General note
​This is the latest in a series of posts on Clown Dramaturgy. If you click on 'Clown Dramaturgy' in the Categories to the right – you can see, via a number of posts, a progression of the methods I use and develop each year (well, you'll see them going backwards in time, as the link will show you the most recent post first). This production happens as part of the module I teach on the amazing RADA Theatre Lab MA. (During the module I teach both Clown and Commedia and then devise and direct a classic text as approached through Clown).
 
Content Advice: It's Hamlet, so expect reference to death and other tragic things.

As for previous years, the Clown Council Process was used - it's a playful and valuable way to generate ideas for concept, casting and metaphors for approaching adapting a Shakespearean text from a clown perspective. 

Clown Council Process - extracts from the 'minutes' of the meeting
Clowns sit on chairs in a circle. The clowns are instructed to stand when they feel the impulse to speak. There is one chairperson/scribe to open and close the meeting (and furiously scribble notes in between to capture what happens). 
​
The first clown stood and said, 'I think it was a play.' 
​Another said, 'I feel sorry for Horatio, he was the only one alive.’
At one point a number of clowns spontaneously stood and mimed digging - a chorus of gravediggers.
‘Hamlet is a spoiled brat.’
Someone said. “The play is a bad advert for Denmark,’
Said another. ‘’Poison – what a waste of wine.’
'Hamlet is a spoiled brat'
‘If there’s a play within a play, where are we now?’
‘Does Horatio fancy Hamlet?’ ‘
'The Mousetrap was stolen from Agatha Christie!’
‘Ophelia has hay fever and the flowers are crying.’
Someone said, ‘Poor Yorick’ and several began to chant: ‘One of us! One of us!’
‘If Hamlet is raised by a clown, why is he not funny?’
Who is Fortinbras?’ To which came the response: ‘I don’t want to fight in my bra.’
(Tragically, there is no photo of the beautifully constructed Fought-in-bras costume. The bras were also part of Fort-in-bras weaponry - bow and catapult)
‘In the play, men talk about suicide but women kill themselves.’
‘Does feeling sad make you bad at swimming?’
‘Is murder misunderstanding?’
‘I wonder how the pirates felt?’

 Some clever quips, a touch of existentialism - and many good clown-playable ideas. 
​
Early choices

The Council is formally closed and the group come out of clown state. Someone mentioned - 'What a great way to think about the play.' (One of the main points of focus of a clown teacher is getting people out of their thinking brains and into body and imagination.)
With this experience informing the tone of the discussion, we look at the main areas of interest. I mentioned that we could welcome text from other sources into our production. Someone immediately said ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.’ We talked about the play within the play and opted for puppetry. You will see the genius puppet theatre contribution in images to come, below.

This year's group reported that they had created a number of pieces on the course already with dark and personal/political material and they were pleased to approach our source text with an accent on the clown, without further inflecting the source text by interrogating an issue or exploring/exploiting a genre.

There would still be content of substance, of course - Hamlet taps into identity, meaning and mortality.

​I was delighted by the spontaneous chorus of Gravediggers. 
It's cathartic to let clowns play with the subject of mortality. Our very first stage image was the ensemble onstage, miming digging. You can see them in the background of the image below.

To place a meta approach very early on, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear and walk forward, through the diggers. They wear dark classes and have a superior attitude / absurd theatre vibe. In Stoppard’s play, these characters are first seen in isolation. In our piece, they still seem existentially lost, but with a hunger to take up space - and they come in multiple pairs. In this photo below, we see the three sets of R&G's paying tribute to the playwright who put these peripheral characters front and centre - the recently passed Tom Stoppard. 

This scene sets up: multiple casting, clown failure (some of them don't know what play they are doing),  and the themes of uncertainty and death. Also, the theme of theatre performance: In the original play, we are shown Hamlet's decision to act mad, his plan to spot his father's killer by staging a playlet and his constant reflection on how he should act and whether he should take action.

Uncertainty, death and theatre performance

Ros 1:  How very intriguing! I feel like a spectator.
I’m hoping that somebody interesting will come on in a minute …
Guil looks around
Guil 1:  No. I can’t see anyone .. What a predicament  – to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened …

A second, and then a third R&G pair arrive … they utter the same dialogue.

Stage management clown enters from SL and asks : Who are you?
ALL R&Gs: Guildenstern & Rosencrantz … Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

(We borrow and amplify Stoppard’s joke of the royals mixing up their names by having our clowns themselves confused by their own identity.)

Stage Management Clown: What are you doing?
Ros 1: The play is all about us.
Guil 2: The play is the thing.
Stage Management Clown:  What play?
All R&G: ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.’
The Gravediggers rush forward to measure the R&G’s.
Stage Management Clown: No no no no, guys guys guys. They’re not dead … yet.
All R&G's react.
Guil 2: "Out, out, brief candle ..."

'The play is a bad advert for Denmark’

A small chorus of clowns enter. We have fun exploiting the fact that one of the greatest pieces of English literature is set not in England, but in Europe.

Various Chorus Clowns: Our play is set in Denmark – Home of Lego, Equality
And hygge, yes, same word as in Sweden.
A play in which a sassy, spoiled, overthinking, privileged Princeling talks about suicide,
- but it’s the women who actually kill themselves.

One of our performers is Finnish and, with their consent, we included the grudging perspective of a near national neighbour - a tiny foreshadowing of the war with another near neighbour, Norway.

'Hamlet is set in Denmark, but I am Finnish.
At a restaurant in Helsingør, - that’s Elsinore in Shakespeare, I mean English.
At a restaurant in Elsinore, the waiter asks: Are you finished? And the stupid Danish guy says:
No, I am Danish.
Get it? Finished - Finnish?'
A deadpan beat
I have more jokes about Denmark. beat I’ve started so now I’ll Finnish... get it? Finnish.
The audience found the deadpan delivery of this very appealing. And the stupid Finnish-finished joke got some great repeats and a hilarious capping callback in the climactic duel scene.

  










​


​‘'''' ' 'If Hamlet is raised by a clown, why is he not funny?’
​
A great thing about adapting a classic in clown is the possibility to centre alternate perspectives, to reveal the hidden and feature the neglected. 

Childish laughter from upstage breaks up the clown chorus scene and we see a back-story flashback of Hamlet's boyhood - the makings of a 'sassy, spoiled, overthinking, privileged Princeling,'

'Hamlet is a spoiled brat'

Brat-Hamlet demands Yorick carry him, kiss him, dance and sing. Instead of a Shakespearean song, the someone said: 'The wheels on the bus!'. Perfect to create bathos. Our beleaguered Yorick collapses and dies while being compelled to sing it.
(Enter gravediggers and their measuring tapes) 'I love that song Yorick!  Exits merrily and obliviously singing: ‘Yorick the clown falls down, falls down.’ 
It is satisfying to have the audience witness Yorick"s oppression. Later we will see Hamlet sentimentalise his childhood playtime with Yorick (in the Pirate boat scene).

Although this set-up of Yorick's suffering was a strong idea, the full through-line of Yorick's character took a while to reveal itself. The performer playing Yorick was wonderfully patient while also diligent in finding gestural moments for presence, counterpoint, accent and attitude in the ensemble scenes.  I knew Yorick would have a starring moment later, in the graveyard where the gravediggers become a Busby Berkley chorus and Yorick channels some edgy energy (inspired by the atmosphere in David Lynch's film Blue Velvet - specifically the scene where a man lip-synchs to Candy Coloured Clown). Writing up notes one night, I realised a prop would be useful and ordered a skull sceptre. Medieval and Renaissance jesters often carried a Marotte, or Fool's Bauble. It's a broken-mirror version of the king's sceptre - a stick topped with a carving of their own head. A Marotte lies on the floor in this haunting painting depicting an exhausted clown regrouping before returning to perform. (We featured the high-stakes plight of the 'indentured comedy-maker' in the previous year's production of King Lear).  The Marotte prop brought clearer opportunities for shape-making, rhythmic accents and punctuation and helped give the character even more edge, quirkiness and status.

'The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage table.'

A classic clown prop - the rubber chicken - helped present the lust of the royals as ridiculous (Claudius plays the chicken-feet over Gertrude's breast, then she stupidly  and sensually wipes the beak across his  face), and for power and indulgence to be elided  (as well as representing 'baked meats', the chicken was held by the Claudius players as a sceptre). In this image, we see Hamlet working his moody adolescent-goth 'madness'. Horatio is wearing denim, to give a cowboy vibe. This serves the clown council observation about Horatio 'fancying Hamlet' (in keeping with the clown dramaturgy opportunity to shine a light on alternate perspectives on the original). In this adaptation, we accord Horatio a touch of extra extra agency, and make his plight more poignant, by using some memorable Brokeback Mountain text in the upcoming graveyard scene. It's a slow-burn payoff.

​Next, Hamlet's advice to the actors gave us an opportunity to enjoy adding a Clown Drama Coach. Someone gathered some quotes from revered theatre practitioners and we selected a pertinent few.
Clown Player: “To act is to do, not to think.”
Drama Coach Clown: Uta Hagen
Another Clown Player:  "The text is your greatest enemy."
Drama Coach Clown: Meisner
Clown Player 3: I can see you are talking about the text.
Clown Player 4: I can see you were talking about the text.
Clown Player 4: I can see you are talking about the enemy.
Another Clown Player: I can see you can see I was talking about the enemy.

'The Mousetrap was stolen from Agatha Christie!’
​
After all that talk of acting - surprise! -the performance is a puppet play.  Two students made the puppets for the play. You can see in the image below, the puppets worked both inside and outside the box.
This is a rapidly posed pic and one of the Hamlet players is supporting the puppet theatre. The big 'H' identifies the Hamlet player of the moment - in this beat of the story, he would have worn a layer over the tee-shirt, as Goth-Hamlet (seen right) is driving this scene.  When the poisoned Old King puppet, as part of his death throes, vomits over the front of the tiny theatre 'stage', the 'supporting' player reacts as if it is splattering down on him. 

The original and the adaptation

This blog post does not describe all the events as they happened in the sharing / showing and skips about with the order, also. The entire piece is devised and rehearsed in about 12 hours of class time. To the right here is a list of 'ingredients'/ scenes.

I believe clown adaptation reserves the right to play fast and loose with the representation of key events and also the time-line of the original. Events can be re-ordered for various reasons - one of which can simply be to bring an entertaining change of tone from scene to scene.
​
The game plan of the clown troupe needed to be threaded through and realised - namely, their desire to change Ophelia's fate.

With a cast of 18 in a student production, it's necessary to share out the main character parts (e.g. Hamlet above).

Role changes are directly commented on; peppered through like a gentle running gag. 'Who gets to act what' is a nice echo of the plot issue of 'who gets to be King' and also an extended expression of the deeper existential theme of 'how to act'.

Following through the threads
​
Working the C of Contrast, we show the discrepancy between modern day Denmark and Hamlet's sentiment "Denmark's a Prison".

Clown Chorus: Denmark is consistently ranked as one of the top three happiest countries in the world.
Head Gravedigger: And yet - something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio : "Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
Clown Chorus:  There is a tense state of conflict that is on the brink of  … WAAAAAR!

More prop magic - a Lego Castle

Jon Davison writes with comprehensively researched detail on the importance of props to clowns. It's also dealt with in this book: 'The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning: Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter' by Paul Bouissac. I've mentioned my thoughts on the subject in these blog posts. 

As with Chekhov's gun, you can't mention Lego and not show it. 

 The war scene covers the deconstruction of the puppet play scene. In turn, the fighting figures melt and part to clear centre for Claudius and Gertrude entering with the devoted Polonius holding the Lego castle.

Kudos to the ensemble member who bought and made the Lego Castle - it brought genius stupidity and clown magic - the Lego model was such a gloriously reductive emblem of the themes of position, heritage and power which is the background situation of the play. It also ties together the therapeutic (how to cultivate human happiness) aspects of our production.  

Claudius (rattled by having seen the puppet play): I need to calm my nerves with some Lego.
Gertrude enters in a submissive way and becomes the table. Polonius places Lego on G's back & goes.
Claudius: Ah. It’s my castle, my "little patch of ground". And I’ll be safe here for ever and ever.  (mimes a heart with his hands) I heart Elsinore. 

It pleases me that the tangible object of the Lego Castle means we can feature this beautifully simple
phrase from Act 4, Scene 4. The "little patch of ground" refers to a worthless piece of territory in Poland that Prince Fortinbras’s army is marching to conquer. The Captain says it was only worth "five ducats ... I would not farm it'. And yet, it generates military action and domestic bloodshed. A ludicrous prop to match the absurd amount of ado caused by the folly of intangible honour.

At the end of this scene, Hamlet chooses not to kill Claudius, because he does not want Claudius to die happy. 

More following through

R & G enter from R and L side.
Ros: Who’s that now?
Guil: It’s Claudius. 
[The role was one of those shared between different performers] 
Ros: He’s changed.
Guil: Theatre.  Can do that to a person. [the full stop is Comedy Craft - aiding clarity in delivery]
R&G double take at Hamlet. Ros + Guil: Who are you? ***

[Hamlet, being a shared role, is now played by a third performer.]

This little exchange continues the theme / motif of theatre and acting and also that of identity-in-question. The implications of the "Who's there?" at the very start of Hamlet has been discussed by many scholars.

Ham and Mam

This is how I mentally label Act 3 Scene 4, where we see the possibly Oedipal and dysfunctional relationship between Hamlet and his mother. In our adaption we see it played out with different dynamics by three simultaneous pairs. If it were a funded production, there would be moody lighting - here we change the mood as much as we can by introducing an intriguing and uneasy tune - Nino Rota's Casanova. 
The goose-pimple feel of the track is also good to support the appearance of the Dead King's Ghost, which appears to Hamlet in this scene. Hamlet is upset and stabs the eavesdropping Polonius through the drapes. 
We have not yet mentioned the Therapist Clown who addresses the audience from stage edge to frame this scene.

Therapist Clown: 'A boy’s earliest choice of objects for his desires are incestuous and forbidden ones'. (Freud)

Pathos and Punctured Pomposity

We put death front and centre with our opening scene. Now that we are in the iconic graveyard scene, we get to show different flavours of dealing with death.

We have a pragmatic, literally 'down to earth' Gravedigger,
an embittered, satirical Yorick
and
(again, showing things not shown in the original) our oblivious and voluble Polonius who, despite being deceased, reads his own epitaph. A good clown ploy to logically follow things to an illogical conclusion.

Putting things on their heads, we give one of the original play's big soliloquies to the Gravedigger.

Head Gravedigger :
It’s a terrible job, being a grave digger.
Quite depressing.
Walks to Polonius' body and plants his (mimed) shovel in the ground.
Look at the body - as if wishing it would decompose immediately.
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
few steps forward to audience
And that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
Do hanging gesture with sfx - repeat
Looks at graveyard
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Look to the audience
'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; (now think of the Epstein files)   
things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
Head Gravedigger looks at note from his pocket 
So, who have we got today, then?
Old man, a father …
Gravedigger pulls up shovel, swings it into position and starts to dig the grave.
Polonius (his body in position on centre, from the previous scene) stands up, surprised, with an inner thought “O, did I fall over?” 
Dead Polonius:  (reading aloud an AI-generated obituary) Polonius, the esteemed and loquacious Lord Chamberlain of Denmark died unexpectedly at Elsinore Castle. A loyal advisor to King Claudius and a devoted and flawed (express surprise) flawed? no, they must mean flawless. FLAWLESS father to Laertes and Ophelia. He was known for his dedication to the State and his penchant for surveillance.
Head Gravedigger still digging in background, body in back view.
Pol interrupts himself, quietly surprised : I thought listening through the curtains was a good idea ….
Polonius sits on the floor, and lies down in steps, his speech timed with each move: 
His tragic / and unexpected death / leaves a void / in the Danish court.

Head Gravedigger shovels dirt onto the prone Polonius - with each shovel-load, a member of the ensemble rises and flops like earth on Polonius until he is buried in bodies.

It is a moment of visual poetry.

 (Here we borrow text from Cymbeline, the Bible and Richard III.)

Yorick (intoning): ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun'.
Thou art dust
Ensemble rolls off Polonius' body and away like dust
and unto dust shalt thou return sprinkle action with Marotte.
"The worst is Death, and death will have his day." 
Beat. Change of tone.

At least a sassy, spoiled, overthinking, privileged Princeling
didn’t break your back!
Clicks heels merrily, then flinches and grabs his injured back as he exits.

​Another classic clown prop - the squirty flower

Laertes (wearing a mortar cap and gown) enters to the royal couple. He is righteous and also resentful that his uni studies have been interrupted.

Ophelia enters mournfully singing 'Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby?' The flower headdress was a joy and the squirty flower brought great clown play.

Ophelia was doubled all the way through. In a scene previous to this, we saw the shorts-wearing Mad Ophelia* coaching Sad Ophelia with feminist theory, advice 'don't be sad, be mad!' This happened in a split stage moment with Hamlet simultaneously declaring to Horatio that he would act mad.
*(Mad as in angry).

Image 1: Laertes and the royals
Image 2: Laertes is obsessed with being at uni (see Mortar board) - he has freedom while obedient Ophelia does not - a little water puts the scales of justice to rights.
Image 3: King Claudius cops it. '"There's fennel for you, [squirt] and columbines." [squirt]
Image 4: "You shall wear your rue with a difference." [squirt on Gertrude's crotch] 
Image 5: Mad Ophelia amplifying Sad Ophelia's tears  
Image 6: Therapist Clown is always Kleenex-ready

[Revisiting the first Clown chorus bit: 

Clown chorus member A: A play in which a sassy, spoiled, overthinking, privileged Princeling talks about suicide,
Clown chorus member B: but it’s the women who actually kill themselves.
Beat
Stage Manager Clown: That’s in the original play. Our version hopes to offer an improvement.**
​
**the liberation of Sad Ophelia]

How’s it going everyone? All right?
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”  drum
I once did a theatrical performance about Puns. It was a Play on Words.  drum 
According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. beat. That joke makes me die laughing. drum
Nope, already dead!  Drum and comic dance move 
Well, the stage is dry, and hopefully so are Ophelia’s eyes. Drum and wink
I’m going to leave you now, but remember this: sometimes you have to hug the people you don't like so you know how big to dig the hole in your backyard. drum


Dead in a box: succinct exposition and 'the old switcheroo'.

A huge salute to Tom Stoppard for this sublime piece of deadpan dialogue. We edited it and mixed it with tight, minimal, comic choreography (head turns, well-schooled timing and timbre) - it's a non-public student production so we can be as irreverent with this contemporary text as we are with Shakespeare. 
There is a subliminal pathos in the fact that the R&G's have been pared down to one single pair (sorry for the pun).
​
1: Are we dead now?
2: What happened?
1; Well, we were escorting Hamlet to the UK
2: To England
1: Right, England
2: (remembering) There was a letter
1: That’s right, King Claudius gave us a letter.
2: (dreadful penny dropping) What do you think it said?
1: Well that, er, I guess, that our old school pal Hamlet should be …
Gestures and makes a sound of throat slit
2: Smart of Claudius, outsourcing the killing,
1: not upsetting the queen by having it happen in the house -
2: But Hamlet did the old switcheroo
1: with the letter, saying it was us both facing in / facing out   for the chop
1&2 slowly as they turn to face each other: while we were sleeping ...
Both look out audience same beat
1: We should have slept in shifts.
Beat
2: Funny to think of yourself as actually dead. One thinks of lying in a box with the lid on it. 
And, one thinks of that like being alive in a box. (full stop)
Which is frightening.
1: (straight out to the audience - get the idea!) But if you’re dead … 
2: (slowly turn to one another ) you’d never know you were in a box!
It would be like being asleep. In a box.
(accelerate each line here) Not that I’d like to sleep, stuffed in a box. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead for a start and then where would you be?
Dead.
1 & 2: (look at one another quickly - slowly say the line) In a box.

‘Does feeling sad make you bad at swimming?’​

Time for the clowns to subvert Ophelia's fate.
Enter the two Ophelias. Clown chorus behind establish a pool with lane swimmers.

Sad Ophelia fusses: Will it be cold? It looks cold?
Mad Ophelia coaches: YOU CAN DO THIS !

Fed up with her dithering, Mad Ophelia pushes her in, notices her go under, saves her from drowning, then teaches her how to swim. The clown chorus provide a water ballet. Despite zero budget - one of the company brought in a bubble gun to bring magical production values! We used this uplifting track. 
At the climax, each swimmer makes a letter with their bodies, yelling and spelling: F - R - E -  E - D -  O - M, and then: O - P - H -E - L - I - A!

The time for our photo shoot was minimal and I mourn that in this image above, we miss the performer making the prow. This image was visual clown poetry. The sail (more visible) was beautiful, too. The Clown Stage Manager recaps plot succinctly to situate this moment (not everyone remembers the pirate boat in Hamlet - it's shown in Stoppard's play, but in the original it's only mentioned in a letter).

I love the stupidity of the pirates having hooks. And the mixture of comedy and pathos. It's the famous 'to be' speech and it's not in the place it normally occurs in the play ... I love the counterpoint of noble suffering being repeatedly interrupted by the gleeful Pirates in the most stupid and annoying way. I used this idea of someone telling a painful moment and being expected to continue while being interrupted / upstaged in a production of The Comedy of Errors (click to read the Clown Dramaturgy blog on that).

Pirates (with rowdy joy and clapping with their hooks): Do the bit where you thought about killing yourself again!!!
 
Hamlet:
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows
 
Pirates:  SLINGS AND ARROWS … AND HOOKS!
 
Hamlet:  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
 
Pirates: FORTUNE! TREASURE!!
 
Hamlet (reclaim the space):  OR to take arms against a sea ...
 
Pirates: SEA!!!

Hamlet gets to: 'To die—to sleep ... ' and realises the Pirates have fallen asleep and snoring.

Hamlet suffers in a difficult predicament - he has been saved by these guys, but they have been asking him to entertain them with the tragedy of his story, forcing him to perform.
(See Enforced Performance in other posts).
​
The scene ends with Hamlet saying:
Denmark is a prison ... and I never thought I’d miss it so much.

Switcheroo upon switcheroo & 'who's there?' continued

We're back in the graveyard. Our constant Horatio player meets the current performer as Hamlet (much taller and now brunette).

Hamlet:  Horatio.
Horatio: Hamlet??  Good to see you man. You’ve changed
Ham: I’ve been to England, innit. It rains a lot.
Previous Hamlet player at back, looking up from digging: That’s my part. I  used to play Hamlet …
Chorus of Gravediggers all look at her - no one cares.
Horatio goes in and hugs Hamlet
Horatio: I missed you (pulls away and shrugs to hide showing too much) ... dude.

And here is our Brokeback Mountain text, giving the normally ever-loyal Horatio a chance to vent:

Horatio: Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! But you didn't want it, Hamlet. So what we got now is this graveyard in Elsinore!  That’s all we got. You have no idea how bad it gets. You are too much for me, Hamlet, I wish I knew how to quit you.

Horatio has opened up to Hamlet, who, self-centred as usual, has his attention fixed elsewhere.

Hamlet: Alas poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio!
 
Horatio (include audience): Whatever!
 
Hamlet: Here hung those lips that I have so often kissed. Where be your jokes now?
 
Young Brat-Hamlet laughs from side of stage
 
Yorick: Yeahhh where be they?

(NOTE: If we were doing it again, I would have Yorick say - I had a whole 5 minute set in the previous scene - you missed it! )
 
Hamlet: A fellow of infinite Jest. When I was a little boy. He bore me on his back a thousand times.
 
Yorick: Actually 999 times, then you broke it.

Hamlet (sweet melodrama): Then you broke - into SONG -  the wheels  on the bus go round and round round and round round and round the wheels on the bus (cry) all day long. 

The bathos of the annoying child's song enhances the ridiculousness of Hamlet's self-pitying grief.
 
Head Gravedigger comes on
Head Gravedigger : Oi Mate! Government property.
Horatio: Dude, you need help!
 
Therapist Clown ENTERS 
Therapist Clown: Clear case of early childhood trauma manifesting now in necrophiliac tendencies I would recommend three days a week talking therapy and also significant pharmaceutical assistance. 

Tying things up

Stage Manager Clown: We saved Ophelia ...
Returning victorious from her Chanel swim, the previously 'Sad' Ophelia accidentally spits a mouthful of water on the Stage Manager Clown. 'Mad' Ophelia raises 'Sad' Ophelia's arm like a champ.
Therapist wipes Stage Manager Clown's face with a Kleenex.
Stage Manager Clown:  ... but we are not sure we can save the rest.
DRUMS and EXTENDED KAZOO fanfare
Claudius: WEAPONS!
ALL CAST: INHALE GASP
Polonius (to Hamlet and Laertes): Beware!
SECOND sword schling ALL CAST: INHALE GASP
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may be-ware of thee.

Yorrick to Pol: They can’t hear you, you’re dead!
Stage Manager Clown:  Right - here we go! This is the final scene.
Laertes 1: This is the big scene where Laertes fights, / then forgives Hamlet
Laertes 2 (overlapping from /): This is the big scene where Laertes fights, then forgives Hamlet
Laertes 1:  What are you doing here?
Laertes 2: This is my scene
Laertes 1:No, it’s my scene, I’ve been missing for most of the play.
Laertes 2: I’ve been missing for most of the play.
Laertes 1 & 2 together: I’ve been at Uni.
Lalertes 2: Do you see this, o God? I told Claudius -
'you will not o'errule me to a peace.'
Laertes 1: ... but that means we will both be slain ...
R&G together It’s not so bad.
Clown Therapist: In the Kübler-Ross model, there are five stages of grief: denial //  anger // bargaining // depression // and acceptance).
Each 'stage' acted out but characters and chorus clowns in their own ways.

​There is so much more to say and tell but this has already been a long post.

Stage Manager Clown:  The play. needs. to finish.
Finnish Clown/Claudius is dead, but lifts up his head: Did someone say Finnish?

Image 1: When a member of the ensemble says: 'Please can there be a fish in the pirate boat scene?'
Image 2: When Ophelia enters, having completed her Channel cross - she accidentally exhales on the Clown Stage Manager 
Image 3: Horatio thirsting for and championing Hamlet during the Players carnival scene
Image 4: A 'Kiss me Hardy (Horatio)' moment for the dying Hamlet - a too-late pay-off for Horatio.
Image 5: Early scene - Mad Ophelia schooling Sad Ophelia with key Feminist texts
Image 6: Yorick being badass and receiving the gravediggers' adulation

 King Lear. There were moments I regretted  having chosen it. So sprawling. All the intrigue of the subplot with Gloucester and his sons Edmund and Edgar. The sisters and their husbands. All of Lear's landholding (and of course the divvying up of it all). The Fool who is less of a fool and more of a moderator or therapist for a Master too witless to see the joke. Politics, war, France! A lot to wrangle. And then of course there is the task of realising the piece with multiple players in a number of certain roles (because it's a student production and the group of theatre-makers-in-the-making is large). 

But the play has always compelled me. 
Women driven to violence and then devastating regret.
Eyes taken out by spoons - the stuff of Dark Clown - obscene and absurd. 

​This is the latest in a series of posts on Clown Dramaturgy. If you click on Clown Dramaturgy in the Categories to the right – you can see, via a number of posts, a progression of the Clown Dramaturgy methods I use and develop each year (well, you'll see them going backwards in time as the link will show you the latest post first). This production happens as part of the module I teach on the amazing RADA Theatre Lab MA. (During the module I teach both Clown and Commedia and then devise and direct a classic text as approached through Clown. This post is only about the 'classic text meets clowning' work, not the commedia work – I might need to write another post on Commedia some time).
 
People who know me know that I want the story (and the dialogue and the diction) to be clear (Clarity is one of my C-words). If I can’t understand what I am being shown, I cannot feel.
Exception: when a show is evoking something ineffable and they have captured / manifested that very well, that is a different thing.
​But when you are sitting in the audience and you find yourself mentally going: ‘Oh, I see, I think that must mean …’ - that's when one is no longer in the moment and one is no longer in the body, where the breath and emotions are; one is intellectualising mode.
 
When I work in 'red nose clown' I want it to be funny and I want it to be poignant also. (There can be wryness and satire and other qualities too).
 
Use what’s clear and quirky (when adapting classic text for clown)

'Spoons', I said to myself.
 
In the creation, I elicit and include the students’ suggestions and desires, using the Clown Council process (you can see that described in other Clown Dramaturgy posts), which, together with welcoming arising offers from the cohort ongoingly, brings to light the tilt we will take on the classic text and the details in the playing out of it.
 
But I also usually arrive with a ballpark proposal/inciting concept.
I can’t help it. Once I choose a text, my mind / my imagination starts working.

I am transparent about what I am bringing and check that the cohort find what I suggest is appealing. Luckily they did.
I had already bought three dozen metal spoons.

Lear would have a crown of spoons. People could play them percussively, to suggest the horses and create other moods. We introduced them in the prologue:
CHORUS OF SHELL-SHOCKED CLOWNS (assembled onstage)
Sfx: Spoons pattering on thighs, then sudden silence
CHORUS speaks in unison): 
This is the terrible tale of King Lear 
A story - of family gone wrong  
A story  - of short sightedness spoons on eyes
A failure to think through consequences  spoons twirling around brain

Use your confusion (to help you clarify)
There’s a scene full of characters right at the top of Shakespeare's play. Who the heck is who?
In the first scene (after the prologue) we have the opportunity/obligation to establish all the characters and get their needs clarified and embodied.
It’s fun to be reductive and obvious ...

Lear: Hello, my good friend Gloucester. 
Gloucester: Hello, my good King Lear. 

 ... with the greater purpose of clearly laying out the land, so the audience know where they are.

Find good physical metaphors (and visual elements)
In the Clown Council, one clown was perplexed as to what a coxcomb was. 'It’s a comb to brush the tail of a rooster,' someone said, getting up to demonstrate it. and just like that, the image of a rooster was in the circle. I asked if there was a prop/costume maker in the room and there was. The person who seemed most apt for our production's Fool was the class wise-cracker. I asked if he would be interested in playing the Fool dressed as a rooster. 
In Shakespeare's original, the Fool tells parables with egg imagery: 
Nuncle, give me an egg, and I'll give thee two crowns.’

I bought a few rubber eggs as well.

Comedy does not age well - clown adaptations need to re-craft jokes. Shakespeare's once hilarious words were replaced, in our adaptation, with a new clutch* of egg puns and cock puns**.
*I know.
** I know!

In the first big scene, Lear forces the sisters to compete.
If you stay alert, well-chosen metaphors begin to aggregate and support each other.
​We had spoons and so (fortuitious joy!) an egg and spoon race sprung to mind as we approached the sisters in the first scene.

Be stupid, be simple, choose words with funny sounds
Lear: I, King Lear, intend to divide my kingdom into three, with a competition called “Which Daughter Gets What?”  
Storytelling clown: And the winner gets the best part: Essex, Wessex, and Sussex.  
Servant clown: The runner up gets the next best part, Chester, Leicester. And Hull. 
Lear: And the loser gets… 
Story and Servant clowns together: Slough. 
Lear: Bring forth the eggs!  
Rooster/Fool: What? Hewey, Lewey and Dewey??
Servant runs toward USL to deliver the eggs onto the spoons,
but stops because Lear is making a speech.
Lear:  These eggs represent your love for me, your daddy, the King. The shell represents the strength of our royal family bonds. The yolk represents the months in your mother’s precious womb. 
A Beat. Sisters embarrassed, or eye rolling.
Servant starts to deliver eggs upstage.
The white! ... Servant returns.
represents the virtue of a low cholesterol breakfast.  
Servant again starts toward USL to deliver the eggs ...
Lear: Also! 
Servant runs back (Lear is still not done!) 
Lear: The egg looks like an eye.*** Which represents clarity of vision and good judgement. 
Lear holds egg in front of his eye, then crows like a rooster. 
Fool: (referring to Lear crowing) Hey that’s my line! 
Lear: Daughters! Saddle up! ****

*** Bonus: eggs look like eye balls.
**** Two performers played Regan and two played Goneril - the cast decided a piggy pack race would be more ridiculous as well as more onerously cruel. Underscoring her isolation, Cordelia was unique. While the others vyed and strained, Cordelia, uncheered, just walked the race.

At a certain point, underlining his dismissal of Cordelia,  Lear throws an egg. The assembled gasp and the Rooster is traumatised. The egg is caught by the Rooster/Fool and all the assembled heartwarmingly exhale, focused on the Fool's tender relief that the egg is safe.
​Leaving Cordelia - human progeny - ignored by all, in an isolated area onstage. For me, this makes poignancy without sentimentality.

The predicament of the Fool is that of the Dark Clown;
​Fool (rooster sound) : Cock a doodle do!  
Cockerel sound on the ‘I’:
​I  … am what you call a fool 3 beats of wings  
Turn SL 
A Joker, a jester an indentured comedy maker legs legs legs 
a coxcomb.  bow head to show comb and shake it
Blllllll.
I might look silly  
But my work is no laughing matter. 
It’s cockadoodle do or die.

Lear the Musical 
I usually ask early on for song suggestions as well as throwing a few in myself. There was much interest in songs and they accrued! This group were keen and talented singers and some are musicians, too. During the egg and spoon race, this C & W song underscored the ludicrousness of what Lear is forcing everyone to do and emphasises Cordelia's loss of everything. We chose to sing it much faster, so it was like those fast horse race callers or those very skilful auctioneers (ha, google showed me this C&W plus auctioneering call!)

Elevate the underdog
In the Clown Council, one clown stood and asked:  'What's up with Kent? He's always there and Lear never recognises him.'
In the first scene Lear dismisses him 'Peace, Kent!'. And Kent brightly tells the audience to remember him. Always upbeat, she will repeat this gag each time Kent appears until finally shunned and shoved out from the hovel in the storm, Kent finally has a musical moment.
(Gentle rain: as sfx, slow circular spoon grinding from the ensemble)
Kent: (singing to 'I'm just Ken')
Doesn't seem to matter what I do
I'm always number two (or 302)
No one knows how hard I tried, oh-oh, I
I have feelings that I can't explain
Drivin' me insane
All my life, been so polite
Always ignored what a slight 
'Cause I'm just KenT, (all on stage also sing KenT, vent etc) watching an old man cry and vent 
Is it my destiny to live and die a life of bland civility?
I'm just KenT
Into the back ground I just blend.
What will it take for Lear to see the man who’s loyal and acknowledge me? 

Short pause.

LEAR: Are you still there?
KENT: Yes!  
Beat.
LEAR: Stop singing.
 
But we're getting ahead of the story.

As part of the process, I invite people to bring forth sections of text they like - either from the original play or from other text. One student is taken by an Act 1 reference to 'Lear and his train' and asks: 'Can I play the train?' This warms my heart so much. [The Clown April de Angelis was once approached by Peter Hall about a production of Waiting for Godot. He met her in the cafeteria at the National Theatre and asked her what she would like to play. Angela said 'I would like to play the tree'. Hall did not understand the pure clown genius of this.] The train-proposing student found a toy train with a handle and enlisted Servant Clown and Storytelling Clown as fellow members of the train. ​

Use and develop the metaphors and visual elements 

The play's theme of moral short-sightness was amplified by our doddery Gloucester who wore his glasses on top of his head and so could never find them.

Gloucester: My sons are writing to each other. How sweet. patting torso for glasses I think the legitimate is writing to the Bastard … or is the bastard writing to the legitimate? … throw hands up  ... Now if only I had my glasses ...

We got great mileage from that train. The train driver found a sweet wooden whistle which was perfect comic punctuation, coming in at a number of moments like a lovely nudge in the ribs.
One cruel sister's command that the train must be halved had the back clown leave the playing space and the other one to kneel (one and a half is half of three). The other cruel sister questions the need for a train at all and Lear caves and complies. There was further scene, close to the advent of the storm - so poignant - where the train driver releases the train into the wilderness, scooting it forward and saying 'gwan git!' - played with heartbreaking emotion. 

The predicament of the Fool is dark material, told in comedy (well, and tragedy, too). You'll see here in the script - through annotation, punctuation and notes, my attention to rhythm and comedic beats (yes, including wing beats). Also alternate lines prepared, dependant on audience response.
 
Fool: rooster sound : Cock a doodle do!  
Chicken-sounding voice on the ‘I’:   I  … am what you call a fool 3 beats of wings  
Turn SL 
A Joker, a Jester. An indentured comedy maker legs legs legs (he wore long chicken leg socks)
A coxcomb  bow head to show comb and shake it
blllllllllll. ***** 
I might look silly.
But my work is no laughing matter. 
It’s cockadoodle do. Or die. Or in  my case … do … or fry. 
Do or fry, get it … 'fry'.
If no laugh. Well, that laid an egg.  

***** adding sound to a movement can make the different between laughter and lack of laughter. 

We see this selfish old man taking advantage of and ignoring his supporters. (see the Kent scene above).  

Seeing it through
​We saw through the journey of the spoons. In the scene where Kent battles with Oswald we are following through on the underdog's presence in the tale - thanks to our fabulous students who served as makers. This small scene continued to point up the message of pointless enmity.

The spoons had their major moment, with Gloucester. The ruthless sisters and husbands show their greed and there is a dark clown predicament for Oswald - being forced to to the horrific thing. 

Seeing****** it further through
But the spoons continued in a telling of Edgar in Poor Tom mode helping his blinded dad. I know in reality the scene happens on flat land - but the ensemble made a cliff while they quietly sang Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb'.
​
****** I know.

There was so much more - the sisters in therapy singing Spoonful - check the lyrics!! The Storytelling clown traumatised by having watched the mutilation of Gloucester and having to kill a fellow servant. The sisters dealing with their feelings for Edmund in a song from Hercules and the 'Don't cry for me France and England' farewell from Regan (or was it Goneril?). There was a touching duet from spurned/dead husbands Albany and Cornwall 'Agony'. Cordelia getting existential in a cafe in France. The doddery Gloucester (pre-blinding) unable to read his son's letter because he can't find his glasses which are on his head. And a stunning couple of scenes by a loyal Postman who was exhausted to death because Lear and his negligent inheritors have let the country become so mixed up there are no working addresses anymore. I loved this offer also - a beautiful, political bit of clowning showing the banal, everyday, granular, human level fallout of the grand folly of the self-indulgent Lear. 

​And the eggs played their game to the end too - one of the sisters poisoned the other with a silver egg. Once you commit to a well chosen metaphor, it will support your meaning more than you expected. 

Lear the musical continued
I salute the commitment and comic genius of the three who played Edmund - seen here delivering their version of Billie Eilish's 'You should see me in a Crown'.

I also want to acknowledge the wonderful contribution of the cohort member who choreographed a dance for the company to end the play.

And also also to the commitment and comedic integrity of the performer who voluntarily performed the dance in character as the blind Gloucester with his eyes shut throughout. He also made an interesting distinction on the difference between playing drama and clown. 'You are not finding the moment in the text (play) but rather finding the play in the moment.'

The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much nor live so long.
​

For the RADA MA Theatre Lab 2024 Clown adaptation
of a classical play,
we chose The Winter's Tale. AKA Exit, Pursued By. 

You can find previous Clown Dramaturgy posts from previous Clown adaptations by searching in the Categories (see to the right).
All photographs in this post by @slycatempire

One thing I love about approaching Classical texts in Clown is the ability to reveal the absurdities of misused power (as well as the concurrent pathos of those on the receiving end of injustice). 

Also I love the ability to elevate the lowly characters, and the overlooked perspectives. We featured the sheep, the servants, the baby Perdita, Florizel, a tree (in Bohemia) and The Bear. The Bear's through line culminated in an Anger Management meeting  which Leontes attends.

Double up!
The large cast exigency of doubling characters doubles the fun of stage business as well as amplifying themes and emotions - for example: Hermione's pain; Leontes' Tyranny (and subsequent grief); and the Mama Bear ferocity and care of the plural Paulinas. 

​Set the theme
We began the play with a Country & Western song about a grieving man 'Statue of a Fool'  sung / spoken by the two kings. 

Set the scene
And then segued into an ensemble tableau of Leontes's court. See the image above. Enough time was spent here to enable to audience's eyes to take in the madness and clown genius of all the details. You'll see, on the right, a foreshadowing of The Bear. Missing from the photo above is a found prop (it was not in the room when the photos were taken). One person in the court tableau had chosen to mime fanning the King. 'Can we get a fan?', I asked? A large woven fan maybe? It needs to be big. Someone in the company indicated an electric standing fan in the room. The performer (who was one of the Hermiones) comes from India and she (as did we all) enjoyed the opportunity to depict injustice in an absurd way and, via the medium of clown, deliver an anti-colonial message. The Fan had a cord - 'can you put that over your shoulder'? And then Hermione #2 stepped forward and held it - 'oh, yes! can you plug it into your heart?' As she acted being drained/slightly electrocuted, a bit of Dark Clown suffering was added to the picture. 

Use humble magic
The titular concept of Winter was honoured at a few points during the 50 minute piece with tiny accents of tossed torn-paper snow provided by the framing ensemble - marking moments of weather, or emotion or magic. Our Rock-star Oracle sprinkled some over themselves to add pizzazz in their appearance in the courtroom scene. (In this image below, you get to see the fan!) 

Honour the through line of your props.
​'The fan needs a payoff', I said. At the end, for the miraculous transformation of the frozen Hermione, the fun was brought forward (now plugged in to electric supply) and handfuls of paper snow plumed towards the frozen statue of the double Hermiones. 

Find and love your Metaphors
Find your metaphors and honour them. The Statue of a Fool song presages and adds a bit more oomph to the statue(s) at the end, as well as serving a point on how patriarchy hurts men too. Both Leontes and Hermione endure a process of petrification.

Running Gags
​Running gags are a part of Clown Dramaturgy (they can either serve a function akin to that of symbolism in dramatic works, or simply assist the game of laughter nudges. Any time it was mentioned, the guards thumped their fists on their breastplates and chanted percussively: 'SI.CI.LY!' (later to be countered by Aloaha-shirt-clad guards from 'the seaside country of Bohemia. 'ALL. HAIL.BOHEMIA!')

Neglected perspectives
To continue the point of focusing on the neglected perspectives of the play. We enjoyed having a representation of Perdita as a baby - allowing us to highlight the anxiety over her abandonment. We used a baby body prop - made by the player who wore it - the likes of which used to appear in Vaudeville acts. I also used this prop device in Strange Forces. 
The actor played the baby with a sometimes sassy joie de vivre and sometimes a sweet innocent obliviousness (e.g. babbling a lullaby gently to herself as The Bear appears onstage). This created an effect that was memorable; ridiculous, hilarious, but palpable. Also slightly surreal and sad. It also allowed us to show the anguish of those who came in contact with her (adding a bit more Dark Clown flavour there also).

Double fun
​Doubling the characters brings double the impact (see the fierce four-armed Leontes below) and double the fun (the palace guards) plus a complexity of attitude and response to characters (see the two Hermiones here below). 

Make the pain palpable (and cathartically ridiculous)
​Other overlooked moments in the original Shakespeare text includes the fact that Hermione gives birth in a prison. Cue the Prison Birth Rap (imagine the beat underneath).
Prison birth - The bed was not comfortable
Prison birth - The equipment was not clean
Prison birth - No epidural
Prison birth - Nothing fit for a queen
Prison birth - No Pilates balls
Prison birth - No paddle pools
Prison birth - No whale music
Prison birth - It’s  just awfool

You can see here above the two Kings bearing witness to this (on the right, one sitting, one standing on a chair) - note their individual reactions to the moment.

Shared experience 
I love having all actors onstage throughout the piece (Shared Experience theatre company used to do this to wonderful focusing effect, albeit in drama, rather than clown). It requires a lot of focus from the ensemble during the devising and requires a lot of detailed focus from the directorial eye, but can add the power of choric moments (at one moment, the whole ensemble played Leontes' rage as a thrashing serpentine tail). It also certainly gives more playing opportunity to the clown players not in the centre space scene-play of the moment.

Ensemble means no small parts
Stanislavski said 'there are no small parts'. See the charisma and joy of this clown serving in the courtroom scene as 'Stenographer's desk'. 

Strategic Stupidity
And here, right, this clown serving in the role of 'Tree'. As well as evoking the country of Bohemia, the sole tree underscores the utter aloneness of the baby after the guard who delivered here there (yes we used a Guard, not Paulina's husband as in the original) makes an uncomfortable exit due to the arrival of - you guessed it - The Bear. The Tree character also keeps us invested in the thought that the clowns have decided to stage the play this way.

Follow through your stupid idea
​See here below left: the Shepherd, her stupid son and sheep. The shepherd and her son saved the baby and now we see (below right) the grown Perdita (alongside her baby-self for both fun and Clarity). 
​
The Shepherd's favourite sheep is beside her, although they are indoors. In this scene, after Perdita confides to her adoptive mother both her love for a 'very special boy' and the fact that he is - ta dah! - a Prince in disguise (as a sheep in our clown world) so as not to attract the displeasure of his father, King of Bohemia).

Beats and reactions
​Below - more joy of doubles, plus react, react, react. As Mamet said: 'Beat, beat, beat'. I don't think he ever said exactly that, but that is how the audience follows a story (this, then that, then that), and how the audience understands the stakes and follows the emotional arc of the story. Dramaturgy is built beat by beat. Is that true or does it just sound good because of the alliteration?

​Anyway it's worth saying because many new theatre makers can get trapped at the level of their ideas. How does your stage action play out over the duration of your stage time? What is the nub of your piece and how does that express itself into different threads? Keep us interested using variety and contrast from moment to moment. During the devising process, be sure to keep the mind in a state that's receptive and playful enough to pick up on the running threads. Is something bringing your process to a halt? ... do you need to incorporate something planted earlier? Or skip to another scene elsewhere in place and/or time, or just change mode (i.e. from tight action to a musical interlude?) 

The take on the story - Time, trouble and a moving tableau
Now that's timely (pun unintended but let it stand) - because there is a Time Out in The Winter's Tale that is about the passing of ... Time. 

Here we picked up on one of the statements that was harvested from the Clown Council process - one clown thought that Shakespeare must have been very depressed to write TWT. This Clown Council statement led me to research Country & Western music, famed for articulating heartbreak, which led to the fortuitous finding of the 'Statue of a Fool' song.

One clown states: 
We’re not here to tell you what to do …
We’re just researchers …
We’ve taken this disturbing artifact
And are trying to work with it, understand it 

(By the way, this drops a seed for the philosophical / quasi scientific investigation of the magical transformation at the culmination of our play.)
 
We see another (non-static) tableau of: time passing in abstract movement, the bear eating the dead guard. the KIngs in desolate torment, the Aloha-shirt-clad guards of Bohemia surviving their imprisonment, the growing and maturing Florizel and Perdita (placed edge of frame stage right and left)  transforming as if by time-lapse photography during the scene. Plus a few sheep living their sheep lives.
One actor almost broke my heart here as her sheep as she subtly but palpably moved through the seasons, shivering stoically in the winter because of the shearing (mentioned in TWT as well as our version of the play).

​Sung on a strummed guitar to the tube of Tom Wait's 'Time.' 

Well a king got a bee in his bonnet and his wife pays the price
And his dear son dies because of it all
And there's travel by sea to a landlocked country
Where a bear has a new arrival to maul
And the baby doesn’t cry ‘cos she’s known no other life
A fiancée’s growing up and they will meet
And the storm’s inside your mind and the rain is everywhere in life
And the king has nothing left
But a stack of regret.

​And it's time, time, time ...

Learning how to bear it 
Sadly on the photo shoot we got no images for the Bear Anger Management meeting scene, but here's a snippet of text:
​
Teddy: My name Teddy, I'm a bear.
Group: Rawr, Teddy …
Grizzly: My name is Grizzly
Group: Rawr, Grizzly …
Grizzly: I don’t know why I’m here – I’m not angry, I’m a bear.
Bear Facilitator:  It’s ok, this is a safe space. Remember our motto – anger is Bearable.
Group (nodding): Rawr ...
Leontes (seated): My name is Leontes
Teddy: You have to get up.
Leontes (gets up): ... Leontes, I’m a king ...

After Leontes gets in touch with his feelings and is given advice, someone else raises their hand: 
Bear Facilitator: And you, what’s your name?
Clown stands: Bozo the great. 
Group: Rawr, Bozo.

Funny haha
A funny thing (pun acknowledged) about playing Shakespeare - the clown speeches are not always laughter-provoking on the page. Humour does not age well. The antique phrasing, words and concepts don't easily split the ribs of a 21st Century audience. Speaking of words, in TWT, the Shepherd's stupid son is literally listed as 'Clown' in the Dramatis Personae.
We need to remember that the meaning of the word clown has changed since its inception. Wikipedia says: 
'c. 1560 (as clowne, cloyne) in the generic meaning rustic, boor, peasant. The origin of the word is uncertain, perhaps from a Scandinavian word cognate with clumsy.'
In the Clown Council process (this is the exercise where, the players, in clown state, reflect spontaneously on the original text and it's themes), a few of the clowns protested: '... 'and the 'Clown' isn't even funny!'

Bozo: I’m here to protest the level of un-funny of the character called "Clown" in 'The Winter’s Tale'.
Really he should just be called what he is – the shepherd’s son. It’s a crime, giving misrepresentation
to our trade.
(unfolds piece of paper)
Here are some of the "clown’s" 'jokes'. Which are really just – dialogue.
a/ Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.
b/ Comfort, good comfort! 
c/ Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow.
I don't even think that last one's grammatical.

In one rehearsal, the actor playing the Clown, said - does he think he is hilarious? Of course! Seated at the edge, he interrupted this scene by laughing in an inane high pitch after each of these underwhelming phrases. It was a nice follow through of the whole 'clowns approach the text' conceit.

Weaving themes through like a dance 
One more follow through was at the sheep-shearing party scene.  I asked the group for contributions for folk dance music. One person suggested Struttin', continuing the C&W reference at the very start of the piece and the upbeat rhythm of the track made it perfect for a line dance. See here below.

The full Pastoral
​In the image below this - note the shepherd's son's shears at the ready. 

Winding up
It was humbling bringing the piece to a close. These Clown adaptations (as part of the module I lead each year) are written/devised and rehearsed in about ten hours.

After playing fast and loose with certain aspects of the original play and story, I really got to appreciate at first hand how deftly Shakespeare would follow through and knit together all the threads.

We had to elegantly (while still stupidly), bring together all the parties and resolve all the problems and reconcile all the relationships and bring not only the plot, but the conceit of our piece to a satisfying close. 

​Conceit: Clowns encounter a play about rage and regret and loss and new gains, and in their playing of it, show the audience the role of humour and of wider imagination* in achieving it.

* The clowns have empathy for the bears and the sheep, as well as for the humans. Also the clown play holds the possibility for multiple views to co-exist. They can critique Shakespeare's poor or negligent grip on geography (Bohemia as a seaside country), as well as offering the perspective that those in power can absolutely be as stupid as they (the clowns) are seen to be by the 'sad normals'**.

** 'sad normals' is a teaching phrase I use (of course, there is, in life, no normal).

Addenda:

Metaphor and music 
Oh, one more thing - the storm. The harrowing event that causes the wreck of the ship aboard which was the guard bearing the baby. It's a metaphor for the storm in Leontes' mind (mentioned in the song 'Time' and both metaphor and reality of the wide-spread havoc his unschooled emotions have wrought. Imagine this photograph (below) in movement - not pictured is one clown who circled the group and made a leaping pantomime blanche crick-crick-crick crack of lightning on centre front each time.
We planned to use music here, but opted for the splish-splash/wind sound soundscape created by the clowns themselves.

The cohort was an international group and we used, at one player's suggestion, a brilliant Icelandic heavy metal track based on a folk song. This was used in the choric writhing serpentine tale created by the full ensemble that formed in the space at the peak of Leontes' jealousy.
Leontes:
I can see them in my mind’s eye
Making the beast of two backs – without me!
Emotions, feelings! What are they?! I don’t want them!
Ensemble form writhing Jealousy train covering whole stage
SFX: Icelandic rock music
Put her in prison!
Lock her up!
Ensemble chants: Lock her up!
Chant continues as ensemble forms prison scene.

Set pieces
The storm, like the courtroom is  a great set piece. Different to the original meaning of that word is the fact that the clowns use their own bodies to create the special effects. See also the image under the heading 'humble magic' where you'll see The Oracle appearing from behind the flipchart scroll, elevated on the shoulders of the tallest ensemble player. (I love that this player chooses to serve this function while simultaneously playing his role as the young son Mamillius). This seeming ridiculous, chaotic style allows for the richness of layers.
The prison was another such scene, with ensemble members providing physical support as well as restraint for the pregnant Hermiones.

Showing the usually un-shown - the pregnant Hermiones in prison. 

Prop check and quiet individual ​a l'italienne run before the invited audience sharing. 

Comedy and Tragedy
Tragedies are perfect to adapt for Clown – the contrast between the high and the low, the lofty and the stupid is so sweet. If you’re a fan of this blog, you’ll have read other Clown Dramaturgy posts. This year, we approached Shakespeare’s mighty tragedy Hamlet.
Hamlet is ‘clown ready’ - it’s a great big tragedy full of failure, clumsiness and lack of nobility: ‘I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room’.

Content warning – the tragic events of Hamlet: war, death etc - are mentioned in this post. 
​This blog post reflects on Clown Dramaturgy in the Spring 2023 production on the MA Theatre Lab at RADA, where a clown troupe play a classic text. It is devised and rehearsed in just 10 hours. A sharing/showing with no technical aspects.
 
Clown Council Process – to find key ideas and help casting
​
The Clown Council is an effective clown devising tool. It’s described in this blog post and mentioned in this one also. 

​The Clown Council not only brings out the themes the group are interested in, but the proclivities of individuals in the group; which makes it useful as a casting process.
 
With the group of 18 assembled in a seated circle, one clown stood and weighed her hands on either side and said ‘It’s all - should I do this, should I do that?’, conveying her exasperation with Hamlet’s inaction and equivocation. Another stood and raised a mime sword and said in a sweet high-pitched voice, ‘Conflict’ - the gesture was so innocently valiant. One of them mimed digging a grave. ‘Madness!’, said another. ‘Slutty mother’, said another clown. Another laments Ophelia as a victim of patriarchy: ‘Hashtag MeToo!’.
 
Key idea
 
We all liked the idea of Hamlet being therapized. One student suggested the show title ‘Fixing Hamlet’. Brilliant – the clowns have a mission and therefore the show has the possibility to be a machine for failure. Comedy (like Drama) is about things going wrong.
 
In our next session, I divided the group in two and asked each to construct an image of a therapist’s couch, using their bodies. We chose one version and detailed it. Then the second group made a throne-like therapist’s chair.

Self-casting
 
The Clown that had gestured with her hands became our Hamlet, lying down for a therapeutic session on a couch made of beleaguered fellow clowns.
 
The clown who had called out ‘Madness’ became the therapist. The ‘slutty mother’ clown was delighted to play Gertrude.

​A trip to the props store yielded a small golden breastplate for the valiant clown and an assortment of swords, including a small, wooden sword. We didn’t at first know who this character would be.  We began sketching out a couple of scenes - and in one moment it was clear: ‘You’re Horatio!’. He grabbed some masking tape and made a superhero-style H on his armour. Poor helpless Horatio, always at the ready to serve and support his friend and only rewarded by always having to helplessly watch.
 

Engagement and the Game (with the audience)
 
But why have the clowns gathered and what for? To further clarify our adaptation and to further engage, we discussed what the game with the audience might be.
 
The idea of Hamlet as a problematic, self-involved, dithering figure led to the idea of an Intervention. But not for Hamlet, for the audience. A Google search led to an article saying that part of the intervention process is the reading of a letter – handy template was provided, and adapted.
 
Intervention Clown: reading letter: “Dear Audience,
We love you … but not in a creepy way.
You may not think about us much, but we think about you … but not in a creepy way.
You have watched us, but we have also
watched you. Watched you as you sat in front of the theatre stage and cried.
We know that your lives are busy and that once the comedy and tragedy are over, you pack away your tissues and armour up your hearts.
knock knock (one clown knocks on Horatio’s breastplate.)
Because the life out there is hard. 
knock knock
The news is hard. 
knock knock 
And you are hooked
Clown chorus: soft gasp
on all the everyday Drama. Sorry, it had to be said.
Hooked on the reason and the rottenness and the murders and the mayhem.
And the politics and the petulance.
And the disasters and the desperation.
And you think it’s not about you at all.
 
Think of tonight as a rehab program for you.
You can call us fools, but we think that if we can take the biggest drama of them all …
Clown chorus: in a flat tone Hamlet
Intervention Clown: … and heal it, then maybe, just maybe … we can heal you. And heal the people you vote for. … The Trickle Up effect.
Tonight we present for you - ‘Fixing Hamlet’.”
 
‘Fixing Hamlet’ also sets up stakes. Beyond looking forward to the unfolding of the story, a part of the audience’s attention should be activated: ‘How is this going to come off?’

​​Putting the backstory centre stage

Carlo Boso once said that the three big themes of Commedia are ‘sex, money and death’. The inciting incident of Hamlet is the death of the old king.
 
One cast member contributed the idea of a chalk body outline. In the ‘prologue’ (spooky castle rampart scene). The audience see the dead Ghost King lay down and two clowns from the ensemble swiftly use masking tape to create the crime scene outline round ‘him’, which remains centre stage throughout the show.
 
The chorus make spooky soundscape during the taping round the King’s body.
Guard Clown 1 (plodding forward, big pose): What if again this apparition come?
Guard Clown 2 (steps over corpse, then big pose): Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.
Chorus Clown: (with wobbly arms) Spooky!
The Ghost King slowly rises up. All recoil, fixed point, faces snap to audience.
Guard Clowns together: It harrows me with fear and wonder!
The spooky parapet scene transforms into the therapist office.

Ensemble cast - multiple points of view

This show (like those in the previous blog posts mentioned earlier) are created for a cast of 18 – I set chairs either side of the stage in the manner of Mike Alfreds’ Shared Experience productions. The clowns at the edges create special effects and music and are encouraged to show their individual reactions to the stage action as well and serve as chorus when needed.
A conflict is added by one clown whose personal vision is that they are making a documentary. It’s stupid, but serves to add pressure to the Intervention Clown, which will be useful later when we tie together the Classic Play action and the Clown Play denouement.

Therapist office – the speaking clowns are part of the couch.
Documentary Presenter Clown: Action! slaps hands like a clapperboard
Intervention Clown: What are you doing?
DPC: I’m making a documentary.
IC: reaffirming the overall mission Intervention!
DPC: Shh – Action! slap!
Hamlet: But that’s the whole point. I just can’t seem to get into action –
I can’t get any clarity … weighing with her hands
Mother, aunt, uncle, father, nephew, son …
To go back to uni, not to go back to uni …
Goddammit. I’m a Prince! But I’m a Prisoner.

The elevation of the inanimate

Clowns are underdogs so it it’s a great way to include marginalised or surprising thematic points of view (think of the lowly Porter in Macbeth giving his humorous take on the consequences of bad life choices). Much fun can be had by allowing normally voiceless, inanimate objects to get their say. Having made concrete the murder of the previous King, it was serendipitous that one clown elected, with enthusiasm, to play ‘The Poison!’.
We established a motif of the clown chorus singing the pop hit Toxic at salient points of the action. One of the essential ingredients of comedy is Contrast - in this instance, a huge classic text gets punctured with popular culture.
With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride
You're toxic, I'm slippin' under
Taste of a poison paradise …
Repetition and running gags are a key part of Clown Dramaturgy – they are useful laughter nudges but can also underscore the issues of the clown play plot.

Enter Claudius and Gertrude from either side of the stage.
Claudius Clown: nice and slow I love your ears.
 
Gertrude Clown: These ears? show the audience, sexily
 
CC: heavily Ooooohhh look at the audience How I’d like to pour my words into your ears …
 
Poison Clown: Like you poured poison into her husband’s ears?
CC pushes her away with his hand on her face.
 
GC: Would you do it while I was lying down. taking a nap. in the garden? Each word slowly with pause, stepping in with each word, faster in the last three words.
 
PC: Oooh, like your husband was lying and taking a nap in the garden?
GC pushes her away, hand on face also.
 
CC: Oh , What a beautiful sister-in-law, I mean woman! you are!
 
PC: It’s because she points thumb to GC is the wife of your points thumb to CC dead brother.
CC does a threatening dab to PC and spins to evade her.
 
GC: And what a beautiful brother-in-law – I mean husband!
They feverishly approach.
CC: Wife
GC: Brother-in-law – man …
CC: Woman
GC: King
CC: Legal King
Poison Clown inserts herself and makes a weird noise.
They both put hands on PC’s face and push her away.
CC: I want to bury my big shovel in your grave.
GC: Aaaaaahhh, yes! Bury It, bury it, six foot deep!
 
Now the Ghost King (a clown covered in a milky transparent veil with the crown on the outside of it) comes in-between the lovers and they blindly kiss him, instead of each other. CC and GC ‘eeew’ and shudder and depart separately.
​
Back to Therapy set up
Therapist Clown: Writing. Interesting – your mother’s sexuality disturbs you.

One of the C-words: Concision
Concision helps in making a Hamlet adaptation that is dynamic.
Ophelia: Sweet Hamlet.
Hamlet: You’re a whore!
Ophelia: reacts I’m a virgin!
Hamlet: You’re spying for THEM!
You wear too much makeup!
Nunnery!
Ophelia sobs. Post hashtag Ophelia  runs in and hugs her.
PHTO: Toxic masculinity! To Hamlet: You’re toxic!
Clown chorus: With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride
You're toxic, I'm slippin' under …

Incorporating skills and playing fast and loose with the text (yay, no living author, no copyright!)

As part of the preparation for devising, I gather a list of the group’s individual skills. One cast member could tap dance. We took lines from Polonius’s parting words to Laertes and used them to show his inadequate support of his daughter, Ophelia.
Ophelia: Daddy, something awful just happened. I need your advice!
Polonius: Of course! Act 1 Acene 3 – my big advice number!
He delivers the text with grace notes of tap dance. At one point, he finds himself inside the outline of the old King and worriedly steps out of it, flourishes and cartwheels off.

Other highlights include Clown elements of anachronism and moments of bathos.
​
The Therapist waxes lyrical about the delights of Denmark including the beer, the weed in Christiania and the statue of the Little Mermaid.
In the scene of the war with Norway, clowns are dotted about the stage engaged in inept hand to hand struggle (grunting) and lame sword fighting (ineffectual tap tap tap tapping).
The Therapist is driven mad by Hamlet’s constant prevaricating and lack of commitment and in a moment of high emotion, turns to the side of the performance space, pulls forward the seated Horatio’s hand and deliberately falls on the innocent, appalled Horatio’s tiny sword.
Documentary Presenter Clown: So much suffering.
 
The game of a scene
 
In the scene of Hamlet’s failed attempt to dispatch the praying Claudius, murderous intent is embodied by tiptoeing clowns (including, illogically, but poignantly, the Ghost King) wielding an arsenal of swords, axes and a plastic chainsaw. When Claudius spots them on their third Grandmother’s Footsteps attempt, they form into a crucifix statue (weapons radiating out like a halo from Christ’s head) and Claudius lamely leaves, apologising: ‘Sorry, Jesus.’
 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the hapless friend/spies, enter with early Beatles-movie slapstick movements while the Benny Hill theme tune played on kazoos. Their text is a mix of Shakespeare and Stoppard.

Ros: You'd wake up dead for a start and then where would you be?
Dead in a box.

​A different Polonius-playing clown is dressed as Chaplin.
This Chaplin-Polonius pedantically mimes to an eye-rolling Gertrude that he will hide (which he does in full sight, in chameleon mode, in front of the black back drape). Hamlet and his mother have a rap battle and the subsequent stabbing generates a prolonged slapstick death scene.
(In our Clown Adaptation, the clowns are ’all hands on deck’ to step in to play any character needed in the moment. In clown logic, multiples are possible and in big casts, desirable).

Horatio is frequently accompanying Hamlet – a spare wheel, a helpless witness and a metaphor for unemployed valiant action. Although he’s not an official Dramatis Personnae in the text Act 3 Scene 4, the horrified Horatio is present to help drag the Chaplin/Polonius off. 

Amplifying the main Metaphor - Intervening the Intervention
​
The Post Hashtag Ophelia clown contributed the idea for a scene of multiple Ophelia’s, all seeing no hope and repeatedly killing themselves in various mimed ways (drowning, gas oven, pistol etc) while the ‘Post-Hashtag-MeToo’ PHT Ophelia tries desperately, attending to them all like so many spinning plates, to break the tragic pattern.
 
PHT Ophelia: I intervene! I am Ophelia.
The clowns are all seated on either side see an opportunity for a Spartacus moment.
Random Clown 1: I am Ophelia.
Random Clown 2: I am Ophelia.
Random Clown 3: I am Ophelia.
Random Clown 4: I am Ophelia.
Random Clown 5: I am Ophelia.
Horatio: holding high his tiny sword I’m Horatio!
 
PHTO: I am post-hashtag Ophelia. I smash the instruments of my imprisonment. I stand up for my rights. I defy my role as obedient daughter. I break free from the Lego-locked role of obedient daughter.*
 
Multiple Ophelia 1:  I am Ophelia. I drown in my own tears.  Cries and mimes water rising water and drowning.
PHTO: What? No! Don’t drown yourself!
 
Multiple Ophelia 2:  I am Ophelia – I put my head in the not-yet-invented gas oven. Mimes it and slumps to floor
PHTO: no!
 
Multiple Ophelia 3:  I am Ophelia cuts wrist and mimes fountaining blood.
PHTO: No. Don’t do that!
 
Multiple Ophelia 4:  I am Ophelia noose to neck, suspended, twisting.
PHTO: No don’t hang yourself. Snip! snips the mime rope and MO 4 falls Sorry.
 
Multiple Ophelia 5:  I am Ophelia mimes gun to head
PHTO: Give me that! to MO 1: Stop it! Learn to swim! to MO 2: Make a cake or something!

​
A change of scale



Transitions help concision and aid absurdity. And changing the scale and stage location of the action creates texture and depth. The Ophelias mime drowning in the rising tide of their own tears and swirl out to the chairs at the sides. Having established a body of water, a small folded boat appears. One clown begins to carry another on her back slowly across the stage.





​Sea Voyage Clown: Hamlet boards a boat to the UK. At first the weather was good and the sea calm. Then there was a storm (mime) lightning (mime) and rain (mime and boat rocks).
A whale (mime) spurt! Her face tilts either side of the paper boat’s tiny sails.
In a small voice: To be or not to be. Letters! The old switcheroo! ... Look, the white cliffs of Dover!
Boat moves, screeches to a halt like a car.
The King of England.
The Clown who plays Rosencrantz now sports a MacDonalds Happy Meal crown. He takes the boat, unfolds it and reads the letter.
King of UK: It shall be done.
Refolds and hands back. Sits.
Sea Voyage Clown: Goodbye Ros and Guil!
Ros and Gul Pop up and down like pistons on the mention of their own names, saying:
Ros: Dead
Guil: In a box. 

Weaving the metaphors together, serving the ensemble
 
There’s another intervention letter, this time read to Hamlet by Yorick. A couple of scenes later, when Laertes enters the Classic Play plot, the promise of violence rises. The clowns who, by nature, love play opportunities and picking up on the passionate voice of The Poison are enthusiastic about the idea of Revenge. Tensions arise between the majority and the original Intervention clown. The Documentary Presenter Clown pays lip service to ‘healing’ while callously standing in the middle of the crime scene body outline. ‘Oops.’
 
There was an ensemble member who had suggested that his clown could always be delivering lines from the wrong play. This was his moment, helping to accelerate and add chaos. It's a bit of silliness, but his text mistakes also echo the main characters' mistakes in judgement. 
 
Wrong Play Clown: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: the stages of grief:  shock, denial, anger ..
Ghost King: Vengeance!
Wrong Play Clown: Vengeance!
Documentary Clown: Action! …  clap
Intervention clown:  Nooooooooooo.
 
Wrong Play Clown: Blow winds … Clown Chorus: Wrong play!
What light through yonder … Clown Chorus: Wrong play!  
Hey nonny nonny …  Clown Chorus: Wrong play!
 
Wrong Play Clown is nonplussed.
Claudius (swiftly at his shoulder): Kill Hamlet.
A number of clowns in the spirit of ‘Yes, lets!’ shout in unison: KILL HAMLET!!
 
Wrong Play Clown: A sword, a sword my kingdom for a sword! **
Several assorted weapons (from the Claudius praying scene) come in.
Various Clowns: Here, here, here, here, here!
Clown with Final sword: For your consideration!
Intervention Clown appearing through Wrong Play Clown’s legs: No no no! It doesn’t have to end this way.
All weapon bearing clowns: It’s a play - it has to end!
We see a quick setting up of the sword fight. The Poison rubs herself on the weapons, and Hamlet and Laertes tap tap tap lamely at the back. We see Gertrude killed by poison. Hamlet kills Claudius.
 
Wrong Play Clown: Try again, fail again, fail better. Clown Chorus: Wrong play!!
Documentary Clown: … and cut!
All clowns surge forward saying: Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! as they, with weapons, attack Claudius and each other in slo-mo.
 
Documentary Presenter Clown: rising up from the pile of bodies It’s a wrap, everybody!
 
Curtain call as the Black Eyed Peas play, with the track starting at one minute in.

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt, hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
Or would you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love, the love, the love?
 
END

Phew, that was a little long but then Hamlet is long – although our adaptation was a tight hour.
 
* Her text was inspired by Hamlet Machine, then edited back severely to serve the comic principle of Concision. Lego is mentioned because, hey, as well as being home to Hamlet, Denmark is also home to Lego.

** The chorused 'Wrong play!' omitted here so as to serve the immediacy of the rhythm of the five swords arriving - 1,2,3,4,5.
 
EXTRA NOTE:
A. I leaned on Hamlet in my 2002 show, Midriff. An excerpt:
“Will she say: Lately, I’ve been thinking about death. holding skull
Or will she say: Do you think I have good bone structure?
Isn’t this a great prop? look at skull
Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well ... a fellow of infinite jest.
Lately I have been thinking about death.
And Hamlet ... I’m almost obsessed with it -
Shakespeare’s story of Hamlet …
Possibly the acme of British literature -  
And it’s all about clumsiness and cowardice.
A noble tragedy with some very good black jokes.
It’s about someone who goes around acting like a trip idiot
while he tries to do the right thing
or cod actorly pose talks about doing the right thing.
It’s about the ability of actors to look at skull move their audience
And the uselessness of emotion
It’s about conscience and the courage of one’s convictions,
hesitation, procrastination, renunciation,
divided loyalty,
guilt and grief.
It’s a great big feat of language
which describes the failure of
words
words, words.”
 
B. The production described is Clown, but I discovered this quote is about Commedia dell’Arte. I find it relevant to ‘Fixing Hamlet’. 
 
'The irony is that humans are a disaster, but we can do nothing  about it, but there is a need at the end to 
forgive humanity ... Commedia is tragedy without catharsis. Somehow to me  Commedia is far more tragic than tragedy. In Classical Tragedy at  the end you have … the catharsis, you get purified… somehow you  get de‐responsibilised … all your sins are taken away … with  tragedy at the end you are purified, somehow, somehow … but for  me it is far more tragic admitting that humans are a disaster.'
(Iurressevitch, Appendix A, 2015: 91) – from Olly Crick’s PhD Thesis.

All images (except for the rehearsal snap) by Linda Carter.

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

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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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

The painter Tessa Schneideman (see below) turned to me one night at Desmond Jones' Mime School on Kings Road, Chelsea and said 'I want to keep doing this'. We would meet in the lounge room of my basement flat in Marylebone or in the upstairs room that was her studio in Brixton (see me in the suit in front of her canvases below). She was an astonishing wonderful painter (her works were both realistic and surreal at the same time), but found the work too solitary and turned to performance. Together with Claudia Prietzel trained puppeteer (now a film writer / director), we formed a company called Three Women.

The mime 'everyman' was ready to be refreshed - with a female viewpoint.

We were using mime, but often it included clowning. 

Brabarella was not a take on the Jane Fonda film Barbarella but the story of Cinderella told in lingerie. If you step away from their purpose-built function, bras are fascinating objects. A front-opening maternity bra with a strange panel shape was 'Cindy's' 'apron, and another light-support bra her cleaning rag.  (As a base costume, we all wore the then de-rigeur black unitards - at the time only available from the Gandolfi Dance Shop on Marylebone Road).

As fairy godmother I wore - ok Google is not helping me with nomenclature - it was a thing women wore ('all-in-one'? step-ins'?) that was a bra that carried on down to tighten the tummy and ended in suspender clips for stockings - Tessa's mother-in-law somehow had a copious quantity of them that she donated to us. I had a peach-coloured diaphanous front-closing bra attached to the back of that which I made to flap like wings (the fairy costume I never had as a child!). Tessa as 'Cindy' brought on more 'rags' which, with a strike of my wand (the wand was a rolled-up Time Out magazine) turned into a gown made of cascading tiers of B cups. A mouse (strapless bra positioned on Claudia's head like mouse ears) transformed into a blinkered horse (adjustment of headpiece bra, plus snorting and pawing the ground). Other lightweight bras were slung around the 'horse' and Cindy galloped merrily off whipping the reins. Claudia made a quick change into gloriously dashing prince all in black. Upside-down step-ins whose cups suggested Elizabethan 'puffing pants' and a piece of corsetry on each arm as regal sleeves.

Housewives' Circus. We also did a circus performed by 'Housewives' - yes this was the 1980's when that was still a word. Entrance of the Gladiators played and a roving spotlight set the scene for a parade of three women in aprons and respectively headscarf, hairnet and mobcap. There was stilt walking (Claudia walking with her feet resting on two large brooms), a bearded-lady (me with dustpan brush), weightlifting (wooden pastry roller). A high-wire unicycle act (old-school rotary eggbeater), a daredevil motorcyclist (tea-strainer goggles, round jaffle iron as handlebars. An elephant (using an old fashioned hair-bonnet with attached air-tube as a mask - see below). Saucepan lids were cymbals as musical accents for a hoover-hose snake charmer. 
There was a magic act where a toy panda was trapped beneath a colander and skewers put through (like the classic act where a box containing a woman is run through with swords) then a disappearing act. We used the classic clown trope of a clown appearing as if they were a member of the audience - Claudia would come forward with her handbag and her 'husband'. One night  at BAC, Claudia brought on pop musician Joe Jackson. Tessa (magician) and I ('lovely assistant') would hold a sheet, held in place by a peg: it was triple- not double-folded, so the 'couple' were disappeared, but of course, after the sheet is flourished away, they were revealed crouching at the back. 

(I am noting as I write, the hilarious amount of vintage references in this post.)

Businessmen ​began with a dance. To a jaunty/plodding music track, three (almost) faceless figures walked in rhythmic patterns backwards and forwards, flat-on like playing cards. Charity-shop jackets were pulled onto heads and the ties were tied on our foreheads and hung between our eyes in front of our noses. Tiny garden stools were carried in like briefcases, then snapped out in dynamic ways (think a fringe-theatre low-tech pre-envisioning of the business cards in America Psycho), then assembled for an inevitable status game with the seating. After a while a blow-up sex doll was brought on. She was naked but for a spiral bound secretary’s notebook covering her, erm, lap (remember short-hand, remember stenography?). There is nothing achieved and no real meeting, but the men use the secretary's listening** for a long winded word-salad riff ‘My wife doesn’t understand me. Stand doesn’t wife under my me? Under-wife my stand. Stand me under my wife!’. Phones start to ring. From pockets come many phone receivers with curly cords (1980, remember?! and see below). The ‘men’ are in a cat's cradle, choking as a cacophony of ringing grows. 

Content advice: issues of violence towards women included in this paragraph.
Other pieces included Handbags - women's lives explored through the contents of two women's handbags. Dinnertime - a mother tries to feed her child. Walking Home - with a voice over consisting of catcalls, a woman walks home - she opens the gate unlocks her door and finds herself facing an intruder. Rape - a Magritte-inspired piece using oversize puppetry - a coat enters the stage behind a woman and pulls a stocking over her head - the devastation of sexual attack is shown expressively by staggering figures. There was also a completely abstract movement piece for two performers (I need to look up the name). Some shows included my solo A la Carte -  a woman dining alone - nervous and self conscious - she drops a piece of food and it sparks her to become feral, devouring her meal underneath the table. Returning to the surface she, calls the waiter, pulls the menu our of his reach and bites down on his arm. We also created a show called Follies Berserk, looking at and subverting tropes of entertainment. Claudia Prietzel performed an absurd take on a 'striptease'. She was dressed in her black unitard, and started back to the audience. There were sequinned traps which turnout to be an old-school baby holder. She danced and teased off the straps, revealing a baby doll. The music continued and she pulled off the legs and arms of the doll too.

Three Women performed in Art Centres up and down the UK, toured to Holland, performed in festivals in Denmark and Spain and on British Council tours to Germany. We won an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First for 'High Heels', and performed in the London International Mime Festival. Other shows were 'Follies Berserk' (a satire on women in popular performance) and 'Clotted Cream' which featured the ground-breaking piece 'Wounds' directed by the remarkable Hilary Westlake, described in this article.

* Sadly Tessa's bold and creative life was cut short. I owe her so much. I wish I could find more of her paintings online. You can see a couple of her canvases here below behind me rehearsing the piece Businessmen.

** I recently re-watched My Fair Lady - Professor Higgins asks his housekeeper Mrs Pearce 'Why can't a woman be more like a man?' (zero cut-away shot for Mrs Pearce's eye-roll - I joke - there would have been no eye-roll, not even the faintest glimmer of an eyebrow lift. Mrs Pearce could not risk anything other than obedient indulgence - her livelihood depends on humouring as well as serving).

#clown #feministclown #womenintheatre #mime #DesmondJones

If you want a little moment of clown refreshment, go here to see a short (twelve and a half minute tutorial on breath and emotion. 
The video was made on invitation from Holly Stoppit and Robyn Hambrook's Clown Workouts initiative. It in clouds a little warm up for you and then a bit of rough puppet play with a random object. Enjoy!