The Postmodern Theatre Clown Ashley Tobias

The Postmodern Theatre Clown Ashley Tobias During the postmodern era the status of the clown underwent significant change as the figure shifted from social, artistic and academic marginality to centre-stage. Indeed, the clown became integrally enmeshed with the perceptions, attitudes and operations of the phenomenon known as postmodernism. Inexplicably, the clown type I term the “postmodern theatre clown” has been virtually overlooked by academic research.1 In this paper, I initially outline the fundamental approach to be followed when seeking to define the postmodern theatre clown. Subsequently, I demonstrate the approach by focusing on two outstanding exemplars of the type and illustrate by referring to specific scenes from their performances and texts. The term “clown,” when used generically, refers to a very extensive group of figures going back in time to the most primitive of tribal existence but equally at home in contemporary, technologically advanced societies. A fond figure of imaginative fiction, a pivotal participant in social ritual, or a very real person in the realm of historical fact, clowns reside in many worlds, often straddling the boundaries of fact, fiction, ritual, art and reality. This group is comprised of many and varied types known as: fool, court-jester, buffoon, theatre clown, mime-clown, silent film clown, alazon, eiron, bomolochos, commedia dell’arte clown, street clown, circus clown and ritual clown. In addition to these terms used to label the specific types, clowns are also referred to as: comedians, comics, drolls, farceurs, humorists, Harlequins, jokers, mimes, mummers, pranksters, tricksters, wags and wits. Often there is neither absolute consensus on the exact referents of the various neither terms nor full agreement on their precise usage. They are, therefore, frequently used loosely or freely interchanged.2 Given the vast variety and differentiation of all those entities generically referred to as clowns, there is, as Lowell Swortzell informs us, no simple answer to that seemingly simple question “What is a clown?”3 For example, the most common and basic perception of the clown is that he is a comic figure who induces laughter. 4 This is, in most instances, true and is, therefore, commonly presumed to be an axiomatic and defining feature of the clown. However, serious study of the figure reveals that even this basic assumption is not entirely indisputable. Kenneth Little, for instance, informs us that contemporary clowns are frequently “poetic” and “reflective,” and their performance not necessarily “funny” but designed to stimulate meaningful contemplation.5 Since it is impossible to provide a succinct definition of the clown, I focus on certain characteristics, attributes and affinities considered to be universal to all clown types.6 Those that prove to be particularly pertinent to 38 The Postmodern Theatre Clown ______________________________________________________________ the delineation of the post-modern theatre clown are marginality, critical practice, vitality, sexuality, the crossing of boundary, and order-chaos- reorder. The clown often assumes a marginal position in relation to society. He is an outsider who perceives, understands and acts in a manner very different from the “normal order of things.”7 According to Mikhail Bakhtin, the clown represents the other in this world and from the perspective of his social marginality sees the “underside and falseness of every situation.”8 He, therefore, engages in what William Mitchell terms “critical practice”: both “critical” of accepted social norms and values, and initiating change at “critical” phases during social development.9 The energy required for the clown’s critical practice may be seen to derive from his inherent vitality. The clown, according to Susanne Langer, is the personification of a vital spirit, an elan vital, and his indomitable will to live finds expression in his versatility, resilience and capacity to survive.10 Another striking manifestation of the clown’s vitality is his sexuality, which is often excessive, uninhibited and licentious. In this form it is seen to be symbolic of life itself in that it represents fecund biological proliferation. The clown’s sexuality, however, may take on other more ambiguous forms: clowns may be androgynous, appear as male-female pairs or engage in cross-dressing.11 The clown’s unrestrained vitality and his inability, or unwillingness, to behave in accordance with the normal order of things, results in him transgressing all manner of clearly defined boundaries. In doing so he invariably brings into incongruous fusion disparate elements, which are conventionally kept apart by such boundaries. The clown’s crossing of boundary implies both transgression and hybrid fusion, and as such is an expression not only of his anarchic spirit but of his association with the principles of order-chaos- reorder. By irreverently crossing boundaries, the clown destabilises those boundaries and reduces to chaos the order they establish and maintain.12 Through his transgressive actions, the basic assumptions, hierarchies and values of the established order that are upheld by the various boundaries are questioned, reassessed and subverted. Consequent to his boundary crossings the clown, as Richard Pearce points out, generates new order and new values.13 I distinguish between three broad categories to organise the clown types: traditional, modern and postmodern clowns. Traditional clowns, in the broadest sense, are all those types in whom the universal characteristics of the clown are most unequivocally manifest. Included in this category, for example, are ancient clown types such as the ritual clown, the fool and the court jester. However, also included are more recent types such as the commedia dell’arte, circus clowns and even the comic personae of the great, silent film clowns, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. These latter figures, if considered chronologically may erroneously be labelled modern clowns but .

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