Author: kathie

A review last night’s production of “Dinner”

The audience reaction to last night’s production of “Dinner” was tepid at best.

The promising evening opened with red wine, but immediately began a downhill descent with the old gag; “Can’t get the broken cork out of the bottle”.

The television in the adjoining performance space was a distraction and at one point the entire audience got up and went to watch it.

There was no overture of salad on this evening and this production certainly could have used one.

The main act consisted of a trio of healthy and inexpensive performers that in combination left the audience wanting more.  One disgruntled patron was heard to remark, “Each of these goes with something else.”   There was no star on the plate this night.

Acorn squash baked with garlic has received critical acclaim in the past, but on this evening did not deliver.  It was perhaps because the squash in question was from a grocery store and not a green market.  It was a little stringy, but that is no excuse.  Even soy sauce did not bring out the expected flavor.  The couscous with “weird stuff in it”, Trader Joe brand Harvest Grains blend, was another disappointment.  The last minute addition of  the popular performer, frozen peas, failed to bring back the audience.  The strongest member of the ensemble, teriyaki marinated tofu, put in another good performance and was fairly well received by an audience in the habit of calling for an encore, but not on this evening.

In the future the producers would do well to keep their vegetarianism and frugality to themselves as it does not please this audience.

The Day after the Jango Edwards Workshop

Jango warned us that we would experience a let down after the workshop is over, and it is true.  I am feeling very much alone here in my apartment while My Kid is at school and The Husband is at work.  But, thankfully, I have a performance coming up on Monday to keep my mind and body occupied. I am feeling connected to the clown community though.  Last night in Soho I talked to Michael Bongar and Stanley Sherman and Jim Moore, contemporaries of Jango Edwards, who became a clown in the 1970’s, working the streets of Europe.  John Towsen, author of Clowns was there too.  I just got an e-mail from Kendall. Someone from Circus Cirkor playing at BAM this week contacted her to talk about clown and risk.

Speaking of risk, it was a risk to take the Jango Edwards workshop this week.  Based on what I had seen on the internet, I found him offensive and scary and I was dis-inclined to take the workshop.  But, Jef Johnson said that his workshops are inspirational.  So I took the risk.

Jango’s aesthetic is certainly not mine, but the way he talks about the importance of clowns in the world is something I have not heard since I was last around Steve Smith.  There is something wonderful about the belief that the world needs more clowns when one is a clown or a clown in training.  When I was at Clown College, we were working and sweating and nursing injuries because we were trying so hard to win of the contracts to tour with The Greatest Show on Earth, kind of like So You Think You Can Dance. At the same time we were taught that it was important for us to appreciate what we had been given.  It seemed  a happy bit of subversive action, reflected in the promotional materials at the time, that there was as much pride in the Clown College graduates who had gone on to become doctors, teachers and lawyers as those who become name entertainers or part of Clown Alley on the Red Unit or the Blue Unit.

Steve Smith made sure that when we left Clown College, with our professionally designed agent suits and our make-up kits full of the Krylon, Mehron and Ben Nye products that worked best for our particular skin, in addition to all of the crafts and skills we had been taught by our many impressive teachers, that it was our obligation to be kind and generous to all clowns.  As healthy 20-somethings who had just had the door to the corporate entertainment industry opened for us, it was humbling to be reminded to respect and appreciate the work of those who learned everything they know about clowning in a class at a senior center or at clown club conventions.

Sometimes stage and cabaret clowns and  Ringling-style clowns look askance at each other’s aesthetic sensibilities, but Jango, who brings to mind Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters wants all the clowns to come together in the same community.

The way Jango used music in his workshop reminded me of the Search Weekends at the Newman Center when I was in college.  After intensive days of learning and sharing we would stand in a circle with our arms around each other, tears shining in our eyes as we sang Simon and Garfunkle’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.  With Jango we did the same thing, but the song was Smile, by Charlie Chaplin.

The Sunday before I took Jango’s workshop, I attended a talk about fasting and almsgiving, which are part of all the major world religions because they can lead to humility and transformation.  The same can be said of a good clown.

Midnight

Home, I’m just now in the apartment of my sleeping family, after a day and a night out on the town in the clown world.

After an intense 3-day workshop with Jango Edwards that ended with cake and song, we went to an odd venue in Soho for more Jango.  Influential clown people were there, the kind who write books and make documentaries.

After the performance, an impromptu after party with conversation about upcoming shows, material and ideas both new and old.

There is work for me to do.

I have a performance in five days.

Still in Bed and Thinking Clown Thoughts

Around seven a.m. I’m lying in bed going over the assignments for todays Jango Edwards workshp.  Do I have them all.  A song to say, something to wear on my feet but not shoes, a wrapped present, a gag in three… black and or white clothes to wear in the cabaret group piece.  Is there anything else???

We, the workshop participants, will be there to perform with Jef and Jango this evening at 8:00 pm at SATURDAYS SURF SHOP, 31 Crosby St., SOHO.

GO HOME CABRON! Cabaret
“JANGO EDWARDS, JEF JOHNSON and BEN CARNEY in a rare intimate performance.”

I can do it after the babysitter and husband both made adjustments to their schedules.

NPR playing stories about soldiers because it is Veteran’s Day.

In my e-mail the Downtown Clown Revue e-mail blast about Monday’s lineup.  I’m in the line-up.  There’s my name.  There’s my picture.

One Perfect Child

We were at the playground, with our daughter, who at nine, looks like one of those improbably proportioned tween dolls–all hair, eyes and legs.  She was dressed like one of those dolls too; in a pink shirt, pink pants and pink sneakers with a pink helmet and pink elbow, wrist and knee pads.  As she glided around the pavement on her pink Ripstick with the grace of an Olympic figure skater, she attracted notice.

The father of a two-year-old came over and asked us if we were happy with just one child.  He told us he and his wife were in the process of deciding whether or not to have another baby.  He had accompanied his golden-curled two-year-old to the playground, ferrying her equipment like a sherpa.  She had a little pink scooter and not one but two balls, a soccer ball AND a basket ball.  The father switched balls for the toddler depending upon her desire to kick or dribble.

As we were leaving the playground, we passed an oversized stroller with a walker hanging off the handles.  Gazing around the playground I found what I was looking for.  A kindergarten-sized child seated on the ground facing a woman, a therapist who was gesturing enthusiastically.  The child barely moved.  The mother watched intently from the nearest park bench.

At my daughters check-up this year, her pediatrician pronounced her “perfect”.  He asked her if she knew that she was perfect and if her parents tell her that she is perfect.   I remembered that when we thought about another child it seemed like tempting fate to try again after we’d already won the lottery with our one perfect child.

This is an original post to NYC Moms Blog.
Kathie, lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and daughter.  She blogs at clownmommy.

I keep thinking I’m just a stay-at-home mom but, I guess I’m a busy clown after all

I just got an e-mail from Christopher Lueck asking for my bio and picture for the November Downtown Clown Revue.  I’m scheduled to perform ALONE!  I must remember to schedule some studio time for Friday and maybe one other day before it’s too late.

I spent some time today exchanging information and confirming the babysitter so that I can attend Jango Edwards three day workshop this week.

At the PTA meeting last Thursday I talked to some of the other mommies about my idea for a school fundraiser taking advantage of the parents who are  professional clowns and/or musicians at my daughters school.  The fact that not just myself, but several other parents at the school are professional clowns kind of blows my mind.

On Friday the Thirteenth, which is my birthday.  The Husband, Kid and I will see Bello directed by Steve Smith, in The Big Apple Circus.  I can’t wait.

In and around all that goes the grocery shopping, the cleaning, the homework supervision, the cooking and all that other housewifey stuff that I tend to let slide.  Plus I’m trying to type every day to add to my NaNoWriMo word count.

I am analyzing the way I get dinner on the table, the mistakes I make, the timing that is off, I’m looking at it as a performance which can be improved (or not) with notes.  THAT can’t be healthy!

Axioms/Principals

Outside logic and mathematics, the term “axiom” is used loosely for any established principle of some field.  Hmmm.  Clown Axioms–Clown principles

Avener the Eccentric has a list of clown principals on his own website:

©2005 Avner Eisenberg

  1. Clown’s job is to make the audience feel things, and to get the audience to breathe.
  2. Everyone inhales, but many of us need to be reminded to exhale.
  3. The imagination and the brain are connected to and affect the body. Any change in the mind has a corresponding change in the body. Any change in the body (i.e. in the breath first) has a corresponding change in the mind.
  4. Don’t tell or show the audience what to think, do, or feel.
  5. Don’t tell or show your partners what to think, do, or feel. Don’t point.
  6. Weight belongs on the underside. Keep a single point in you lower abdomen. Keep your energy flowing.
  7. Tension is your enemy. It produces emotional, mental and physical numbness.
  8. How you feel about your performance is what counts, not whether it is in reality good or bad.
  9. The clown discovers an audience who are sitting in rows and looking at an empty space and waiting for a show. This must be dealt with first, by establishing complicity with the audience.
  10. The clown creates a world in the empty space, rather than entering into a world that already exists (sketch).
  11. Use mime to create fantasy, not to re-create reality.
  12. The clown searches to create a game and to define the rules, which then must be obeyed.
  13. Don’t ask or tell the audience how they feel or think. Have an emotional experience and invite the audience to join in your reaction.
  14. Be interested, not interesting.
  15. Everyone must to breathe all one’s life, even when on stage.
  16. The clown enters the stage to do a job, not to get laughs. If there are laughs, it is an interruption that must be dealt with.

Did we do this with our production of Clown Axioms ? I wonder.