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| Barbara and I as Fiona and Andromeda... Pictures taken by Dean Hutton |
The first obstacle - for me - was performing for Nick. Ah. Terrifying. Nick was our outside eye... guiding us in the process of turning two 10 minute disjointed pieces into a cohesive 40 minutes. These initial two scenes were developed while Barbara and I were studying together in Italy at the theatre school Helikos - and these scenes were the reason why we wanted to develop this work further. But we needed help. So Nick came on board to help. Which was brilliant. And he was brilliant. He totally came with us into our world and helped us. At the end of Grahamstown he said to Barbara that he's realised that you cannot watch Clown with you head... you have to watch it with your heart. Gr. That was moving. Giovanni says that all the time when creating new work with clown. The head can get in the way and spoil it... You have to be very careful.
But yes... Back to performing. Wow. That was hard. Really hard. But in this time I made a small - but perhaps important - realisation...
Giovanni Fusetti (Director of Helikos) often talks about the fact that the clown is already dead... so when you are on stage, just go for it... because, what with being dead already, you can't actually die... so you have nothing to lose. And during this time of performing for Nick (who has never seen me perform - and clown is a bit of baptism by fire)... I thought about this alot 'the clown is already dead... so just go for it.' A mantra going over and over in my head. What does it actually mean!? But somehow thinking about it helped me 'to just go for it.'
And then one day I thought... It means that naïvety is dead. Once you have looked through the window and seen the world for all that it is, innocence is gone. Naïvety is dead. So the clown, who is necessarily naïve, is dead. So go for it. And people will either come with you. Or they won't. Perhaps this is what Giovanni means... perhaps not. But either way it helped me just go for it... firstly for Nick and then the audience...
Because the most important thing about clown (and perhaps all theatre) is to 'play'... As there is not much else. There is no set... no cleverly written script and so on. The key theatrical principles of clown - there are many i'm sure, but i'll name four here...
1. Stay in the 'state of play' (rhythm, body shape, resonance)...
A clown is not a character, but a persona... there is a certain frequency at which the clown vibrates and if you hit that... play follows. If you don't and you start acting. It's over.
2. Maintain contact with the audience always...
The audience is actually there. And clown lives simultaneously right in front of the audience and in the imagined world. So look for the ones who are are laughing or who are watching with their eyebrows up... and perform for them.
3. The space matters the most...
Where are we? Is the audience with us in the desert or amongst the starts? That comes from intention... how you treat the theatrical space.
4. The story is bigger than you...
It has to be. You are in service of the story. And if this is true you can hold your centre and play.
So when you 'go for it' these are the principals / disciplines that can help... 1, 2, 3, 4 little things I had to remind myself of often...
...even when you can see the odd audience member is clearly thinking 'What are they doing!?' ...with their eyebrows down. The line between the sublime and the ridiculous is sometimes incredibly thin. And it is this that makes the work so risky. And perhaps it is this that also makes it worth while. So you have to try and focus on the audience members who you can see are thinking 'What are they doing!?' ...with their eyebrow up... their eyes a little wider... their mouths slightly open... with the look of a childs delight... Because for a brief moment they are remembering their own naïvety. For it too is dead. And that can be moving for some people.
So yes. Here are a few lovely responses to the show...
We won an award. Yay. A Standard Bank Encore Ovation Award. So that was nice. We are now an 'award winning show!'
A few people saw the show twice in Grahamstown and in Joburg at the 969 Festival. And that was delightful. And encouraging.
We received a wonderful email from an audience member who was touched deeply by the work and wanted to understand how we 'developed the characters' and asked about our 'research process'... which is totally interesting that somehow she knew that these were not just characters from a bank of characters. Discovering 'your clown' is to discover what is uniquely you - and uniquely funny about you. And this can come from - and often does come from - our deepest wounds. Our most hidden insecurities. It is a most fascinating, fun, and often quite traumatic, process. I wrote about it while I was in Helikos. And then I wrote a bit more about 'Clowns in Life' (which is what this show is...)
Then Barbara was in a coffee shop buying tea when a young girl who saw the show at the Schools Festival said... 'Thank you for making this show.' That was moving for Barbara - as she didn't swoon or say it was the best thing she'd ever seen... she simply said thank you.
And finally Robyn Sassen wrote a wonderful review for us... "...Suddenly, sitting in the audience, you are four or five years old, and the matter of giving a creature in distress your most precious possession to show him that you love him is perfectly acceptable. Suddenly the interplay between harp, space ship and a pot of tea is so profound that nothing else really matters."
Barbara has returned home. A new show is in the world. And this marks the beginning of what will hopefully be a very long journey. x Thank you Barbara Draeger. Thank you Nick Warren. Thank you Giovanni Fusetti.
