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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Way: le sang

Gaspar: sperm

No Way: sperm

Gaspar: and tears

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

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


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

​


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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

Life and Death ...
Gotta love Shakespeare - The Comedy of Errors (a ... comedy) starts with a man being condemned to death. (Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is condemned to death in Ephesus for violating the ban against travel between the two rival cities). My dark imagination was engaged.

​Set-up = stage set
The great joy of directing a final year production at a Drama School means the Design Students can support the production. I decided on a bold premise. The whole play takes place on a television sound stage. Before the play proper begins, people with headsets and clipboards roam the set - at this moment just a large empty grey platform with a gentle rake.

Most of the play was played for comedy - there was, however a Dark Clown predicament in the opening scene, which I describe here.

Pressurised Predicament - Beat the Clock
A giant clock face (whose hands turned throughout the play) is suspended at the back. At certain moments, the names of the various shows* is projected onto it e.g. (towards the end): 'The Abbess knows Best'.

A sofa is brought on and we hear a classic undulating tones of an American chat show Voice Over: 'Ladies and Gentlemen, citizens of Ephesus, welcome to 'Beat the Clock', with your host, that provocative Prince of electrifying entertainment, Duke Solinus! 

Act 1 Scene 1 - bit of Implication
Canned applause and the production staff gee up the live audience applause too, using cue cards.

​Duke Solinus: Hello Ephesians! Welcome to the show where we find out: will someone be Frying To(morrow ) Night? (Badoom tish ending in a short blare of electrical fizz) But first, do you want to see the chair?  

Audience are encouraged by cue cards to chant 'Show. Us. The chair!'​ (supported by canned chanting)

A chair, somewhat reminiscent of an electric chair, is brought on. (Scary tick tick buzz sting and the chanting ends on a button)

Duke Solinus: So, Lance - who do we have in the chair tonight?
Voice Over: Well, Duke, today's illegal immigrant comes all the way from Syracuse. He's a small businessman, separated from his family. Let's give a warm welcome to our somewhat melancholy merchant from ... Syracuse!

Audience are encouraged by cue cards to boo at the mention of their rival town​ (supported by canned booing), as Egeon - in an orange prison uniform, handcuffed and hooded is frogmarched on by two operatives wearing attire reminiscent of executioners and differently masked.

Egeon's hood is whipped off and the poor man flinches and blinks, dazzled by the light. A studio crew operative has crawled on and, kneeling, affixes a lapel mic to Egeon, which unexpected action (and the fact that there are wires involved) startles and frightens the captive Egeon.

Duke Solinus: Speak, Syracusian! 
.... 'say in brief the cause
Why thou departed'st from thy native home
And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.'

High Stakes and Enforced Performance
Egeon begins to tell his tale (the pressure is on because Egeon's tale is, not in the least 'brief'). Plus  not only is the poor man being forced to tell his tale, he finds himself in the ghastly position of being made complicit in the prostitution of his personal pain. No sooner has he begun, when smiling hired actors dressed as mimes come on with props to enact the events. Imagine the humiliation of your heart-rending tale being presented as prime time entertainment. Imagine recounting how sailors stranded you, your wife and your twin babies to a 'sinking-ripe' ship while smiling facilitators waft a rising cloth (to represent the sea) up to your neck and bind plastic baby dolls (representing your missing children and their servants) together. Imagine hearing audience laughter while this is happening.

When Egeon falters with stress, disorientation and emotion, the Duke says:
'Nay, forward, old man; do not break off so;
For we may pity, though not pardon thee.'
It's like those unscrupulous reporters who prod people's emotions: 'And how did it feel when (the disastrous thing) happened?'. Here it is even worse: 'You're still going to die, but let us have an emotional experience from your predicament'.

The cost
Egeon is forced to continue his account and he does, lamenting that
'by misfortunes was my life prolonged
To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.'

Whereupon, the Duke obliges him to recount more: 'dilate at full
What hath befall'n of them and thee till now.'

Once Egeon has been wrung out, Solinus makes (in this production) a show of cheesy magnanimity by posing the challenge:
'I'll limit thee this day
To seek thy life by beneficial help:
Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;
Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,
And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.'

As in the plot of the film Run Lola Run, Egeon must raise a huge sum (in this case, a thousand marks) and he only has 24 hours to do so (... or 'feel the burn').

Duke Solinus then points in a showman-like manner at the large clock which sounds a few loud and momentous ticks, followed by the electrical buzz sting. 

Egeon is stripped of his prison uniform and begins his faltering steps off stage while studio crew rush onto the set with cue cards encouraging the audience to chant 'Beat the Clock!'​ (supported by canned chanting).

On to Act 1, Scene 2 ...

* Antipholus of Ephesus's house was played like Friends, with Adriana and Luciana discussing Adriana's problems over a tub of Hagen Daas. At the moments there were costumes and props for other shows passing through e.g. a war programme. Plus Teleevangelism (Pinch) and adverts for Angelo's jewellery business. The courtesan was portrayed as a successful Dominatrix. Voice Over: "In just a moment it's double your pleasure with the gang from 'Ephesus Bay' - it's the one where Adriana's miffed at Antipholus's tardiness, Luciana is obsessed by hot new boy in town and as usual, Dromio gets the wrong end of the stick ... Laugh? You will, but first a glimpse of late night low life - it seems local businessmen are seeking a little correction in 'Ephesus Vice'. Stay tuned!"

Slave Clowns in some heartless regime are forced to perform - they are kept as some kind of underclass serving as roustabouts - rigging the equipment for the star acts, and cleaning up afterwards - that was the concept for the 2013 show, Strange Forces. Lynn Gardner tweeted ‘Peta Lily directed show at Circus Space last night was terrific. Clowns like wounded refugees from a post apocalyptic Beckett play.’  See below for images and link to footage.

I taught for a few years at Circus Space (which then become NCCA - the National Centre for Circus Arts). For the school's annual graduation show there was a tradition that the first year students were led by a director to provide the 'links' - short ensemble acts to cover for and accomplishing the rig and de-rig necessary for the different disciplines of the various acts: Chinese Pole, Slack- or Tight-wire, Arial Hoop, Straps ... and so on. This is akin to the role of the Clowns in traditional touring circus where they would come on to discharge the tension created by the more dangerous acts. I also think of the Rodeo Clowns who come on to keep the show action going and the crowd engaged when things have gone dangerously awry.

'What is the world we are creating?' is a question to be considered in any performed production.

The opening scene had low light and later, bleak, blue-green tinged ilumination. The sound score contributed with a desolate-sounding drip and an occasional electrical fizz - we are in a large unfriendly space with, perhaps, puddles and exposed electrical wiring, occasionally some flickering due to power surges - due to punishment happening somewhere off, unseen.

All the clowns were dressed in white - unified, but with variation in detail. Disposable decorators' overalls suggested both institutional garb and chem-haz gear. Their hats were in fact disposable shoe covers. ​The designer for the Slave Clown 'links' was circus design specialist Andie Scott. 

A tall and small clown pair (the small one riding a child's tricycle) do a sad circuit bearing a sign to announce the show title. We hear a squeaking of the tricycle wheels.

Next came a single clown, pushed out on to the stage from stage left. Then a white rope is flung and flops to the floor. The lone clown looks at the rope, the audience - all with dread. She picks up and shoulders the rope, taking lunging Volga bargemen steps. The rope extends and tautens. Next comes a shuffling bunch of humanity - terrified slave clowns lassoed inside the rope, making their way across the stage. One at the back starts to collapse, but they must, must keep on going, like Jane Fonda carrying her dead dance partner in They Shoot Horses Don't They?  The whole process is made more difficult, but them manage to exit, with him being dragged behind, their anxious faces to us, hoping we don't notice too much. 

This was followed by a circus parade - traditionally this would be circular, inside the space of the circus ring. In this staging it was a linear procession (evoking the regimenting of prisoners rather than a festive celebration - even though, originally, there was the deathly circle of the coliseum). Each prisoner had small costume details or props - one dressed as a lion, others juggling, one repeatedly pulling a dead rabbit from a hat.

First act: Chinese Pole was followed by two clowns pushed out. One has a buzzer and is being forced to inflict electric shocks on her partner. Clowns hurry on behind, dragging the inert body of the clown who collapsed earlier - one of the team steal the buzzer to shock him back to life as they cannot do it without that extra man. The revived slave clown manages his part of the de-rig, then takes another bad turn and must be dragged off - there is an image of this moment in the slide show here. Meanwhile pillow-case-headed slave clowns (you can see the pillow heads in the slide-show mentioned earlier) drag on a body in a sheet - opened to reveal a twisted body - a loop is placed round the ankle of the body which is winched up - this is the next performer (the wonderful Lydia Harper, now touring with Cirque du Soleil), who performs her cloud swing act, which ends in a poignant neck spin.

This shows a dramaturgical opportunity dilemma. The purpose of the evening is a show-case for graduating students so it was not possible or appropriate to inflect the actual  acts. We certainly established that there was a hierarchy where the performers of the featured acts were of a different order to the slaves. If this had been a production where the remit was for all the content of the piece - one choice could have been to make the acts even more glamorous and elaborate in their visuals e.g. bejewelled and feathered costumes. Another choice could have been to make each act a life-or death trial in some way (such as Lydia's entry and finish allowed for). Also there would have been an opportunity here - what might have been a good game for the implication of the audience? Might a slave clown have been sent out with a kind of geiger counter to measure he applause after the featured acts, and then looked at a dial and reacted in a number of ways - e.g. at first, just a general agitation to set up how important it was to get an accurate recording (or risk punishment), on another occasion - a head shake and a concerned look at the way the performer had exited; another time measuring clown might appear late and only catch the tail end of the audience reaction and look with appealing eyes to the audience who might only partially clap - reacting to what ever the audience did with desperate hope and ultimately their expression would read culpability as well as anxiety - they might well leave with a sob ... etc.

​While the cloud swing was being de-rigged, the Pillow heads make a return. A height-adjustable black screen is quickly erected and when the slave clowns step aside we see Little Man - he so sweet natured and happy, the expressions of the slave clowns is a nice Contrast. As with a doctor about to deliver a bad diagnosis, the pillow-heads cannot participate in his optimism. One slave clown advances with a barber-striped stick tipped with red feathers and tickling begins, resulting in suffering and eventually the existential, unanswerable cry of 'why? why? why?' (In Ancient Japan, this was a genuine method of torture - kusuguri-zeme: 'merciless tickling').
A cue point within the 'Little Man' scene set other slave clowns in traction setting up a table for the next act - juggling. One slave clown was given a tiny bellboy hat to wear to assist the performer by delivering her prop suitcases and collecting her coat. This act leaves some mess and an operational vacuum cleaner inside the headdress of a costume made to look like a small elephant comes on to clear.

A rope act follows, ending in a heel hang. The next link featured a clown with goggles and a whip and the entry of a tragic-looking unicorn (pantomime horse). In this reality, even a magical beast is degraded. The whip cracks force the unicorn to raise on hind legs and then to endure the humiliation of  a nervous slave clown throwing juggling hoops onto his horn. In Dark Clown all options are painful - the fails cause fear of punishment and the successful throws hurt the soul of the slave clown (and the unicorn).
​
The set-up for the following act is accomplished in the background. (A delightfully upbeat act by Tom Ball who plays a boy scout - the act starts in a tent, he climbs a ladder like some kind of scout task up to a high trapeze - beautiful). 

​The unicorn dolefully returns to support an acrobatic interlude in solving tutu-ed slave clowns.
The stage is set with hoops for a hula hoop act to follow (the consummate Helen Orford).

The long-suffering unicorn is tempted on with an apple ... he is reluctant but allows himself to put his faith in humanity once more. Once more, humiliation as the hula hoops left on the floor are slung around his neck. As he exited, one slave clowns sang an 'orphan' song accompanied but another on a ukulele while a third clown came on quietly up stage and yo-yoed.

At the end of the song, the interval play out music - Tom Waits 'Satisfied' (an upbeat song about death).

To welcome the audience back there was a scene of three terrified (yet highly skilled) slave clowns performing acrobatics to totalitarian music. Unless you were there, you'll never know. It was hilarious.

Tightrope act. Then three slave clowns dance/contort in three isolated spotlights (one is dressed as a skeleton) to cover de-rig of tightrope and rig for straps. Also, the collapsing clown is dragged across the stage, clutching a juggling club (my notes don't carry all the detail of this running motif - which built to a lowkey payoff).

Straps act.

The slave clowns nervously build acrobatic tableaux - they quiver with the strain of holding their positions while one hapless slave clown must make a painstaking squeaky tricycle journey across the wide length of the stage (meaningless activity is a spirit-breaking exercise in political camps) to deliver a juggling club at the furthest end as the final detail.

A rope act, which ended with silver PVS film dropping from the ceiling. Nelly vac makes another entrance to help hoover that up. The littlest tuttu-ed clown crosses with a brush also followed by the unicorn wrangler and her whip. Bag Heads dance, not no good reason (I love working with ensembles - once can generate a lot of material - I always ask people what skill they bring and it's wonderful to try to honour everyone's contributions). The Nellyvac, having cleaned, does a tinselly poo onstage (ah the pointless-ness of life). The 'elephant' wrangler takes out a plastic bag of course to clear up  the elephant's mess.

The wonderful Matt Green does a juggling act - it is reminiscent of Beckett's Act Without Words - his hoody is on back-to-front so he is working blind some of the time. He loses clubs, throws away clubs, reaches for clubs that don't arrive and then clubs thrown on him (as if an assault by fate).

At the end of the act clowns come on singly to clear the clubs strewn about. Here the slave clowns came together in couples and slow-danced. Two central clowns take focus and move apart as if pulled by external forces (other clowns subtly place a crash mat), ready for Ben Browns lovely aerial hoop act, with an atmosphere of pining.

Andie Scott had used a scrim at the back. In a dramatic change of mood, with an impressive soundscape chord, we see a through the scrim where a kind of 'Wailing Wall' is revealed - a vertical vision of hell. Against the bare brick wall we hung white hoops and ropes - all the slave clowns were writhing there in agony and despair. My intention was to evoke something like Hans Memling's The Last Judgement.

​Suddenly in tutus and balaclavas come the clowns dressed like Pussy Riot. Their very can-can kicking liberates and enlivens the clowns who descend on to the stage area and raise up the Pussy Riot dancers and leave, triumphant. 

Fizz, drip, desolate lighting - two clowns enter, enthusiastically pumping placards ... their pace, energy, mood slows and drops as they see they are too late for the revolution .. and they sadly set the scene for the next act.

They place a chair for the harpist who will play live to accompany a stunning and moving acrobatic balance duo about love and interdependence.

​To finish the evening on a high - there is a triumphant celebratory juggling arcade with exuberant acro - the slave clowns are free after all. 

You can now see segments of Strange Forces on the Peta Lily Company YouTube Channel.

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 speaking role. After the scene where Vindice dresses the corpse of his dead beloved (Gloriana), in order to trick and wreak a pointed revenge on the Duke, poor Gloriana, decked in a necklace of 'Magic Tree' car deodorisers (the text said 'raise the perfumes', we made a nod at 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 for by being played with wonderful sensitivity and vulnerability by a very tall male student.

Clown Dramaturgical Process 
​
​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-within-the-play scene between relatively minor characters Philotis and Bergetto being played by a single performer 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 text.

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

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. It is good to bear in mind that a clowns don't discriminate between the 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, one clown eagerly 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 horse's bridle, making visual Annabella's status as property which is being negotiated for. Intuition can bring extra comic grace notes. 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 cited earlier - there will be a base costume (or base colour palette) serving that reality and 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 for another and two clowns chose cowboy gear. One clown was inspired to wear a rabbit headdress and costume (think Donnie Darko) - this came intuitively from their imagination being captured by Vasques' line 'let my hot hare have law.' This 'Punishment Rabbit' could have appeared intermittently, providing a wonderful irrational way to underscore the theme of hot-headed violence which erupts more than once in the play. There can be sense in nonsense.

The combined metaphors, prop, improvs and 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 (clowns get things wrong)
​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', with a circular parade of pairs giving quick snapshots of innocent sibling jostling and, on a second circuit, snap-shots of physical less-innocent curiosity. 
The various 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 would have been interruptive appearances by the 'Punishment Rabbit' (see above),
and a Public Service Announcement 
about how the stork arrives when he sees True Love.
There would have been a special appearance by the promptly 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!
(lines mashed from Oedipus, Hamlet and TRT)
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.