As part of my Drama School teaching, it is my great joy to be tasked with creating clown pieces.

Just before the quarantine started, I was working on a student production: Clowns perform John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. It's a theatre laboratory course so our brief includes deconstructing and responding to the original text.

The group were all on board with including a feminist point of view. They had recently created a scene to deal with the role of women in their previous module's production of Threepenny Opera.

John Ford actually writes well for women - the female characters here are spirited, feisty and wry, even so, the idea of the clowns coming out saying 'We have a problem with the title!' was in the forefront of my mind.

I developed a process for approaching classical texts to be played by clowns.

In previous years, we worked with The Revengers Tragedy. One year we used a #DarkClown concept: the audience entered to find themselves in a 'rehabilitation centre for clowns'. The concept was: sweet clowns are punished by being forced to present a vicious and violent play, so that they can better fit into society. Towards the end of the show, there was an alarm and an announcement - the clowns had failed at their task and had to depart as their identifying number was called. I had given this direction: 'You are leaving to your death. The prop you are holding now will be the instrument of your death.'

One character left with a haunted face, holding a cucumber before him ...

Another year, a different production/concept for TRT, an organisation of clowns were attempting to understand the 'sad normals' (regular people). The production was divided into chapters: The Clowns try to understand Power. The Clowns try to understand Flawed Humanity. The Clowns try to understand Grief. The Clowns try to understand The Plot ... etc.

I am always inspired by the underdog and for me clowning is a way to present neglected points of view. With The Revengers Tragedy, we included Vindice's dead girlfriend Gloriana as a cast role. After the scene where Vindice dresses the corpse of his dead beloved - Gloriana - in order to to trick and punish the Duke, poor Gloriana, decked in a necklace of 'Magic Tree' car deodorisers (remember the room for the sin of Sloth in the film SEVEN?) broken-heartedly mourns to Vindice: 'You used me!' This was all the more poignant by being played with wonderful sensitivity and vulnerability by a very tall male student.

Clown Dramaturgical Process 
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​An early step is to check out what skills your group has - appoint a monitor and circulate a list. A skill can help inspire a scene. The act of making the list puts that elements in the group imagination. It's also a concrete invitation into clown thinking e.g. 'when can we fit acrobatics into this classical text?' One student was thirsty to use her mime skills which led to the idea of a play with in the play scene between relatively minor characters Philotis and Bergetto being played in a half-and -half costume - check out RuPaul's Drag Race Season 7 Ep 10.

A key step in the devising adaptation is the Clown Council. We make a circle of chairs. Everyone takes a seat and enters clown state. I tell them that this is a meeting of the Clown Council and they are instructed to stand up when they feel the urge to speak about the themes of the play. I act as scribe to capture what the clowns say.

Later, back in 'sad normal' state, we discuss and find common ground / significant connections.

I encouraged students to put forward their favourite moments from the play, nurturing the emotional connection of clown through their enthusiasms for and reactions to the material.

Processes I used on earlier years included using Arnold MIndell's World Cafe process and the Marketplace Lazy Susan (more information to come).

Looking to the underrepresented led to the idea for extra scenes for Putana and Hippolita, and the acknowledgement of the point of view of the embryo produced from the love affair between Annabella and Giovanni. Good to bear in mind that a clowns don't discriminate between animate and inanimate the way 'sad normals' do. Annabella's heart is brought onstage in Act Five, skewered on Giovanni's knife. In our production, on clown volunteered to play the heart.

Taking things literally is another useful vein. A quick instance from one of the The Revenger's Tragedy productions - one clown played Vengeance and came on every time Vengeance was mentioned (once mistakenly coming on at the mention of Virtue) and when Vindice raised his sword and said: 'now nine years' vengeance crowd into a minute!' (3.5.124), Vengeance came on and stopped the show as he counted 'one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi ...' Yup, all the way to 'sixty!'

Another process consists is the theme ideas cloud: I pair students up randomly and assigning each pair a theme. I ask them to put their clown brains and hearts to this task - to think of metaphors and clown-logic ideas, and songs for possible inclusion. 

Making Metaphors concrete: working on this year's text: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, one student, working on the theme of Vows came up with the idea of a ring. Vows are binding. Two Clowns conjoin themselves by wearing a rubber ring in various unwieldy ways, hampering their joy and freedom. Another pair of clowns had the idea of costuming themselves as halves of a pantomime horse. The clown playing Annabella would have worn a bridle. One clown was fascinated by the mention of Parmesan cheese in the text (which is set in Parma) - this would have been inserted as a choric running motif. Another clown was perplexed by the mention of melons in the play - the event where Putana's eyes are put out could have included a clown sitting quietly onstage using a kitchen utensil to make melon balls, while the clown playing Putana screamed.

Costume as dramaturgy. If there is an overriding concept - e.g. Clown correctional centre, there will be a base costume (or base colour palette) indicating the prison costume or the prison atmosphere. Elaborate bits such as period ruffs would be permitted/supplied by the authorities and clown props (balloon, wooden saw) could work their way in to make a poignant contrast. For 'Tis Pity, I held conversations with each student regarding what their clown might be wearing. A Jacobean crinoline would be worn by one clown, mime apparel, cowboy gear and a rabbit headdress (one clown took inspiration from Vasques' line 'let my hot hare have law.')

The combined metaphors, prop, improvs, running gag ideas birthed a coherent (according to clown logic) approach and the whole would have come together something like this:

​'Tis Pity She's a Horse

The clowns found a script in the back of a Ford Fiesta. 
They were really impressed that, 
while singlehanded-ly revolutionising the automotive industry (yay horsepower), 
Ford
​had somehow also found the time to also write a play 
(and make some fine Western movies, too, apparently). 
The clowns felt that their presentation of ''Tis Pity She's a Horse' (sic) would be a great opportunity to show that clowns can do high-brow material.
Well some of them. A couple of them just welcomed an opportunity to dress as cowboys.
Or as Death (from The Seventh Seal).
Under the 'leadership' of a Peter Quince-like Company Manager,
this famous tale of incestuous love would have begun 
with a smooth, lively rendering of Sly and the Family Stone's 'It's a Family Affair'.
The suitors would have competed in a Derby for the hand of Annabella. 
Soranzo would have disqualified Grimaldi for unspecified reasons and 
Bergetto's horse would have been shot, and sadly not responded to any of the normal methods of resuscitation.
Hippolita would have made a splendid entrance with 
terrifying black-bin-bag wings and spoken of her betrayal with Valkyrie-like rage.
There was going to be a Punishment Rabbit (don't ask), and a Public Service Announcement 
about how the stork arrives when he sees True Love.
There would have been a special appearance by the newly conceived 
Clown of Shame, with an Oedipus-inspired monologue:
Whose tale more shameful than mine, 
whose lot more dire?
My motheraunt and uncledad 
Did beget me, commingled in one bed.
The fruit of sibling loins;
Monstrous progeny made in equal parts 
of sublimest love and darkest sin.
Ah me! ah woe! oh misery!
And my life short and brutish in the dark
To be murdered unclean and unborn  
by my uncledad’s blade.
Was ever nephewson afflicted thus!
Annbella, Putana and Hippolita would have risen up from their various deaths to 
address their dead beloveds (using text from Oscar Wilde’s Salome): 
Ah! thou wouldst not suffer me to kiss thy mouth. Well! I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit ... There was a bitter taste on thy lips. 

It would have been edgy, elevated and stupid - with touches of pathos and just a little feminist rage.
Due to COVID-19, the production only exists now in the imagination. 
​But the imagination is a wonderful place.

Clown State is a beautiful thing.

One of the things the Clown teacher is looking for is to keep 'trainee idiots' in the Now.

Much of the clown teacher's side-coaching and heckling is done with the intention to interrupt the student who is intent on planning ahead and to call them back into the moment, into communion with the audience.  

When the trainee clown is planning ahead they are unable to sense the audience or their fellow performer, or even their own inner intuition.

Much of Clown work is encouraging 'not doing' - and that is not to say that nothing ever happens! When the clown student stops thinking ahead of themselves, then they become open to the accident of the moment, to the inspiration of the moment, to the impulse of the moment, then magic will unfold.

I have often said that 'Timing is awareness'. One of my current clown students, when asked 'what is Timing?' said:  'It is an energetic connection to emotion'. 

Someone recently sent me this short film about the Clown Reinhard Horskotte. In the film, 'He says: 'When you wait, something happens.'  

The wonderful cabaret artist Paul Martin has been on a couple of my courses - one day he contacted me to say he had coined a clown mantra for himself: 'Accept everything. Expect nothing.' I love it. (By the way, anyone wanting to study cabaret or learn how to become an MC - I recommend Paul Martin highly.)

Wait. Be open. It will arrive.

A step-by step approach helps the participant really engage audiences and to develop expertise in the important comedic use of rhythm and comedy craft.

There is a rich range of reactions possible when witnessing the compelling Dark Clown work. 

Carefully set up in an ethically held space - performers get a chance to invest imaginatively in high stakes, where energy and expressivity is released. 

We are aiming for what I call 'Troubled Laughter' in the audience - laughter happens but it is not a laugh at. 'Troubled laughter' does not trivialise or dismiss the suffering. The performers (course participants) -  aim to learn to implicate the audience. Done correctly, the audience laugh in a way that is either troubling or cathartic and often both at the same time.
Sometimes they veer between laughter and tears (and occasionally both at the same time).

The joy of connection is nurtured during the process.

Many return to repeat the course - describing it as 'challenging and rewarding in equal measure'.

These images by Robert Piwko Photography - highly recommended.

A productive session last night - making the piece stronger with some excisions and elisions.

Remove that, tighten this. Insert squirty pistol there.

One of the cast wrote on Facebook describing this rehearsal period as 'a process of creation and destruction'.

I drive them mad with my stipulation for precision. I drive myself mad with my own predilection for detail, multi focus and creating moments of chaos.

But things are getting defined. The 'patient' is doing well.

Fingers crossed for opening night on Thursday.
 
See other posts on this production here.

Look at the show website with more on the backstory and inspiration for the piece here.

​Booker T and the M.G.’s had a song called Time is Tight. Music brings flow and releases stress (well except for music that is designed to make you anxious/tormented). I find the track on YouTube and play it. The track is actually mellow - and energizing to listen to. Music has charms to soothe the savage breast. (or ‘Musick’ as the originator of the phrase wrote it – see below*)
 
I dislike the phrase ‘crunch time’ but we are there.
 
It’s my own fault – I love shows happening in real time and in a contained space. I love an ensemble. Eight characters on stage on view every second.
A devised show is, in part ‘written’ with stage blocking. Eight characters on stage, how to focus the action so as to make the situation clear, the reactions clear, the sequence of actions clear. How to set up and show cause and effect.
 
Working with not native English speakers (and me, regretfully, not having more than 24 words of Cantonese), means a lot of time can tick by while explanations and translations are made and confusions are created and cleared up.
 
On first blocking of the start of here show there were so many questions and unknowns.
What is the play of these individuals / this group like? What characteristics unfold from each clown performer? Devising a show like this, the ‘casting’ can come during, rather than before rehearsal. Character is a function of plot. I had some hunches on day one but detailing of characters and plot have developed in stuttering fits and starts.
 
It is a pressurized time but - allowing myself to take the time here to reflect – it is a satisfying moment when conventions slowly clarify themselves.
 
One character, later in the show, becomes the one who carries the heart of the piece. (Um, quite literally in one scene). In the prologue she is simply cute. But in later scenes she is kind, compassionate, caring, and, further on, even speaks to the audience directly in the name of fairness: ‘He deserves the right to a fair trial.’ In true clown fashion she (the character) then regrets she ever said it because the other ‘idiots’ kick off a mad and heartless trial which, like the one in Duck Soup, is full of non-sequiteurs and driven not by justice but by rhythm. A syncopated timing which needs to be both nuanced and…tight.
 
Actually this scene is doing well, but overall, timing is not tight. Our (intended) 50 minute show was a sprawling one hour ten on our first (and only, so far) rough run-through.
 
Getting timing tight takes time. And time is tight.
 
But back to the satisfying moment – day before yesterday I went home and wrote on the computer. Samuel Beckett, presumably sat down to write Act Without Words. Yesterday we reworked the opening with the sweet clown being the conduit which allows the audience to be presented to each of the different characters one by one. The whole scene has gained focus – leading the audience like a red thread into the world on the play/piece. And proved a way to let the audience see the strangers-to-each-other clowns make their first meeting.
And it has made the moment they spot ‘Dead Bozo’ 100 percent more effective.
 
Onwards.
 
*The phrase was coined by William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697:
‘Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.’

For all the posts so far on the creation of The Death of Fun click here.

There is a moment when you notice that the rough rope ladder* of your scenario has become a raft and find, in a beat** of relief, that it will float (mixed metaphor I know - I re-watched  the film Cast Away last night).

My cast are also prop makers, film makers, costume makers. FB messages and emails ping back and forward out of rehearsal hours with questions about size and colour and fabric and with solutions being offered to problems. Together we are weaving a cartoon web. 

On the second trawl through characters are gaining more detail. The cast has become a company -  understanding the physical language of the piece, taking the initiative and making offers, working as a physical chorus.

Below is an image of the company 'tired but happy', mid-way through putting together the - um - Duck sequence. Why a Duck? My good friend Wikipedia reminds me that Richard Anobile wrote book of that name (featuring a foreword by Groucho) which focused on the minutiae of the Marx Brothers' routines. Also, that: 'The duck is a recurring reference throughout the Marxes' and especially Groucho's career. His signature walk was called "the duck walk" and on Groucho's television program You Bet Your Life a stuffed duck made up to resemble Groucho would drop from the ceiling to give contestants money if they said the day's secret word. Ducks are the only animals that perform lines in the song "Everyone Says I Love You" in the Marx Brothers' fourth film, Horse Feathers. Their fifth film was called Duck Soup.

​I just rewatched the scene from the Marx Brothers' film The Cocoanuts where Chico persistently mishears viaduct as 'Why a Duck?' to which Groucho answers: 'I'm alright, how are you?' As Chico persists to ask the question, Groucho gives in, saying they are building a tunnel instead.

A viaduct is almost a rope bridge. We have a tunnel in the show. And, as it happens, we also have a life raft. As well as a number of ducks.

* Commedia dell'Arte Master Carlo Boso referred to the first draft of the scenario as a 'skeleton'. We have one of those in the show too.
** its a very brief beat as there is so much else to do to put the 'meat' (sorry) on that skeleton.

​See here for other posts on the making of The Death of Fun.
​
And see the show's website which Patricia Woo (in the pink wig) has been creating.

I have spent a whole morning listening to sound effects: Beeps, Boings, Klaxons, Alerts, Sirens and Honks.

I look at my notes: 'Gun that fires the word bang'. I make a new note to explore this in tonight's rehearsal. Is it a bad thing to create from props? I doubt it is something that David Mamet would recommend. But I am sure many a Clown act or even other Circus discipline or Cabaret act has been created from an object or prop. The list also reads: Birthday Cake?, Squirty flower? - we need to include classic clown tropes. Which ones will serve us? 



The Death of Fun is a Clown piece, for grown-ups - but it also needs to be a piece of Clown drama. Clown characters find themselves in a situation. A progression needs to be made - it needs to proceed beat by beat logically and end somewhere different from the start ... and feel satisfying - is that so hard?* I keep thinking of the lovely shows I saw by the wonderful Belgian clown company Okidok. They did it. Am I really caught between genres? Or is this a normal stage of writer/devisor process? The Okidok clowns exist in a clown world. I have Clowns in a prison (real world concept and location) - but we can cartoonify it. Or present it as if it exists in a Limbo parallel world as in 'Huis Clos'...

Having stepped of the cliff, this morning I feel like I am, like Wile E. Coyote,  walking on thin air.

*I am joking, of course - it is indeed hard to lead an audience into a world and a story and take them on a fulfilling journey.

See previous posts about the making of The Death of Fun. Also here. And here.

Currently in Hong Kong, a few days before rehearsal begins on The Death of Fun, the production I will be devising with The Fringe Mime and Movement Laboratory.

I am continuing to compile notes and organise my thoughts towards the coming production, which will be (despite the title of this blog post) in the style of Clown, Dark Clown and the Absurd. This show is going to be an experiment, in the same way that the production of Hamlet or Die (produced 2000 for Mime Lab) was. Hamlet or Die was an experiment in whether one could make a full length show in Dark Clown style. The challenge with The Death of Fun, is to make a Clown show about Clowning - or, more specifically addressing some of the recent threats to the art / profession of clowning. You can google 'scary clown' to throw up a number of online articles on this subject.
How much of a threat is posed to Clowning by the phenomenon of the Scary Clown (pranksters, thugs and horror films) and by the fact that Coulraphobia (fear of Clowns is on the rise, or has become , as they say, a 'thing' - despite the words Greek roots, it is a neologism, circa 1980's). I have been reading and collecting these articles - and was pleased to read this rather wonderfully comprehensive and thoughtful Smithsonian article on the subject today. 

This post is somewhat undisciplined (it has a split focus).

In part it may serve as the first of a series of posts making a rough log of the production process (we'll see whether time allows for both doing and reflection). 

It's also an informal wondering brought on by working here in Hong Kong.

I read some (not yet all) of J Crump's book Chinese Theater in Days of Kublai Khan (Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies. I wanted to be more informed about Chinese clown heritage (one of the characters in The Death of Fun will be inspired by a comic Chinese performer). It struck me, reading through the scenarios in Crump's book, that there are some similarities between the comic aspects of Chinese Opera and  Commedia dell' Arte. Both forms have a 'family' of well-defined / stock character types. Chinese Opera plots are more concerned with historical stories and myths, and seem more devoted to delivering a moral message than Commedia does. The Chou (likeable, foolish characters in Chinese Opera) are given some license to improvise and have comic exchanges using copious puns. I have seen a delicious video where a character meets his own double.* I think Barry Grantham gives, in one of his books, a script where Harlequin meets his twin.

Director William Sun creates works putting Chinese Opera and Commedia together
​I'd love to find someone who has done the due research and writing on all the similarities and differences between these two forms. Googling for books or articles on the subject, I found that a director, William Sun, worked with the Shangai Theatre Academy to create a fusion of Chinese Opera and Commedia. You can see a youtube clip where he speaks about it here.

Western Clown and Chinese Clown
And to continued to be undisciplined / split focus - while thinking of similarities and differences - it's interesting that while the Western clown is most usually signified by a red nose, the defining characteristic of the Chinese clown's makeup is a small patch of white around the nose. In Chinese culture, apparently this represents either a mean or secretive nature or a quick wit.
​
* the clip is 'The True and the Fake Wu Dalang' - first he gives a clever story with lots of rhythmic repetition, introduces himself, then at about 2.56 he meets his twin. Check the demanding skill to play the whole thing crouched! Thanks to my friend Yang Wei Wei for her translation.