The Clown and the Institution

1 Chapter One: ON THE EDGE, LOOKING OUT 2 I was seven when my Mother’s father, Grandpa, took me down to the beach one summer’s day. I remember that we walked from our bungalow in Bournemouth, down to the front. I picture quite clearly the yellow trolley buses, like giant insects. I smell the crackle of the sparks of electricity from their arms, mingled with the sweetish smell of the sea. I see Grandpa, white hair sticking out from under his cap, horn-rimmed glasses, and a tweed overcoat, which he always wore. We wandered along the busy promenade, him pointing out interesting sights, just like Romany from ‘Out with Romany by the Sea.’ I read this a couple of years later, lying on a bunk in the back cabin of their houseboat when I stayed there one summer, whilst Mum was having another baby and Dad was up in London, working for the Admiralty. Reading the book, with its rough, red cardboard cover, embossed with gilt, was better than actually being by the sea. Yet I could smell the sea through the open porthole. And a faint smell of seaweed came from its mildew stained, cut pages. But this particular day was ‘Out with Romany by the Beach’ and was the real thing. He found a spot on the warm sand for us to sit down. Eventually he took off his coat, grudgingly admitting to the hot day, revealing a creased white short-sleeved shirt. I changed out of my clothes, pulled on my bathers, and started digging furiously with my spade. Clear blue sky, yellow sand, white, fluffy clouds, a single dinghy, leaning over in the water. I’d seen a picture just like this on the cover of The Beano Annual. I finished building a sandcastle, went for a paddle in the cold water, ran back up the beach, sat down next to Grandpa, got up again two minutes later, and started doing acrobatics on the sand. I threw some handsprings, stood up, dived forward and walked on my hands, tried out a couple of back flips, did some head over heels, failed to do a neck spring, came down with a thud, but who cared? I was immersed in my own world, spinning my body through space, 3 enjoying the sensation of the hot sun, the warm springy sand as I landed, the gulls wheeling above me, copying me. I stopped for a minute, looked around and saw that a small crowd had gathered around me in a circle, adults and children. They were standing watching me, curious, silent, intent; silhouetted against the bright sun. I looked around, took a breath and started again. This time I took risks, swallow dives, a run with a somersault, backward rolls into handstand. I invented moves for myself. I tried a sideways somersault landing with a twist. Eventually I stopped, panting, a little puffed. There was a scattering of applause. I bowed like I’d done in the school play. Then I noticed that Grandpa had taken off his tweed cap, and was passing it around, bottling the crowd. The audience drifted away, trudging back across the sand. We packed up our things, and he took me to a café on the prom where we sat outside, and I ate egg and chips. He bought me an ice cream for afters as I prattled, whilst he sat silent, smiling from time to time. He paid with the money in his cap, coppers and some silver. Then to complete the outing we went for a ride on the top deck of one of the trolleybuses to round off the afternoon, but it was only later, when we were walking back to our house that he mentioned it. ‘Don’t tell your Grandma,’ he said, then added, ‘Don’t tell anyone.’ Working Backwards At the core of this enquiry into the nature of the relationship between the contemporary clown and the institution is the recognition that neither the clown nor the institution, are fixed or static entities, but are in a continual process of becoming, and should be viewed as practices amongst other cultural and societal processes, which are themselves in a constant state of flux. In Improvisation in Drama Frost and Yarrow write: 4 The clown plays. The clown plays the realities of what and where and with whom he finds himself to be. He cannot know those realities in advance, for so much of it depends upon us, the audience, that it cannot be pre-planned. Everything is new to the clown. (1990: 68/9; italics in original) There have been many attempts to define the always changing practices, characteristics, and overarching disposition of the clown (Fo 1991; Lecoq 2002; Wright 2006; Peacock 2009). Wright, for example, has a section in his book in which he identifies three types of clown: „Simple clown,‟ „Pathetic Clown,‟ and „Tragic Clown‟ (2006: 177-248). Studies of the practices of the clown have, amongst numerous others, ranged from the historical (Towsen 1976); the literary (Welsford 1968) to the psychological (Willeford 1969). Louise Peacock‟s recent study of clown, Serious Play (2009), analyses different practices of the contemporary clown, with chapters focusing on the arenas in which clowns perform and the modes of play they adopt, such as „Clown Healers‟ (127- 151), which discusses the recent phenomenon of clown doctors; „Clowns on Stage‟ (65 – 86); and „Clowns who Act: Actors who Clown‟ (87 – 106). Both John Wright and Louise Peacock frame the practices of the clown in different ways. David Robb‟s comment on the ways of reading the clown is apt: „Its mask, whatever form it takes – white face, red nose, grotesque features of any kind – is essentially a blank space on which anything can be projected‟ (2007:1), although the word „Its‟ above suggests an objectivity towards the clown. In my view, any attempt to pin down the clown is futile, since the clown has already moved elsewhere. The clown will not be straitjacketed and displays a playful disregard for imposed definition. Yet my preceding statement is suspect, and turns in on itself, suggesting that the clown may be defined by an absence of definition, by what she is not. How then can I write about the clown in any meaningful way without resorting to overarching definitions which stereotype and generalise the clown? In addition, many of those who write about clown are themselves, or have been at some point in their lives, practicing clowns. Even those who have not been clowns, such as Howard Jacobson in Seriously Funny (1997) will freely admit to personal likes and dislikes. I suspect that, for many, memory of their reaction to clowns‟ performances is what has drawn them to write about clowns in the first place. The standpoint 5 is consequently subjective, perhaps even partisan, and, in Jacobson‟s case, polemical. He admits he does not really like clowns, which, in part, explains his fascination. Attempts at objectivity, stating what the clown is or is not, must be treated with extreme caution. So I declare my own bias and admit, for example, that Fo‟s opinions on clowns are to be taken seriously. He should know after all, and yet his standpoint is also highly subjective. In The Tricks of the Trade, he recognises that Jacques Lecoq is „…an exceptional master‟ (1991:148), but takes issue with the pedagogy of Lecoq, making the assumption that „It is dangerous to learn techniques unthinkingly when no prior care has been given to the moral context in which they are to be employed‟ (1991:149). It should be borne in mind throughout this thesis that the opinionated is the name of „le jeu‟. What does seem to me to be realisable is that my attempt to define the clown is not linked to a specific set of clown characteristics, but with a nexus of clownesque practices, which continually refer back to both the personal, individual standpoint of the writer, and is based on my own experience of practice and records of that practice. From my own experience as a clown practitioner, I would propose that the clown and the practice cannot be separated and that the clown is a set of practices. Furthermore, the clown operates within a number of institutions, and the clown requires those institutions to define the practice. Thus one aim of this study is an attempt to trace the threads of my own practice over the last thirty-two years, from 1978, which is when I date the beginning of my career as a professional clown. In addition, my focus is limited to European clown practices, including Russian clowns, and to a lesser extent, USA clowns who have drawn on European practices. I do not analyse other, non-European traditions, such as the shamanistic trickster figure found in many non-European cultures (Towsen 1976: 5-6). There is no attempt to unpick intercultural practices of the clown, and this again is a subjective choice – I am writing about the practices I know. Coincidentally, within the academic institution over the last thirty five years, from approximately the mid 1970s, there has been a blurring of boundaries between performance forms, and much argument, especially within the broad area of „Performance Studies‟ in Higher Education in the UK about the consequent synthesis of various performance forms, especially around interdisciplinarity and cross-disciplinarity. To a large extent, it has occurred since the rise of „Performance Studies‟ as a subject for study originated by Richard Schechner 6 and others, in the USA, which was envisaged as a methodology for all „subjects.‟ The subject I mostly teach on at The University of Winchester, the BA in Performing Arts, clearly states in the programme‟s „Definitive Document‟: The nature of contemporary performing arts is generally fluid, experimental and exploratory and, therefore, the Performing Arts programme does not set out to convey or teach to students a single body of knowledge, but enables students to develop, investigate and explore devised contemporary performance practices… (2004: 4) This blurring of boundaries can be both exciting and confusing for students, as the programme sits somewhere between Drama Studies and Dance, and challenges notions of practice and form.

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