doing the show for the Sad Normals*? What kind of troupe are they? Are they a troupe? Or are they strangers to each other (reflections of today’s algorithm-divided world) …
Depending on the world we agree upon (I will play a role as guide and arbiter in our process), there are potential roles of interrupter, stage manager, Footnote Clown, lecturer (e.g. on the subject of women’s anatomy, perhaps).
It could be 4 (or 5) distinct pieces focusing on different themes with a character/pair of clowns who link/s the presentation …?
 
4/ What scene or event from the play intuitively fascinates you – what is it about that which fascinates you?
 
The ‘game’ with the audience
Looking over the responses to these four questions enables me to see the commonalities. A number of students mentioned a film set as the location and game for the show. 
 
Brilliant – the situation is that this is a rare (unique?) event: a live-before-a-studio-audience making of a film. In the opening this would be clearly set up, so that the fourth wall was eradicated. Also because Clarity is one of the prime useful ingredients of comedy**.
 
A Cardboard Camera 
Props maketh the world – in any production, you need to ensure the materiality of the production supports your aesthetic/ concept. In any student production (or low-budget show), you need to know you can realise the concept. (e.g. Will the budget allow for a stunning red tapestry to lay before Agamemnon’s feet? No? Is that piece of red cloth really cutting it? Might the carpet be represented with lighting? Are there other moments in the piece can lighting play a graphic, non-naturalistic role? Can this be your aesthetic? No lighting? So can you use the ensemble to all draw apart with awe, like something stretching apart, like the Red Sea parting, with a music cue or a vocal sound of dread and awe?). A student made a cardboard camera and boom mike. These objects added exquisite focus in more than one scene. An actual clapperboard was provided, which was a godsend – a cardboard clapperboard would have fit the visual bill, but would not provide the iconic percussive sound needed to kickstart/frame a scene. I ask for students who enjoy make or who are willing to make props. An artistic student put herself forward and I asked for a large anatomical heart to be made. ‘Can’t it be like a cartoon heart?’, she asked. Yes, I said, but can you make it so that it has an anatomical feeling - have some arteries coming out of it – as this will better serve the visceral horror a the heart of the story. The final object was beautiful - a big, rounded heart, with the amputated toilet-roll arteries sticking out.
 
Happenstance
I had just listened to a podcast with maverick film maker Gaspar Noé. His extreme, eclectic style encompasses violence and sexuality in a way that is a lovely Contrast to the sweetness of the clown. At the core of the play is the physical love – the physical taboo love of the brother and sister and the high level of abandonment to risk-taking. I thought the spirit of the opening dance scene of Noé’s film Climax was a model for an expression of erotic energy/urgency, which we had visited in the studio in a danced improvisation on that subject (people ranged in two rows, no touching permitted – aim of the improv and consent to do the exploration checked and the possibility of anyone having the right to elect to leave the improv etc - all discussed in advance).
 
The skeleton and the heart 
As a group we check in and gather agreement. I then emailed the group saying:
 
We are now in agreement on the idea of the Film Set for our Clown adaptation of ‘Tis Pity. (Thank you for your flexibility and generosity, those whose concepts were not chosen). The Film Set allows for a possible switch back and forth of the timeline, should that be needed.
 
Commedia dell’Arte master Carlo Boso used to talk about having a ‘skeleton’ (i.e. a rough draft) for a show shape/plot. At this starting point, I can see where some of your suggestions might hang ... other suggestions and contributions are still waiting to find their place. Please may I have your willingness to be flexible and patient with me and the process. Please forgive me if I have mentioned some people more or less than others. I'll keep checking in with everyone, and please do let me know if you have any thoughts or concerns, or if you want to remind me of anything you think would be useful. Write your ideas down – I may say no to something first then later see possibility for it – it’s dependent on themes being woven / pieces falling into place.
 
I will be aiming for the piece to allow us to be invested in the heart of the story which is the weird plight of being human and the plight of the disempowered (as exemplified in Annabella’s difficult predicament).
 
Please know that this will be an ensemble piece and in my experience all performers will be well seen. All of you will be onstage throughout (sat at the sides when not in the central stage action – there are often little playing moments, details or choral action for those who are visible, in clown state, at the sides of the stage).
We need to make a show that is not over an hour (max 1 hour 10) – this is in order to
a/ allow it to work as a clown performance with taut energy and b/ also to allow us to prepare it rehearsal-wise in the tight time allotted to us.
 
I will aim for everyone to shine but cannot guarantee a meticulously equal distribution of roles / centre stage action. Please do help me with positive suggestions – in the past people have said things like: ‘actually I am doing this and that and perhaps someone else can take this part of what I was initially offered.’ Some roles may crystalize later than others.
 
Any making process will bring change and edits (things may be cut) – please be aware this may happen – again, please do offer me 
your suggestions 
and also
your flexibility, resourcefulness, and patience.
 
Any concerns - just come and speak to me or email me – forgive me if I don’t have an answer / solution straight away.
 
Those who mentioned Giovanni, please select and learn your favourite lines / stage directions / devised-physical-score-iteration-of-a-moment in Giovanni’s journey or inner life for the Big Giovanni Audition (which will be a scene in our show).
 
This process allows you to witness a making / assembling process. It is not the only process, but it is a process you can later examine as you define and refine your own methodologies. See the document attached – it is a ROUGH DRAFT.
I added columns to the right because I find it useful to think of the function of each scene, so you can get a suggestion of a thinking / planning process.
(Later, when working in the room, I find it useful to clarify the beats within the scenes, too).
 
Be aware and flexible - some moments of our process will include improvisation and then there will be moments of precise direction. (Often people get the hang of this building of beats and can start to work with it themselves). 
 
Regarding the attached rough draft, please know:
The first scenes are in place but the scenes that follow are ingredients, not yet ordered– the order will reveal itself (it may correlate to the chronology of the play or not). I will be looking to have changes in tone and energy from scene to scene.
Listed scenes that seem on the page like they might be solo pieces, may well have other performers involved.
Some scenes will need an introduction / framing / explanation - we have an appointed audience liason character, but it might not always be this clown that provides this – it might be a ‘make-up artist’ clown or the boom-holder clown or the clapperboard clown or another actor who does that in a given moment. Clowns may have multiple functions / roles – so long as that is not confusing. The reality of the film set needs to be preserved and followed through but not where it may hold up the action.
 
Hanging the flesh on the ‘skeleton’ (phrase from Carlo Boso)
The ingredients accumulate around the theme and concept .
As we worked the starting group scene, clowns found their film set activities: focus puller, social media person, stunt practitioners, waiting actors, production team. 

Jokes are the building blocks of Clown dramaturgy
There would be a kind of PSA on Incest. And there would be a moment where a clown dressed as cupid would outline (using martial arts) the seven different kinds of love (as defined by the Greeks). There were ingredients from previous years that were recyclable. The as-yet-unperformed Salome speech. A ‘splitscreen’ scene where marriage, love and death are juxtaposed and counterpointed. The as-yet-unperformed soliloquy by the unborn issue of Giovanni and Annabella.
Two clowns would play the enfant terrible film directors, the ‘No Way’ brothers: Gaspar and No Way. It's in part a nod to the Cohen Bros and the Watchowskis. Doubled roles are useful in ensemble productions to maximise access and to keep playing-time and featured events concise, but their siblinghood actually allowed for an added embarrassed amplification of the incest theme. In clown dramaturgy, running gags can uphold and underscore theme.

One student elected to play the ‘Great Actor’ and had a personal assistant.

Another brought the beautiful contribution of being an Intimacy Coach:
Hello, I’m Crysanthemum Garcia, Intimacy Coach with a speciality in Incest. 
And in case anyone in the audience here tonight is involved with their sibling – we welcome you!

One student added a beautiful Queer perspective as the Friar. Giovanni is tormented by his love for Annabella and the forbiddenness of it. The Friar experiences an equal or greater agony at counselling Giovanni to deny his love and desire  – tormented all the while by his own feelings for Giovanni. 
He delivers a poignant yet show-biz fragment of the Pet Shop Boys song It’s a Sin.
 
Two students who wanted to stretch themselves to play calm sweetness together portrayed Annabella, wearing blue pyjamas, and delivering a speech from Emilia:
 
‘My voice is too loud in here. I must try to whisper more.’ 
 
The role of Putana - a flawed but affectionate woman – was played with a hat-tip to a panto dame who delivers a rap on her entrance: 
Yo – my name is Putana, 
Here is my Katana, 
Nursemaid to Annabella in the beautiful city of Parma!
 
… and who later meets a disproportionately cruel punishment. 
 
One clown plays a kind of live-audience warm-up man – with incest jokes:
 
My sister hates it when I invade her privacy. hands together Jimmy-Carr-style in front of chest
It's written clearly right here in her diary.  open hands as book
 
Knock knock face right
Who’s there? jump face left
Your brother. face right
Come on in and lock the door behind you. centre
 
I used text lifted verbatim from an interview with Gaspar Noé as the No Way Brothers are being interviewed:
 
What makes a great story? 
The whole chorus lean in
All great stories must deal with blood, (le sang) sperm (sperm), and tears (et des larmes).
 
The interviewer clown hesitantly asks:
(bounce bounce, intake of breath) As brothers, what’s it like making a film about micropause incest?
 
The No Way Brothers look at each other for 4 beats, then stand and, hiding their unsettled feeling, ebulliently wave the suggestion off.
What? no. We are brothers, but no, no incest.
 
Following the rules of clown chaos, and emulating the spontaneity of the film auteur, there is an audition midway through.  The Brothers return from an absence on stage up the central aisle of the audience, announcing: ‘Giovanni, Giovanni.’ – they face the audience centre.
No Way: We have a very organic process, 
Gaspard: The camera is the lover. The camera is a murderer, it kisses, it kills.
No Way: Le tout c’est de créer dans une diagonale qui se positionne entre le submersif, le subversif, l’irreversible. You see ?
Et maintenant, on incarne Giovanni.
 
Three would-be Giovannis perform their monologues (one is delivered in Hindi). There is an intrusive amount of scrutiny by the No Way brothers and the carboard camera and the predatory, hanging boom. The brothers feverishly frame the shots – they lay on the floor between one actor’s legs – they climb on each others’ shoulders to tower over another. A visual depiction of the discomfort some actors experience in the world of film. This is the joy of clown work. In one way this scene is a celebration of the untrammelled creativity of the loveable No Way Brothers, but it’s also a metaphoric echo of the established regime’s control over people – Vasques forces the truth out of Putana and punishes her for not reporting the siblings.
 
A Binoche-like Hippolita storms onto the set and out-Diva’s the Great Actor with her Salome speech of lust and hatred doctored to deliver a socially responsible ecological message:
Thy hair is like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their shade to the lions - rawwrr! (claws on his back) - before they were poached and used as living room decoration. Thy black hair is as beautiful as the night, as black as the silence that dwells in the deep forest, before it was chopped down by IKEA ... Let me touch thy hair. 
 
The maiden Philotis speaks to the Brothers:
This film isn’t only about Giovanni and Annabella, and Soranzo and Hippolita. 
My character, Philotis – is about to marry and yet will remain forever unwed.
The machinations and violence of Annabel’s suitors rob me of my beloved Bergetto
Bergetto: Haha that’s me !
Philotis: … and so, I shall hereafter need 
to get me to a nunnery.
You see, 
there are other stories that have blood and tears, 
but which don’t have the luxury of sperm. 
The comic principle of re-incorporation allows also for a poignancy and a development of thematic thread of power and oppression.

Finally, we reach the scene of all the deaths (prefigured at the very start of the show).
 
The unborn child appears and delivers a speech ending with:
Murdered. Unborn.  
by my uncledad’s blade.
Was ever nephewson afflicted thus! 
 
The maidenly Philotis sits and places a watermelon between her thighs, shouts: Death to the Patriarchy!
It breaks into glorious wet red - like blood, like a birth or a gynaecological procedure gone wrong.
Brothers: What was that?
Philotis: A symbolic act. This is the melon in the plot that the Doctor says is the cause of Annabella’s stomach-ache – when really, she was pregnant … the melon is the TRUTH!
And the sad truth is that Annabella receives the title slur of the original play text – as if she were to blame for the bloodshed hotly meted out by other characters. 
 
The production assistant / audience greeting clown comes quickly (stepping over bodies):
Er, Gaspar? No Way?
No Way Bros: Oui. Yes?
Helen: The audience need to go home. 
No Way Bros: Oh. (look at audience) Did we cover everything?
Helen (flips though script): … Er … No.
No Way Bros: No. But it was beautiful!
Character is plot.
Plot is character and action. Blood is plot and Sperm is plot. Tears are plot. The extraneous is subcutaneous, the negligible is the indelible.
We put sound and images together that have never been put together before. 
It’s like a man jumping off the Pont Neuf and never reaching the water.***
It’s over. It’s not over. ... It’s perfect! 
It’s a wrap everybody!!
Bodies start to clear but Putana is still sightless centre back.
 
But, in the true manner of comedy, we added a song and a reconciliation, in the mood of a Wrap Party.

                                                                                          .....
 
 
* Sad Normals  - a phrase I use when teaching clowning. ‘It’s the clown’s job to show all the thought processes, failures and feelings the Sad Normals (me in the supermarket) would prefer to suppress and hide.’
** A handy guideline – as ever, I acknowledge ‘there is the rule and there is the breaking of the rule’.
*** at the beginning in the interview the Brothers quote Noé.

Interviewer clown leans in to the two clown brothers.
 
No Way: We are kind of unique, and kind of twisted.
 
Gaspar: Psychedelic, cerebral, chaotic, gut-wrenching, nihilistic – and fun.
 
No Way:  We were inspirated by experimental movies – Kenneth Anger …
 
Gaspar: …and witchcraft 
 
Both: When we were 16 we shot a Super 8 of our best friend jumping from the Pont Neuf bridge. 
 
No Way: It was our first psychological drama. (said with action of sitting)
 
No Way: You ask what makes a great film? Chorus moment When you meet images and sounds that you haven’t experienced before.
 
Gaspar: What makes a great story? Chorus moment All great stories must deal with blood ...

No Way: le sang

Gaspar: sperm

No Way: sperm

Gaspar: and tears

No Way: ... et des larmes.
 
Adapted from this interview.

​
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'Great Actress: 
Pity   verb:  3rd person present:
to feel sorrow for the misfortunes of – for example: "I could see from their faces that they pitied me."
Putana (blinded):    
I can’t see, I can’t see!' 
- 'Tis Pity 'Tis A Pity 2021


'… nice Philosophy may tolerate unlikely arguments,
but Heaven admits no jest’
 - ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore Act 1 scene i
 

​


There was no showing - but the e-poster might have looked like this.



2021
In Summer 2021, travelling to work by tube where most people's best efforts to socially distance contrasted with free-ranging groups of football enthusiasts chanting unmasked and beating on the sides of the trains, I was again approaching John Ford’s play 'Tis Pity She’s A Whore as a Clown Drama.
 
Risk Assessment & Laughter
I achieved a First Aid certification prior to beginning the module, as we were to be working isolated in a special offsite location. The student cast were ‘bubbling’, keeping to their small community each day, so we were able to work unmasked. It was unnerving doing the risk assessment for devising a Clown production.

Hazard: covid aerosol inhalation via the normally joyful and health-giving phenomena of laughter.
Precaution: social distancing.

But Clowns are unpredictable, and in one exercise, one clown inadvertently stuck his hand right into another clown’s mouth (you had to be there). A kind of spontaneous Lateral Flow Test, but with fingers instead of a swab. Luckily no harm was done.

Ingredients
Inspired by the timbre of Phil Collins' Something In The Air Tonight, the clown adaptation was to open with a chorus of clowns tasting and testing the air - sensing, some with fingers raised, some with tongues out. 
 
For a chorus clown, this sliver of text from Oedipus was repurposed and re-phrased.  

Oh Oh Oh Oh 
My soul is racked and shivers with fear. 
I wish no harm but beg ye (to audience]
drive 
From our land the plague, 
please hear us now and defend us! 

Ah me, what countless, countless woes! 
Hope on hope down-striken goes.

Coughing is forbidden and so are sighs
while the powerful spread the contagion of their lies  !
 
Clown Council
My clown dramaturgy process of the Clown Council yielded, among other themes, a voice for sex-positivity, realised within the character of the lovable, flawed Putana.
 
One student had discovered a high status clown. She developed the character of Great Actress.
She wanted to read the Frontispiece on the play – here it is, adapted for clown delivery:
 
‘TIS
PityShe’sAWhore
Not quite ‘as acted by the Queen’s Majesty’s Servants
AT The Phoenix in Drury Lane, LONDON' (words in caps meaninglessly shouted)
(she weeps) 
Printed by one Nicholas Okes for one Richard Collins and to be sold at the latter’s shop In Paul’s Churchyard, 
inthenookonthelefthandside under the sign of the 
Three Kings, 1633 (gesture of 3 crowns)
(dramatic) Dramatis  Personae (theatrically humble):
Bonaventure, A Friar - but no one calls him by his name
A Cardinal - Nuncio to the Pope
Soranzo - who’s a Nobleman
Florio - a mere citizen
Ditto Donado
Grimaldi - described as a Gentleman but quite frankly a thug
Giovanni, son to Florio
Bergetto nephew to Donado - are you keeping up?
Richardetto, Vasques, Poggio, Banditti, Annabella, Hippolita, Philotis and 
Putana

'The writing of this potent tome
Was done with safety from the author’s home
It tells of love in unlikely times
And portrays incest and other crimes.'
 
Empty cities
The drone shots of empty cities that sprouted up on YouTube inspired a section on the architecture of Parma, which one clown narrated as the clown chorus embodied:

The Strada Repubblica, once a Roman road built in 187 BC.
The Ponte di Mezzo (Middle Bridge), the Ponte Romano.
The Battistero di Parma (the city’s Baptistery), in the Gothic style. Oct-ag-onal. 
Pink Verona marble exterior 
And within: a highly frescoed cupola.  
Porticos, cupolas, churches  …. Cathedrals.
 
Losing our religion
We had a Godfather-style Pope.

Pope:
Kiss my ring.
Friar: 
Of course.
Pope:
Take The Gun, Leave The Cannoli.
Friar: What? What gun?
Pope:
I Don’t Like Violence, Tom. I’m A Businessman. Blood Is A Big Expense.
Friar: 
(confused) My name’s not Tom.

The powerful men of town
In the real world, Dominic Cummings was driving long distances to test his eyesight and spread the virus, and there were regular briefings from our PM - Text here filched and re-fashioned from Moliere.
 
The powerful men of town place rubber-gloved hands on Hippolita and Annabella while Putana assists. 
Soranzo:
There’s no shame in hypocrisy, nowadays; it’s
so fashionable, people think it’s a virtue.
So prevalent – it’s invisible! Like an air-bourne plague.
Hypocrisy has friends in the highest places;
with special privileges …
 
Something is rotten in the state
Putana (in a  costume made entirely of blue surgical masks) speaks:
 
Putana:
Hello everybody, Ciao bello! My name is Putana.
As I am a very woman, I am here to orally (tongue through slitted mask)
express my own truth.
Something is rotten in the state of Italy!
Can you taste it in the air?
(Chorus of clowns very briefly reprise tasting air)
This place is filled up with some rich and handsome fellas: Giovanni, Soranzo, Berghetto, Poggio, Florio, Vasquez and Donado …
 
The problem is that they are all so Pious!
I try my best, I offered ‘orizontal refreshment to them, jelly rolls, comfort, slap & tickle.
Even threesies. Nada. Niente.
The church has everyone in a tight grip
The town of Parma is afraid.
The people of Parma are paralysed,
Petrified. Afraid of their own bodies. Their own desires.
 
Pride
A little later, she announces:

Putana:
Happy Pride month everybody! It Is so lovely to see you all together.
Let the whole city of Parma hear us: LOVE IS LOVE! (get audience to say it)
I can’t hear you …. LOVE IS LOVE!  One more time LOVE IS LOVE!
Yes!!!
And this year, I am honoured to open the first ever INCEST PRIDE MARCH!
(Pairs of clowns parade: each wears a cardboard sign on blue rope.)
Dad / Nephew
Sister / Sister
Brother / Step-brother
Mum / Grandpa
Sib   /  Lings
 
Clown chorus sing:
We are family
Brother sister mother and me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing!
 
The problem with Parties
There was a frission around the gathering of the play’s wedding party. A clown appointed to count and recount, ineptly. 
Hippolita crashes the wedding party, reciting text from Pity Party. (Melanie Martinez's video shows a party where no one has shown up - a 2015 pre-figuring of covid isolation!).

Knee-jerk reactions
The knee-jerk reactions on social media each day made a mark:
 
Vasques: Tricking my master to buy a calzone pizza for a bride!
This calls for more random, knee-jerk and self-righteous vengeance –
Bandits: (they move quickly to appear at his side in in their huddle) At your service, sir!
Vasques points at Giovanni. Bandits surround him saying stab stabstab stab stabstab)
Bandits: stab stabstab stab stabstab
Giovanni: Whose hand gave me this wound?
(Bandits raise hands 1234 in staccato rhythm.)
Giovanni: Oh, I bleed fast.
Death, I …
… Annabella's face. (G says this as if seeing her in heaven, but the dead Annabella shows her face, eyes crossed and tongue out)
(Giovanni dies.)
Vasques: Let me use my random agency to compel you all to spit on the memory of Annabella. (the powerful characters make a raspy sound of preparing to spit – Vasques says, swiftly) Metaphorically!  They don’t call me Vasques the Socially Responsible for nothing.
(The Friar is appalled at the exhortation to spit, then nods at the social responsibility.)
 
(The Bandits - whose day job does not interfere with them being proudly ’woke’ and ethical - applaud ‘socially responsible’ and nod.)
 
Punishment
Unlike in the original play, in this ‘Tis Pity, Putana’s punishment takes centre stage;
 
Vasques: Grab the whore-mongering whore.
(Bandits appear quickly in their huddle)
Bandit 2: Do you mean the sex-worker?
Bandit 1: We prefer the term sex-worker.
Bandit 3: Word.
Vasques: Grab Annabella’s nurse, Putana!
 
Tis Pity There's No Pity
You could argue how well the pandemic was dealt with by the government – you could be forgiven for saying that there seemed to be a failure of compassion* among many of those in power.
 
The ‘Great Actress’ Clown) delivers a dictionary definition of Pity while poor Putana is tortured.
Great Actress: Pity  … pronunciation: /ˈpɪti/    noun.
The feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.
Vasques: Take out her eyes!
Putana: What?! No No
(One arm, two arms to place hands on Putana’s eyes. If possible, the front 2 bandits have red makeup on their fingers [warmed in hands] to smear on Putana’s eyelids.)
Clown Chorus: Ooooh! (flinching)
Great Actress: For example:  "the sight of the maiming filled the onlookers with pity"
(Putana cries out.   Clown chorus look appalled / distraught.)
Great Actress: Synonyms:
compassion    ,    commiseration    ,     condolence
sorrow         ,       sympathy
distress    ,    regret
Antonyms:     Indifference, …
(Clown Chorus turn away with shame, not indifference while
The Powerful - Soranzo etc - check their fingernails, phones, or use antibacterial wipes.)

Great Actress:  … Cruelty.      (sobs from Putana)
Pity   verb:  3rd person present:
to feel sorrow for the misfortunes of – for example:
"I could see from their faces that they pitied me"
Putana:    I can’t see, I can’t see
(Vasques stabs her – Putana dies, but remains standing in crucifix position, but drooped.)
 
Great Actress: Pity, alternate meaning: a cause for regret or disappointment.
For example:
"it's a pity she got pregnant”
“it’s a pity a sweet idiot like Bergetto was killed. By ‘accident’”
“It’s a pity a brother and sister fell for one another”
“It’s a pity about the plight of the hard-working, disenfranchised bandits dehumanised by the capitalist structure”
Bandits: hear hear, right on, word. (and solidarity fists)

Ex-machina
The character known as ‘Pope/God thing’ arrives. In an ideal world, they would be suspended from on high, but in this student clown production, piggy-backed in by someone.
 
All: (inhale) it’s the pope / god / supreme being thing!!
 
God Pope Thing: Take up these slaughter'd bodies,
Clown chorus intone: shame
God Pope Thing: see them buried;
Clown chorus: crying shame
God Pope Thing: And all the gold and jewels,
Wallets, spare-change whatsoever,
Clown chorus: misfortune
God Pope Thing: Confiscate by the canons of the Church,
Clown chorus: crime (then feel a bit worried they said that)
God Pope Thing: We seize upon these goods - and divert them to the Pope's proper use.
All, including Friar, but not Putana: Of course.
(All leave the stage – some flouncing, some ashamed and compromised.)
 
Interruption
Along with contrast, clarity, pace, stupidity, alternate logic, micro-pauses, clocks, drops, rhythm, timing, representation of minor characters,
interruption
is a useful comic device.
 
Putana: The Parmesan people …
(Quick appearance by Poggio with a wedge of parmesan cheese.)
Daniel/Poggio: ‘My Master said that he loved her almost as well as he loved Parmesan.’

Interruption is Interruption
But IRL, interruption is interruption. Abruptly (as in 2020), our 2021 covid-themed ‘Tis Pity rehearsals stopped because an-extra mural workshop brought Covid into the group, so, as in 2020, this new iteration of Clownacy never had a sharing, not even to a small, covid-safely-distanced group of viewers.




* lack of compassion towards nurses, the disabled, the elderly ... and others

The past is the past until …
 
1981
I was one of the co-founders of a physical theatre company, Three Women, touring UK and Europe with our shows ‘High Heels’, ‘Follies Berserk’ and ‘Wounds’. 
 
I was living with boyfriend and friends in a rented house off the Wandsworth Bridge Road. That boho house in Fulham had a bead curtain instead of a bathroom door, and a wall phone (old-school handset with the classic coiled cord) beside the bath. There was a big green sofa in the living room, a blackboard on the kitchen wall and a spacious basement where we once held a party to which innovative pop hit-maker Joe Jackson came. We got to know him because he came to see ‘High Heels’. We brought him out of the audience to join in a ‘magic act’ (not realising at all who he was).
 

One of the household was musician Roy Nicolson*. He set up his piano and keyboard in the basement, where he worked long days writing electro-pop songs under the name of Michael Process. 
​
We’d all gather to watch Top of The Pops** each Thursday night. We enjoyed seeing the art school-inspired pop artists and discussed the style innovations (e.g. Adam Ant’s post-punk/New Romantic transformation into a re-envisioned Dandy Highwayman via Vivienne Westwood). 

I loved the pared-back percussive dissonance of ‘Money’ by the Flying Lizards and the vocalist’s deadpan delivery. And there was Nina Hagen. There was no Google back then to check the lyrics of ‘Unbeschreiblich Weiblich’ – it was only this year I realised the full scope of the bold originality of her lyrics.
 
Having checked out Hagen on YouTube for the writing of this piece, I noticed that the show makeup we wore in Three Women was similar to Nina’s. This was probably the contribution of Claudia, the German member in our touring company, as we crafted of a female version of the classic ‘everyman’ mime makeup. The 80’s was, in general, the era of pink eyeshadow, blue lips and lightening-bolt blusher.

Three Women created shows with a feminist twist. For one piece: ‘Business Men’, my friend Roy wrote an absurd, bouncy march for the start of the piece where the ‘men’ did a formation ‘parade’ with jackets on our heads and ties on our foreheads.
 
Collaboration
Maybe it was because of this that I felt bold enough to show Roy a few lyrics I had scrawled: ‘Sheep’s Clothing’ and ‘Boys Aren’t All Bad’ (which had arch delivery and rhythm inspired by the aforementioned ‘Money’). I also wrote a song called ‘I Am a Time Bomb’.
 




Fulham Broadway - as mentioned in Ian Dury’s ‘What a Waste’ - was the nearest tube station, a good 15 minutes’ walk from our house. It was a walk I always seemed to be doing alone in the damp and dark - an activity that required focus and vigilance. One evening there had been more than the usual amount of dodgy looks and cat calls: a group passed, enveloping and expelling me like an amoeba absorbing its food. Later, a car careered past and a lad leaned half his body out the window to shout at me: ‘VD, VD, VD!’ I was almost home when a small group coming the other way passed close and purely on reflex, I punched one of them in the ribs (I was jumpy, it was a dumb idea, never repeated). He broke away and gave chase for a bit and I ran all the way to the front door. No great trauma – but a thing. 
 
The men who walk the dark
They mumble as I pass
They have me in their sights
But am I really dressed to kill?
The echoes of my feet, the shadows in the street, all stop when I stand still.
– ‘I Am a Time Bomb’
 
Building a song
The song took shape in a few sessions in the basement. I came with a rough suggestion of the vocal line and Roy (aka Michael) worked his talent, experience and craft on the song structure and musical choices. He liked the result of our collaboration enough to mention it to his producer. 
 
Tick-Tock
When I got into the recording studio (with Andy Arthurs, Phil Chambon and Roy aka Michael) I was nervous, due to my lack of knowledge and modest vocal ability. The instrumentation of the piece was put in place. Compelling beats conveyed an alarmed heartbeat. I sang the verses and ‘Michael Process’ sang backup lines and then the producer said it needed something extra: a voiceover at the top, to set the context for the song. I wrote something and read it. I was asked to do it again in a breathy voice – I thought, hm, ok, fear can be breathy, right? Then a phrase was needed to punctuate and someone came up with ‘Or I’ll explode on you!’ It’s a logical extension of the Time Bomb metaphor, but I had misgivings - together with the breathy intro, wouldn’t this give the song a sexual slant? The studio clock is always ticking (whoops, a pun) and I couldn’t propose anything else that had as effective an impact for that moment of the song structure.
 
On the 45
The image for the sleeve of the 45 was shot in Elephant and Castle, at the entrance to a grimy pedestrian tunnel. I am looking back over my shoulder and carrying shoes to suggest a need to be fleet of foot. I wore my then most prized garment: a black patterned satin gentleman’s jacket, accessorized with a glittered pink scarf from the Kings Road and dangly earrings (the 80’s was ALL ABOUT EARRINGS). Over-plucked eyebrows, intense eye makeup and (god help me) permed, crimped hair completed the ‘look.’
 
I’m looking at the cover design now. Graphic designers then worked with Letraset – did some of the letters come adrift? Or was the uneven, drooping lettering a deliberate, if reserved, nod to punk design?

​B side
On the flip side was an instrumental track – the pompous, infectious, comical march Roy had written for ‘Business Men’. 

We sold the records at our shows, with the ‘Business Men’ track (the ‘B side’) facing out. Yes, Three Women had merch! Pink t-shirts with our logo (a surreal line drawing of a shoe created by artist Tessa Schneideman). It was a strappy, high-heeled sandal with toes, but an absent foot

I was too terrified to imagine myself even as an aspiring pop star - it was more the act of creation that compelled me. I played ‘Time Bomb’ to the other two Three Women and Tessa said: ‘It’s beneath you.’ I had thought Tessa would understand the concept of a message delivered in an accessible format – wasn’t that what we did with our shows? Doesn’t pop (like comedy) allow for a message to be at once serious and not serious? I felt I had failed. Failed my own brief: to create a feminist pop song. 
 
I put it behind me. Someone posted ‘Time Bomb’ on YouTube a number of years ago and a couple of my drama school students managed to discover it. ‘Great,’ I said to them. ‘My decades of (pre-digital) ground-breaking physical theatre work are undocumented … but this, you see!’ 
 
The past will rise up
In 2021, I received a Facebook message from someone compiling an album of 80’s electro-pop, wanting to include ‘Time Bomb’.
 
Brené Brown tells us to be vulnerable, to get comfortable with discomfort. Clown teaches us to view ‘failure’ as creative opportunity.
 
I contacted Roy who contacted the producer who okayed the rights for the track to go on the album. This unexpected resurfacing of ‘Time Bomb’ has had a wonderful outcome. I am working on a new mystery project and am once again, and more prolifically, collaborating with my talented musician friend. It is now decades later and we are working, not side by side in a basement in Fulham, but by email between two hemispheres. 
 
Timebomb today
Feminism today is more nuanced and I can’t help looking back critically as I listen to ‘Time Bomb’ again.***
 
Michael Process definitely made good music. It’s a catchy, well-crafted track, sounding of its era, yet satisfyingly fresh.
 
Flawed metaphor or not, ‘I Am a Time Bomb’ is still uncomfortably relevant.
 
I wonder what you might make of it?
 
Listen to  'I Am a Timebomb' - as randomly posted on YouTube in 2009. 
Also check out this Discography listing, where you can also hear the track.

 FOOTNOTES:
* Among many other things, Roy Nicolson co-wrote and played on ‘I Eat Cannibals’ by Toto Coelo. 
  He also released records as Michael Process.
 
** On the subject of pop in general - a bit of tangential trivia/unnecessary namedrop: my 1982 wedding dress (a black Lois Lane affair with a pillbox hat) was made by Natasha Korniloff, who, as well as designing ‘Follies Berserk’ for Three Women, had designed the gorgeous White Clown costume for her then-lover David Bowie in the ‘Ashes to Ashes’ video. 
 
*** ‘Don’t take me for a whore’ – was written before awareness of the importance of being an ally for sex-workers. A few lines were added under pressure of time in the studio: ‘The city is a warzone’ had the right argument, ‘I am a deadly weapon’ is misleading and ‘There’s gonna be a big explosion’ – is off target. My intention for the song was a critique of a real situation rather than a revenge fantasy.


​Thanks to Kelly Burke for her invaluable assistance in reading and editing previous drafts of this blog post. 


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I came across this image I had posted on Instagram in 2019 - a reminder of so many things.

Can we see this image as a red nose awaiting your next pratfall, but without any obligation to take it seriously? I know  - ouch - sometimes it takes a while before we see the funny side.
Or perhaps it's better to say it's an invitation to take it philosophically? Or (let's keep it simple) an invitation to forget philosophy and take it with a breath and a shrug ... and move on into the next beat, the continually renewing 'Now'?

I say all of this as a reminder to myself of course. Shrug and the chips on the shoulder will flitter off onto the floor
.
This image is a bit like a red nose but it's also like an eye - a clown's-eye-view?
​
My clown 'coat of arms' has the motto 'Dignity in No Dignity'.
I have a healthy dark humour, but, as I continue on my journey with my Dark Clown work, more and more often, people pick up on the compassion that work evokes. I am currently reading 'The Clown, from Heart to Heart' by Ton Kurstjens.

​The poem below was written in 2015 and occurs earlier on the blog. Maybe it will come to someone today (whichever day that may be) at just the right moment.

The Clown

Roll the drums and raise the curtain

chaos is glory and uncertainty, certain.

The facts are all useless,

speak nonsense instead -

because down is up when you stand on your head.

How delightful it is to be defective -

a kick in the pants brings a fresh perspective:

serious is stupid, dignity overrated -
 
the fairground mirrors are all silver-plated.

Deliberately misread the riot act -

know that smart is never as clever as the cracked. 

Step up, step inside, 

make failure your friend -

bake a cake with sawdust

make despair wag its rear end.


Let identity slip

balloon, string, fingertip

transform:

artichoke, angel, bookcase, fish.

Let loose your grip, tumble,   

stub your toe, trip

and blow your nose with a victory trumpet.

Dance badly, cry buckets.

let us see you survive, 

then hang out your unholy laundry to dry - 

for chaos is glory 

and clumsiness divine

and the buddha

is always known by his smile

For my Alchemy of Archetypes course, I was inspired to work with Frankie Armstrong and Janet Rodgers' book ‘Acting and Singing With Archetypes.’  and to combine the journeys with mask work. Trestle Theatre Company sell a set of 8 archetype half-masks. But now when I teach, I work with 10 Archetypes. I commissioned a Maiden mask from British mask-maker Stephen Jon Cooper. And I found, in the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre giftshop, a papier-mâché skull mask. I didn’t buy it when I first saw it but something was planted in me and I made a phone call. ‘Yes, we just have the one left’. ‘Hold it for me!’ and I dashed across town to buy it.
 
Archetypes Online
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, I adapted to run my Alchemy of Archetypes workshop online, without masks, using the process of stepping in and stepping out as described in Frankie and Janet’s book but also as I learned it from theatre practitioner Mollie Guilfoyle who ran Soylent Theatre People’s Theatre, creating plays that included masked and unmasked characters which demanded a shared level of ‘heightened’ playing (more physical / not-naturalism). In most of my teaching, I encourage a playing state which is both physically embodied and imaginatively immersed. My experience learning with Butoh performers (Sankai Juku, Natsu Nakajima and UK-based Yumino Seki), planted the seed for surrender to the essence. My great respect for comedy and clown also brings forward the joy of play and the joy of otherness.

How I came to develop the Death Archetype:
Inspiration was always there in memento mori paintings and illustrations of Death and the Maiden, and
in recent years, the work of Hungarian artist Zsuzsanna Ujj. I took her images below as inspiration for the character of Gloriana, in a  freely-adapted student production  of ‘The Revengers Tragedy’
at RADA in order to give Vindice’s dead girl friend a presence and a voice in the play.

The process for playing the Archetype of Death includes a warmup guided by the skeleton and celebrating joint articulations. 
 
‘Enjoy your bones as you move.’ I repeat Viola Spolin’s phrase from her book ‘Theatre Games for the Lone Actor’. Spolin says: Feel your skull. Feel your skull with your skull. 
 
Next follows a Carnival-esque ‘Dance your Bones’. Tom Waits’ track ‘Singapore’ has a perfect rhythm and is dark and downbeat but still jaunty.
I give side prompts during dance to get people to raise elbows, explore hips, think of empty eye sockets and explore teeth and jaw. Have fun playing with what funny things your legs can do. And then the hips. Death can be as dry as dust, but s/he/they can be a bit cheeky as well.
Towards the end of the track, everyone is at the Skeleton Ball, and dance together (if online, it’s fun to play ‘peekaboo’ by coming and going out of the screen).
 
Set up for the Immersion / Guided Journey:
Dina Glouberman invented ‘Imagework’. You use the body-mind’s ability to access knowledge intuitively by allowing spontaneous images or sensings of metaphors which can contain helpful information of issues and allow, through inhabiting and moving and calling in mentors or adopting different viewpoints, a transformation of unhelpful fixed patterns. The work includes imaginal journeys - for example, you can visit the House of Health; The House of Sleep; The House of Time; the House of Money - there are steps to pass through and it's possible to gain some startlingly helpful insights. 
 
On an advanced course, Dina led us on a journey to meet Death. And  most of us were empowered to find how calming it was to have that experience. Many of us found that Death is just a doorkeeper. That's their job. They're not scarily coming after you with a knife, they're just very patient. And very pragmatic. 
 
Death The Doorkeeper
Can you get a sense of this expression of Death, the functionary? For your voice: use your bones, or use your parchment skin or use the atmosphere; the dry, possibly dusty or slightly chill environment Death is in. Is there a table? On the table there is a ledger. Do you have a thermos? Is there a clock on the wall – does it tick? Are there no hands on the clock?  You can be whatever gender expression you like. What are you wearing? A poorly cut suit? A drab skirt and cardigan? Summon an image of an empty office space, a grey-hued Kafka-esque scene. Film director Roy Andersson in his film 'A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence’ evokes a cold-colour-palette world where figures with pasty faces stand in uninspiring, pragmatic surroundings. See image below.

Preparation for Immersion / Guided Journey
Participants are invited to close your eyes, if you are willing, but to stay safe in the space, do crack your eyelids open to see where you are stepping.
 
Immersion / Guided Journey
The 'journey' allows participants to explore Death in her/his/their workplace. First, participants are invited to visualise how they this Archetype of Death, to invite a spontaneous sensing or visualisation – the way inspiration delivers that he/she/they appear for you in this moment - then to step in and transform in shape and texture.
 
There you are, in your place of work. Just a functionary. Long hours, but you’re used to it. What does it sound like in there? Is there a desk in the room beside you? With a ledger on it? Is there a clock? Perhaps a filing cabinet you never use. You're on duty. There beside the door. It's a slow day today. So you're just patiently there: and your mantra is: ‘I am the inevitable.’ Sing it, speak it, chant it, or hum while thinking it.
 
The 'journey' continues with Death meeting a succession of characters: old man, young man, maiden, dog, child. Their names are crossed off and Death ushers them through the door.

There may be little admin tasks in the lulls. A pencil to sharpen? A sip of tea? Or just waiting. 
 
When Death's breaktime rolls round, I encourage participants to explore: What do you like to do in your break? Do you have a stand-up comedy set that you’ve been working on? A nice ‘tight five’ for the next open mic? What’s your catch phrase? Is it: ‘I am the inevitable’? Are you working up a tap routine? Are you practicing to juggle? Or is there a song that that you're working on? Do the lyrics include: ‘I am the inevitable’? Flamenco dancing? Where you rattle your bones like castanets? 

Very, very occasionally Death gets to go up and get someone. Up in the sun. But it's rare, you have to wait for orders.

You are good at your job, it may be hard work on your feet, but you’re used to it.
'I am the inevitable’ …
 
Step out step in:
And in this next moment, I'm going to invite you to take a small step backwards or to the side like a hand coming out of a glove. You're going to step yourself out. Don't open your eyes. Just step out for a moment. So you can feel the difference: feet on the floor, crown toward the ceiling - the normal self. 
And then just step back in so that you can prove to yourself that you can access that Archetype again. Yes. ‘I am the inevitable’ - their memories, their physicality, the quality of their skin. Go to your favourite moment, either from the dance or from the most vivid moment or from the most boring moment …
 
And once again, breathe and breathe and just slip out like a hand coming out of a glove.
 
And be sure to transition gently. Respect what you've done. Respect the transformation of the body.
twinkle your fingers and toes. Shimmy like a dog coming out of a puddle (as per Frankie Armstrong and Janet Rodger's journeys) and then place your hands either side of your face and remove that imaginary mask and set it very respectfully somewhere safe for now.
 
If you are feeling cold after the Journey:
This is Donna Eden’s Triple Warmer exercise from her book Energy Medicine. It’s a Chinese Medicine meridian, governing the adrenal gland.
https://www.edenmethodvictoria.com/triple-warmer
Mainly used for soothing nerves or when overheated, you can run Triple Warmer in the opposite direction to warm-up, if cold.
Rub your hands. Place the palm of your right hand on the ring finger of your left hand. Smooth up the slight outside of the forearm, upper arm, the back-ish of the neck, behind the ear and up over the ear to the temple. Do it three times.
Repeat on other side (x3).
 
Moving on to work with Text
I use a monologue I pieced together for the character of the dead Gloriana from the adapted version of ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy’ and I also use a slightly adapted piece of text from Selena Godden’s book ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’.
 
Moving on to work with Improv
I work with the practitioner in the mask (or without, if online), responding to how they are in the space, or asking the 'mask' questions and seeing what arises. To play Death’s vaudeville aspect, I sometimes suggest the player sings ‘Chatanooga Choo Choo’. One course participant on an in-person workshop (playing Death) managed to entice a wary course participant out of their chair and on to the performing area to come aboard the ‘train’ and follow Death in the song, conga-style.
 
Literary references for the Death Archetype:
Philip Pullman ‘His Dark Materials’
Selena Godden ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’
Markus Zusak ‘The Book Thief’

Myth:
Charon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon
Also Anubis, Yama, Hermes, Mercury, Valkyries, Xolotl and Vanth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopomp
 
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I recently inaugurated a new Dark Clown Scenario.

Like Fox and Maiden, it has a Fairytale inspiration. As a child, I was fascinated by the story of The Little Mermaid. 

Here’s an edited excerpt from the Wikipedia synopsis of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale: ‘The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, visits the Sea Witch who lives in a dangerous part of the ocean. The witch willingly helps her by selling her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her tongue and beautiful voice, as the Little Mermaid has the most enchanting voice in the world. The witch warns the Little Mermaid that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Consuming the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her body, yet when she recovers, she will have two human legs and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, she will constantly feel as if she is walking on sharp knives. 
​
(The Mermaid will obtain a soul only if she wins the love of the prince and marries him, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries someone else, the Little Mermaid will die with a broken heart and dissolve into sea foam upon the waves.)
She agrees, swims to the surface and drinks the potion. The liquid feels like a sword piercing through her body and she passes out. She is found by the prince, who is mesmerized by her beauty and grace, even though she is mute. Most of all, he likes to see her dance, and she dances for him despite suffering excruciating pain with every step.’
 
The Little Mermaid Scenario is a game for two players. It is based on the particular pain of not having one’s suffering understood … can you relate? Or is it only me? The scenario features the Prince gazing lovingly at the newly-legged Mer-girl  and paying her compliments. She is mute, but inside she is in agony. Two kinds of pain – physical pain and the psychological agony of not being seen. The Mermaid player will use their voice and body to communicate their agony while the Prince player is unmoved by it. Imagine you are watching a film where we see the ‘subtext’ or ‘inside a character’s head’, invisible to the outside world and other characters.
 
I aim to teach the Dark Clown work with maximum care and clarity and course participants learn to travel from the light (Red Nose Clown) to the Dark in a step-by-step process. For all the tragedies of the pandemic, the plus-side of teaching online is that it prompted a finessed breaking down of the craft involved in preparing for the Scenarios. I set specific tasks and people try them in break-out rooms, building a muscle memory for the skills involved.
 
First, the Prince player needs to work on delivering lines such as ‘You are so beautiful. Your face, your hair. And yet you are silent. Oh how I’d love to hear your voice. I can imagine it trilling and cascading, the way your hair cascades and coils. Ah, How sweet it would be to hear you sing.’ - all this must in a poetic, longing, legato way. As with the The Beloved scenario (I’ve not written about The Beloved scenario on the blog yet) - there must be no complaint, no sarcasm, no reproach, no cynicism, no blame, no emotional blackmail. The Prince is a support role – it is the Mermaid where the Dark Clown work proper happens.
To advance the game, The Prince can move on to: 'How it would please me if you would dance with me. Come, let's waltz! A fast and beautiful Waltz.'

Here is the preparatory step for the Mermaid player. The conceit of the exercise is that the Prince will not see or react to anything you are saying while you job is to express the agony you are feeling. ‘It hurts!!!! It burns. Knives driving through my feet!!! Oh God oh God. Even just standing here hurts. I. AM. IN. AGONY.’ Then, to raise the game: ‘Can’t you SEE? I can't speak but inside I am screaming. SCREAMING. Agony. Agony.’ Of course using all the Dark Play strategies of contrast, variety of timbre, managing the audience’s physiology (‘laughing gear’) etc … 'No don't make me dance! Please - aiiiiiighhhhh! But you can't hear me can you? Searing hot knives! '

The two players are then set to improvise / play the scene.
 
People on the course found it (pardon the pun) painfully funny (Troubled Laughter).
 
*Side note: This is my favourite fairy tale. Which somehow mystifies me. Was I inspired by her resolve? I felt very ineffectual and cowardly as a child (I feel fairly much the same now, actually). Was I inspired by her ability to withstand pain? To transcend pain to achieve her goals (walk like a human)? Or was there something I deeply related to regarding her muteness - that her colossal suffering would go unseen? As a very anxious child, it seemed that I was often out of step with the normal world, witnessing how others all seemed to be coping unperturbedly, while I was invisibly trapped in some ghastly alternate realm.

 

​Trigger warning: pain, torture and some rather pernickety explanation. 
 
One of my Dark Clown scenarios is called 'The Menu' (subtitle, or 'For Her' - think of Don Draper-era gentleman ordering for his date).
 
Before we begin, some elements are put in place* – see below – but for a better reading experience I’ll get straight into the setup now.
 
It’s for two players (any gender). 
Imaginary Circumstances: I invite the players to imagine they are two prisoners in an anonymous torture realm. They are put in the ghastly predicament of being forced to choose the day's torture for the other. 
A loud voice (me, in the role of Controller): ‘The first prisoner will choose for their comrade. NOW!’
Prisoner One pants or grizzles with anxiety** Choices flash before their eyes, each one more horrific and problematic than the other.
Prisoner Two has the predicament of high-stakes uncertainty (I instruct frequent clocking of the other player – the head-turn of the clock acts like a laughter nudge). 

Prisoner Two is aware that their fellow is in charge of their well-being (or rather, unwell being). 
Prisoner Two is also aware that under duress (humans do not think well or kindly under duress).
(Both prisoners are also aware that is something is chosen that is not sufficiently dreadful, then something even worse will await them.)
Hesitations, false starts, stutters can all be used rhythmically.
Prisoner One finally chooses something. 
Prisoner Two makes a yelp or other involuntary sound. Their job is to really imagine what that would feel like, and to make a sound of anticipating that pain (and indignity sometimes). I just did this on a recent workshop and the player whose partner announced ‘stoning’ – portrayed such shock. Her eyes widened ina compelling disbelief and something happened to her body almost as if she had just been stoned.
Two must then make a transition from this trauma, must somehow put this abomination aside because now they have something equally? more? dreadful to do. They must now choose a torture for ‘Prisoner One’. 
Two is so distressed they cannot think (but the performer inside is making rhythmic sounds of distress to work the audience's laughing gear). 
Perhaps they take too long (the delay is now excruciating for ‘Prisoner One’.
Perhaps the Controller yells: ‘Taking too long, Prisoner One, choose again!’
Problem for both of them. One’s reprieve is nothing in the face of having to again contemplate a torture choice for Two. 
A squeal from number Two. The tension is held or ramping (perhaps the prisoners play a call response rhythm of contrasting sounds), stretching out the suspense for the audience.
Depending on the sensing of the impulse and the moment, perhaps at this point One shouts something very horrific (some maiming may be involved).
Or, perhaps ….
Prisoner One (coping with the stress and regret at having already traumatised his fellow, continues to painfully dither).
Unable to deal with the stress of waiting any longer to hear their own torture (and secretly, attending to the need to adjust the audience’s breathing with a softer timbre), Two might, from the corner of their mouth, begin to urgently whisper: 'Choose, choose something ... Just choose!' They have been forced in to the ghastly and absurd predicament of urging the other to name their next harming.
 
About two minutes playing-time is plenty for this exercise.
 
‘Thank you!’ I will say. ‘Well done, well done. Step out of it, everybody have a shimmy. Good work.’
In an in-person situation, I will ask the audience (the watchers of the exercise) to hug the players***  I also prompt the players to hug each other. 
 
*Preparation for this exercise
Of course, there is the preliminary training leading up to this: bodies prepared, voices prepared, key comedy craft given, Dark Side Play on a number of the Marginalised Emotions, my talk on the aims, origin, inspirations and ethics of the work. The possibility (rare, but possible) of upset explained and normalised and Upset Procedure put in place. 
 
For Red Nose Clown I transparently let people know that I may be speaking to them in the role of grumpy Clown Professor. I explain the source of this (the Lecoq/Gaulier pedagogy) and explain some of the many reasons for this: to help them feel some of the useful alertness that is useful for the clown, to keep them I the present moment, to stop them going into their hears or the future and theyebylosing contact with their flexible, expanded physicality and contact with their audience etc, etc. In the Dark Clown work, I explain that I will play the role of a Controller. I remind the watchers that they are to be themselves (although the Dark Clown player will be looking at them as if they are an invited audience in the torture facility, and responding to them from within that reality). I also let people know that I speak in tow voices - the Controller, but also in a voice where I am offering side-coaching in my role as course leader or feeding in text.
 
I put a pre-step in place where people name some types of torture. Sadly there are many. Humanity, it seems, just loves to inventively hurt its fellows. I suggest a number of methods I have researched. 
 
I also check whether participants have any no go areas e.g. ‘You can do anything but don’t do anything to my teeth.’ Or ‘Anything, but nothing to do with fire.’ Consent is important and this step can take some stress off each player.
 
Always before beginning, and I put this in place when I work with Red Nose Clown too. I make it clear that a course participant is free to leave an exercise if they feel the wrong level of discomfort. 
 
** see the previous post on this blog the importance of the players’ use of audible breath (among other things) as a way of working rhythm and keeping the audiences’s laughing gear ready and flexible.
 
*** At the start of the Dark Clown section of the work, I give a recommendation for hugging, it helps to soothe the adrenal system. I also acknowledge that those who are hug-averse can offer a bow with hand gesture of thanks instead. I also lead the whole group periodically with an adrenal soothing exercise from Donna Eden’s Energy Medicine work.