As The Husband and My Child are playing miniature air hockey (it’s really cute 6-inch table we got at the gift shop of the Please Touch Museum) on the train from Trenton, as we make our way back to Brooklyn from Philadelphia, it seems as good a time as any to write a blog entry.
Halfway through Bill Irwin’s show last night, my heart started racing as my mind wandered from his work, “The Happiness Lectures” to my work and what if anything I would do next. Thank God I can’t compare myself to him since in addition to being a MacArthur and Tony award winner he is also tall and male, two things that never come into play when I create my own work.
When I was at Clown College (Class of ’89, Bill Irwin who I’ve shaken hands with but don’t know, was Class of ’74) there came a point, when we were watching lots of black and white silent movies and learning the classic slap and fall gags. Almost everyone went to their designer and said they wanted big black shoes and baggy pants. The women in the class were told point blank that they couldn’t have big black shoes and baggy pants “…because Mr. Feld only hires girl clowns who look like girls.” We were told the number of women clowns who were hired depended on the number of show girls who were hired. Women clowns lived on the showgirl car. More showgirls meant fewer slots for women clowns and so those who were hired had better look like girls. Otherwise he may as well hire a guy and avoid the complications.
I don’t know why I thought of that, except that Bill Irwin does so much with his baggy pants and his big black shoes.