'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

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

Remove that, tighten this. Insert squirty pistol there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

Years ago, I had the great joy of working alongside writer/theatremaker Claire Dowie (in her two-hander 'All Over Lovely' 1996 - UK tour and the splendid much-missed Drill Hall). A reviewer once said that Claire was 'against anything that you could define'. She spoke her unique truths in fiction and in biographically-based pieces.  Claire had been a comedian and 'got tired of joke joke joke' and together with her director and partner Colin Watkeys they created 'Stand-up Theatre'. Written texts performed no-fourth wall. Musings, drama, narrative, storytelling mashed-up.

After a gap in performing (divorce, cancer, parental decline and death etc), I returned to the stage with Topless, a show describing divorce, cancer, parental decline and death etc. Although I had used my life material in my work before (overtly in Red Heart and in a modified way in other shows), I was randomly given an opportunity to perform for a few nights). I had a performance model in Stand-up Theatre to say what had to be said. Because it did seem to me, to have to be said. Not because it was worthy but because it was the material to hand. Urgently to hand, because it was stuff I had not fully made sense of yet. 

Given the absurdities of hospital visits and life in general, friends would often quip: you can make a show about this. And so I, um, did. I would wake in the middle of the night and sit at a stark 90 degrees thinking: this is a really stupid thing to do. But I did it anyway. The show dates were in the diary. I sent the script to my ex-husband to approve, although the jokes were mainly pointed at myself. I asked my then boyfriend, sorry ex-boyfriend: I know you said this, but if I say this it will be funnier is that ok? I worried that a show about breast Cancer (there has been a lot more work ion the subject since, this was 1999) would be glum. I asked a friend, impro veteran Philip Pellew: what's a funny title for a show about breast cancer? Topless her said and Topless it was... though I wasn't, much to the chagrin (or something) of the six lone 20 year-old men who comprised my entire audience one evening in Edinburgh in my lateish Fringe slot...

Back at the start - I had the material but I did not know how to slant the story. 'Don't get it right, get it written.' And all the events tumbled forth and were sifted through to see what was worthy of inclusion. 

At a certain point in making a show you start to ask: I need a good finish, how's it going to end?  how does it all wrap up? what point am I making here?

I went to archetype - is this the story of Job? - nah not that message. Can Dante's seven layers of Hell be used to spin it off? Nope. Lists (7 sins, levels whatever) are undramatic and it's not about redemption...

I had a running motif about movies - how I feared to become Ann Bancroft in '84 Charing Cross Road', how my 'amour fou' ( the relationship after my marriage) reminded me of 'Betty Blue' ( without the eye episode and the suffocation with pillows), how during Radiotherapy treatment I cast myself as Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien', pitted against the beast of the deadly ray-giving machine.

Then one night I had a dream where I was onstage and didn't know my lines, in fact I didn't really know what play I was in. And the core theme finally hit me - this piece is about identity. I was surprised because I felt I was not a traditional wife and I had my performance identity (mind you, identifying as 'physical theatre performer extraordinaire', or even 'ordinaire' takes a bit of a kicking after a bit of surgery and vitality-sapping nuclear burning). So the ending saw me embracing my inner Ann Bancroft (it worked better in the show than it sounds, I promise, and a kicking playout tune really helped).

I lost my voice - literally - while writing and rehearsing Topless. I was being assisted by a student following the process for her Theatre degree. She would read my lines and I would mime. Intensive practice in playing Stanislavskian actions. I made it through the first show without coughing (the only time I have drunk brandy onstage). And after the run I discovered my singing voice had gained some breadth. Use it or lose it. Speak it or choke it. Say it and get bigger than it.

As I say, I 'had' to make that show. And I had so little to lose. I came into the bar to find people talking to each other, to strangers, about their parents, and illnesses they or friends had suffered. And scary old death of course.

Keep your eye on the entertainment, speak the truth, make sure your jokes are funny and you earn the right to tell your own story. Tell it well. Be strategic - think of your audience. Work on your conventions, polish your performance, manage the different textures, be clear with the story, embody your characters well, keep your eye on structure and pace, find the universal theme, have a good engaging beginning, an intriguing middle and the best end you can muster, and bingo - others can find the universal in your particular.

And of course - you can't do all these things in the previous paragraph from the go-get. Allow yourself to be in the not-knowing, the discomfort. Get ruthless later.

When you make autobiographical theatre, you have to get outside your story to write or devise it. then you have to get back in to play it. Being able to see things from different vantage points has to be a key skill. For life, not just theatre making. Yes I know, possibly an underrated one. Comedy is good for that - things are never the way you think. Comedy, like life, must be full of surprises. Getting outside your story frees you from the fixed vantage point of 'victim of circumstance'. You are Author and Editor (or your director is) and you are also, if not 'Hero' - at least Protagonist. You should also at moments be your future Audience. Assessing your work from their vantage point. Having to write publicity blurb helps a lot with that.

When I look back on two years where, at the time, there was a fair amount of crying and angst - what I see now is the cartoon version of it I portrayed in Topless. Talk about transformation. Talk about re-frame - NLP eat your heart out.

I can definitely vouch for the therapeutic value of autobiographical theatre, but you only get it if you are genuinely willing to examine and to 'go there' but while being rigorous about the theatre-making process.

Lucky me - in those days the real papers would actually come to see your show:
Topless: stand-up theatre - about 'life and death and love and hate and sex and sticking plaster and breasts.' Played UK, Greece, Australia.

a macabre comic style...her accounts of failed relationships, low self-esteem, and her brush with breast cancer...are both hilarious in their frankness and moving. ..with her consistently high energy and warm, engaging stage presence, Peta Lily captures and maintains the attention of her audience throughout. TOTAL THEATRE

a talented comic, she takes the departure of her husband and the illness and death of her mother and turns them into something which is not just entertaining, but is even funny  EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS

a refreshingly comic, intelligent and informative exploration of the turbulent events in one woman's life crisis...consistently funny...Lily recounts her experiences with an incisive and inventive wit...guiding her audience away from unnecessary sentiment but not losing a sense of poignancy THE SCOTSMAN

instead of erotica, Lily gives her audience something far more outrageous and personal...told with consistent humour. Lily has lightness of touch, instinctive wit ...one of those rubber faces...and a silky singing voice. Lily manages...to keep them laughing right up to the end. THE STAGE

Do see her perform her uniformly funny, yet unabashedly realistic play about ageing, breasts, cancer, sex, music, movies, life and death. TOTALLY HK (HONG KONG)