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Clown training can be fun, but personally, I come for the discomfort…

People seem surprised when I say that clown school is terrifying, challenging, weird. Some adults also tell me they are deeply afraid of clowns — Coulrophobia. I like to respond that it makes sense to be afraid of clowns, since we are agents of death.

Clowns play our shadows — the aspects we keep hidden so others will like us. Or, our secret desires which we cannot manifest for any number of reasons. Clowns play the parts of us that are weak and stupid and vain and vulnerable.

The work is to let these parts be seen — clowns help us to laugh at the worst part of ourselves. Failure is inevitable. We will all die. The choice is to take these moments tragically and heroically serious, or laugh & mock all the way down. What makes clowns human is that we fail and fall; what makes us clowns is that we Bounce.

In class, we work simply: in neutral black clothes and the red nose. No fright wigs, big shoes, or polka dots. No unicycles or pie fights or tiny cars. This is theatre clown not circus clown. Most days, someone cries onstage.

That’s when our teacher Giovanni says things like, “Good, perfect, stay there. Now, Audience! Look at us, make eye contact. Give us what you’re feeling.” And 12 of us in the audience open our mouths wide and breathe audibly, hoping to jump start the breathing of the person on stage. We all have been struggling, frustrated most of the past 3+ weeks, 32 hours a week.

We begin by finding clown bodies, which are exaggerations of our physical non-neutrality — the effect of genetics and history, nature and nurture, upon our postures and shapes and walk. Week 2 we find resonances and eventually a voice, telling jokes and singing a song. 

We’re directed to not plan or decide what our clown creature will be, but to improvise, to explore; specifically, to stand there breathing with our mouths open, and do nothing but make eye contact … just notice the laughter or pity or silence, and follow…

into where? This is where the shamanic/trickster/healing work begins. Its also where the discomfort begins. Do less. Linger, don’t move on. Stay in the moment. Breathe. Let yourself be effected. Listen to the laughter. “Do you know Why they are laughing?” Gio asks with his Italian accent. “No? Perfect. Next!” He says he doesn’t care if we understand, only that we can pay attention to the audience feedback.

In a typical class, each of us will get about 7 minutes onstage. The rest of the time we watch our fellows work and struggle. We make eye contact and breathe. We are together eager and scared to death.

Though we don’t know where we’re going, there are some things I can do — commit to my creature’s body: posture, tempo while walking, and simple gestures that come up naturally. Repeat, don’t invent. A new experience of my body creates a new state of attentiveness, which is my clown state. So I have a Body and a State, which doesn’t feel like much, to be honest. 

My notes are full of the exhortation: To commit my energy before knowing what I am doing. That’s when the work begins. The trailhead. Its common improvisational practice, but seems ridiculous in so-called real life. But consider: you have to commit your money to the stock market before knowing how it will turn out. You have to commit your heart to love before knowing how it will turn out. To wait on the sidelines until all variables are “known” a) is impossible, and b) means missing the opportunity for something to happen. 

Gio and the class tell me to relax my forehead, don’t raise my eyebrows in eagerness. Standing on stage, making eye contact with no one laughing, trying to remember to relax my forehead and my jaw, and to keep breathing… this is way more data than my system can handle.

I take a deep breath and let it out and lift my chin an inch and people are laughing out loud and they say “awwww”, and before I can even minutely comprehend what the hell is so funny its gone and I’ve lost it. Whatever it was. “Do you know why they make that sound? No? Perfect.” 

Later, my cohorts say ’sad, sensitive, touching, poetic’. I am utterly confused. I have the sensation of being a meat-puppet for my clown creature: he is coming alive using my body. I’m not in control of him. The best I can do is resist as he pushes his way into the world. I feel scared.

We find costumes at a local thrift store. They are totally stupid, but are actual clothes that people have worn. My creature is assigned something too small again: purple women’s ski overalls, a black velour women’s jacket. a knit cap. I add a gold medal, and look like a bad refugee from a BeeGee’s concert circa 1975. Oh, and big rubber rain boots. We’re instructed to bring in an object, for our clowns to discover. Five minutes on stage, to play and discover it.

When its my turn, my clown puts clothes pins on the bridge of his nose, his eye brows, and his ears, and tells the audience its a new form of safe, open source medicine called Accupincher. Its really great for headaches or sinus problems. The audience is laughing and squirming. Then, my clown goes too far and puts a clothes pin on his left naked nipple. His forehead relaxes, and he lets out a big sigh of relaxation. The audience is screaming, covering their eyes. Then I pull a cookie out of my pocket and eat it calmly. 

“Ok”, Gio says. “How much of that was set?” Well, yes I knew I’d put clothes pins on my face. At least. I get scolded for having a Plan, instead of exploring my object. I am told that I also showed no evidence of being effected by the audience’s response to my activity. Its just another day of abject failure at clown school. Gio says, “It doesn’t matter what you do, but how you feel about it. Does your clown enjoy what you do? Or hate it? Does he enjoy that the audience hates it?”

Gio says eating the cookie was the only quality moment of my work. Later, a woman gets up and drives a Tonka earth mover all over her body while making all the truck sounds. She is a hit. I feel nauseous. I go home and put off writing this story for another day…

The next night of class I am feeling disgusted with my work. On the schedule is a 3 minute naming session for each new clown. Go behind a stage flat, put on the red nose, and then come out. Gio asks your name, listens to your voice and also takes suggestions from the audience. My creature has a high pitched, nasally resonance, but hasn’t spoken much yet. Benny? Peetey? Alphonse. No. Gio gives me — Eusebio. 

“Eusebio? What’s that?” my creature demands, impatiently.
“Its a name, look it up.” Gio says. “He’s a Portuguese footballer I think.” 
“I don’t like it”, Eusebio whines irritably. “Its a stupid name. It sounds like a pastry.”
The class cracks up. A minor breakthrough.

We discover that Eusebio (from Greek: “pious”) has a bitter, sad, and defensive side. To all of us, Giovanni says, “What is not expressed, is impressed’” i.e. into the emotional and psychological makeup. And, “What we don’t play, plays us”. Or, what we run from, becomes our master.

I remember that Giovanni is also a licensed Gestalt therapist. “There is an incredible amount of negative energy here”, he says, “which you can use in this work”. We give a service to the audience by channeling this energy, to let them see and laugh at this part of our shared fragile humanity. 

Each of us recognizes the creature that coming to life: an opposite/shadow of who we think we are, or intend to be. Our clowns are clumsy, crass, open, shy, sensual, wounded, weak, afraid, defensive, overwhelmed, innocent.

Except for the fact that the clown group is very supportive, the work is like being a character in Sartre’s play No Exit — you will bear your most raw and delicate places, exaggerate them to grotesqueness, make us laugh at you while you stare into our eyes. This hell is custom made: for You. keep breathing

Toward the end of week 3, we’re looking for pieces to put in our show. We have 3 nights of performances coming up, a variety show format of clowns presenting “numbers” — songs, or skills like juggling, or playing a musical instrument. We create a list of last week’s improvisations that we’d like to see again, to check if the number has a Soul, if it might possibly live to be in the show. I want to sing my song, “I’m So Tired“, from the Beatles’ White Album.

As I finish, Gio asks, “Ok, does this number have a soul?” There is dead silence amongst my cohorts. “Obviously, that is a No”, I say, removing my red nose and sitting on the floor in front of the class. Under interrogation, I admit to having had a kind of Plan: Eusebio is tired because he can never find the place he’s supposed to be in the world; an infinity of searching for a branch upon which to rest.

This is his “motivation”, in a cheap, method-acting kind of way. Ugh! I’m breaking new ground in the worst kind of cliché existential angst pantomime!

Giovanni says, “Stand up again, put on the nose, and tell us how and why your song was so bad.” 

When Eusebio stands up, he says, “It’s come to my attention that my song sucked”. Big laughter. Then he starts blaming this guy he met backstage who gave him crappy advice, some idiot. Eusebio goes on for a few minutes, complaining, and I realize while I’m talking that my clown is onstage complaining about my mind. It was my mind that gave him bad advice, that got in his way. It was my mind that felt safer with a plan than with improvisation. Its a weird sensation, disorienting, to be listening to this internal family squabble witnessed by the class — my Clown insulting my Mind. And getting a ton of laughs. 

“Now, Giovanni orders, sing your song again!” The second time through, it is a smash hit. We discover that Eusebio is bitter, and angry. And … he has obviously been hurt, which inspires sympathy. And laughter.

When Eusebio complains, my forehead unclenches, my jaw comes forward, and I drop into him in a way my classmates instantly recognize, and which I can suddenly identify in a new way. Gio says this complaining is my best work yet.

The whole 3 weeks of struggle crack open, and Eusebio becomes a real boy, a grenade-throwing Pinnocchio, alive like Frankenstein, actually, a combination of both. I feel I can feel him in my body. Over the weekend, we solidify the list of numbers to present, and we rehearse until we’re exhausted.

Monday afternoon: We see the very pregnant woman who is caretaker of our classroom at the Boulder Circus School. She says her water just broke and its time to have the baby. The moon is full tonight. Our first show is in 4 hours. A ripple of electric aliveness runs through the group. Its all happening.

Monday evening: Everyone in the cast feels like shell fish without a shell: sensitive and exposed. We have a successful show, and a supportive audience. But some people are still struggling. Eusebio feels good out there, complaining about his stupid name, about not getting an introduction, about how he hates to sing and has been told on several occasions that his song sucks. “If you don’t like my song, it wasn’t my idea” he says, “blame my parole officer.” 

After singing, he asks the audience, “How was that, on a scale of 1 to 2?” And then, “These lights are too bright, I can’t even see you out there. Good thing I can smell your resentment. Well, that was my song. I’m going to go sleep it off.” And he leaves. After the show, a woman tells me she didn’t care if Eusebio never sang his song. She just wanted more of his complaining — a direct request for more negativity.

When Eusebio introduces a colleague’s act, he begins with, “What can I say about this next artist that hasn’t already been said about athlete’s foot?” And about another, “I like this next act. Then again, I like chicken pox.” He never smiles.