SEND IN THE

INTERVIEW OF TOM MURPHY INTERVIEWED BY B. DESANTI

MR. D. BRANDT AMERICA IN THE 20TH CENTURY WORLD FEBRUARY 13, 2008 Table of Contents

Official interview form on official St. Andrew’s letterhead i

Statement of Purpose 1

Biography 2

Historical Contextualization 4

Interview Transcription 17

Time Indexing Log 62

Interview Analysis 63

Works Cited 69

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this oral history project is to better understand the history of physical in the United States during the twentieth century through an interview of Tom Murphy, who made a living doing during the last decades of the twentieth century in both the United States and Europe. The interview provided insight into how physical comedy has become less popular in the United States over the last few decades, so that opportunities to make a living as a physical in the United

States are fewer than at the beginning of the twentieth century. Biography

Tom Murphy was born on February 27, 1952, in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, a small town in a coal mining area of Pennsylvania. After graduating from Pottsville High

School, he pursued a double major in Sociology and Physical Education at East

Stoudsburg University in Pennsylvania. He graduated from East Stoudsburg in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science Degree. After college, Mr. Murphy moved to Stowe,

Vermont to pursue a career as a professional acrobatic skier. After two years as a professional athlete, he and a partner started an acrobatic and juggling act that developed over the course of five years; they were known as Mountain Mime. He continued to work as a physical comedian in the United States, then moved to Paris, where he worked as a street performer during the summers of 1983 and 1984.

For the past three decades, Mr. Murphy has been touring primarily in Europe and the United States, where he has made a solid reputation as a theater . His work as a physical comedian follows in the tradition of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie

Chaplin. Over the years, he has performed in a wide variety of settings. In 1987, he was awarded Number One Clown at the international circus competition, Cirque de Demain, in Paris. In November 1998, Mr. Murphy performed his solo show on Broadway at the

New Victory Theater. It was a 13-show, sold-out engagement that the New York Times called "a sure-fire cure for the blahs." Mr. Murphy has also appeared in film, including

Ava's Magical Adventure starring Timothy Bottoms and Patrick Dempsey. Descriptions of his performances include: "Der Chaos Poet," "...a descendant of the great clown,

Charlie Rivel," "...tender, warm, compassionate," and "...One of the greats of our time.”

Mr. Murphy also has taught at a number of schools. He has been a faculty member at Boston University’s Theater Institute and spent three years teaching at

Ringling Brother's Barnum and Bailey Clown College. In Paris, he was a faculty member at the famed Ecole Nationale Du Cirque; he has also been a faculty member at the Arhus Theater Akademy in Denmark and the Theater Haus in Stuttgart, Germany.

Mr. Murphy is single and is currently based in Stowe, Vermont. His hobbies include Nordic and alpine skiing, rock climbing, road and mountain biking, swimming, and running. Historical Contextualization Paper

Physical comedy can be defined as acting without words that makes someone laugh.

Perhaps the word that captures the concept most meaningfully is “clown.” According to

Jacques Lecoq (Theatre 115), who studied clowning intensively from the 1960s on, the point of clowning is to “make you laugh.” The reasons why clowns make us laugh seem to be quite basic. One reason is that clowns remind us of our playfulness, which is so enjoyable in childhood but may be left behind by adults. John Wright, who wrote Why Is

That So Funny?, emphasizes that “if playfulness is at the heart of our creativity, then for some of us at least, clowning is the key to that playfulness. Clowns play all the time.”

(184) Another reason is the subversive nature of clowns. Wright (180) explains that clowns are “anarchic spirits.” According to Lecoq (Theatre 115), clowning involves

“overturning a certain order,” which “thus allows one to denounce the recognized order.”

Joan Mankin, a clown in the Pickle Family Circus in the 1980s and 1990s, expressed the same thought: “Clowns are anarchistic by nature, and when you’ve got anarchists – clowns – who are forced to go along with the plot, then you’re working against the nature of the clown.” (Schechter 19). Perhaps the most basic reason for laughing at clowns, however, is that we can see ourselves in their predicaments. Jerry Lewis, known for his clowning in movies, said that “the premise of all comedy is a man in trouble.” (Dale 18)

We can all see ourselves in the man – or woman – in trouble.

To understand the perspective of Tom Murphy, who makes his living doing physical comedy in the U.S. in the early twenty-first century, one must examine the basic history of physical comedy, the influence provided by key historical figures in physical comedy throughout the twentieth century, and the relationship between physical comedy and the venues in which it takes place.

The art of physical comedy has an ancient history. Fools and jesters can be found in folktales and even old religious rites of Native American tribes. (Towsen 4-8) From the

1400s through the 1700s, the Commedia dell’Arte was a comedy troupe that traveled throughout Europe using broad physical gestures to communicate the stories they were telling, because their audiences spoke many different languages. Word and gesture occurred simultaneously. (Lecoq Theatre 100-102)

In the United States, circuses were an important venue for physical comedy. In

1870, two men who formerly had operated traveling “mud shows” (so-called because they traveled through mud tracks) throughout the frontier region persuaded P.T. Barnum to join them in the circus business. (Ashby 74) Barnum’s organizational skills turned his circus into “a traveling company town.” (Ashby 75) He took advantage of the ongoing technological advances in the United States in transportation and communication, especially involving railroads, electricity, and print. (Ashby 74) During the “golden age” of the traveling circus – roughly 1870 through 1914 (Ashby 74), more Americans had the chance to see clowns than previously was the case. The clowns fulfilled their traditional role as “subversives” in these circuses:

[W]hile circuses cultivated an image as family , they

continually transgressed the lines of ‘normality,’ predictability, and

socially defined distinctions. . . . Clowns used vulgar language and then,

as the size of shows grew, employed to mock authority and

acceptable behavior; often acting like children, they were disruptive pranksters who functioned outside conventional rules and relished a

simpler, pre-industrial world. (Ashby 78)

At this time, the entertainment of clowns must have helped people who were feeling more and more like automatons as the industrial age progressed. The industrial age could stifle people’s individuality and spirit by offering only jobs that required people to work long hours, day after day, at repetitive jobs at machines. Seeing clowns who “mocked authority” and acted like children must have given the people in those types of jobs some relief from the drudgery of their lives.

Ashby (119) reports that “[b]y the turn of the century, had become the most popular entertainment form in the United States.” (Ashby, 119) Railroads moved vaudeville troops around the country, just as they did circuses. Electric lights illuminated vaudeville theaters. Thus, the same technological advances that supported the growth of circuses also supported the growth of vaudeville. (Ashby, 132)

Vaudeville showcased physical comedy, along with other forms of entertainment.

Ashby (123) notes that “[t]ypically, vaudeville comedy was also rough physically, featuring pratfalls, eye jabbing, and other forms of slapstick. Audiences could laugh when the ‘nut act’ of Duffy and Sweeney took turns slapping each other because no one was actually injured.” For these physical , vaudeville was often the only means of work, but it may have been very restricting to their acts. For example, words such as son of a gun, devil, sucker, hell, spit, and cockroach would not be tolerated in the least. (Ashby 120)

Interestingly, Ashby explains (122), vaudevillians “came overwhelmingly from poor backgrounds; many were recent immigrants or the sons and daughters of newly arrived families . . . . [who were] typically also social outsiders and representatives of marginalized groups.” Ashby (132) describes vaudeville as “push[ing] against the boundaries of respectability, disrupting what was supposed to be an orderly, well- mannered world.” In that sense, vaudeville must have played the same role as circuses, allowing people to escape from being chained to machines into a world where they could imagine themselves being the one who was slapping a boss when one performer slapped another. Since vaudeville employed many recent immigrants, vaudeville shows also must have provided some sense of comfort to newly arrived immigrants struggling to cope in a foreign land. With its emphasis on physical comedy, vaudeville would be easy for them to understand without understanding English.

Although vaudeville became more popular by the beginning of the 1900s, circuses continued to be successful until the Great Depression, when most circuses were forced to fold, and even the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus ended up in bankruptcy. (Ashby 221) Nonetheless, circuses still had an important role to play.

During World War II, Ashby reports (264), “[t]he Office of Defense Transportation . . . allowed circus trains to operate because circuses were crucial to ‘morale on the home front.’”

Just as physical comedy moved from circuses to vaudeville, physical comedy next moved to a newly emerging form of entertainment: silent films. Physical comedy had a unique moment in the United States in the early 1900s, when movies did not have sound, so actors in film had to communicate solely through physical actions. One current physical comedian, Dan Kamin, has written that “the silent comedians flourished during a unique historical moment, a brief thirty-year span when movement and film technology merged to become the world’s most popular art form.” (Potter, Kamin 49)

Such great legendary physical comedians as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton appeared in comedy acts in vaudeville and used vaudeville as a stepping stone to break into the big screen. As the movie industry grew, so did the demands of Americans to see their favorite physical comedians in silent films. Many physical comedians wrote, starred in, and directed their own movies. Physical comedians embraced the cinema as a new means of expressing their creativity and art. Movies also made physical comedians much more popular, because now instead of having to wait for a vaudeville troupe to come to one’s town, one could just go to the movie and see one’s favorite physical comedian.

Probably the most famous physical comedian from this time is Charlie Chapin.

Chaplin’s first feature length movie was The Kid (1921), which is said to be the most autobiographical of his movies. (The Kid also introduced the up and coming physical comedian Jackie Coogan, who was expected to be the next Charlie Chaplin but because of the downfall in popularity in physical comedy and some other personal problems, is best known as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family television show.) Chaplin himself described the character he created – The “Tramp” – in the following way:

[T]his fellow is many-sided, a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely

fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. He would have you believe he

is a scientist, a musician, a duke, a polo player. However, he is not above picking

up cigarette butts or robbing a baby of its candy. (qtd Dale 36)

Chaplin’s “Tramp” rebels against authority, which Chaplin seemed to view as always unjust authority. (Dale 17) In Chaplin’s later movies, such as Modern Times (1936), which poked fun at all of the problems of modern early twentieth century society, and

The Great Dictator (1940), which mocked Hitler and the Nazis, Chaplin more directly expressed his criticisms of authority. Yet he did so most effectively through the subtle expression of physical comedy. For example, in The Great Dictator, Chaplin plays

Adenoid Hynkel, a caricature of Hitler, addressing a mass rally. Hynkel leans into a radio microphone that first bends away from him, holds its new position, and then snaps back toward him. As Dale (31) points out, “when the mike arches away, that’s political ; when it recoils, that’s slapstick.” In other words, making the mike lean away from

Hynkel shows how Hitler can force people and things to bend to his will, but having the mike snap back shows how Hynkel is just as subject to physical embarrassment as the rest of us.

Chaplin was by no means the only star physical comedian during the silent film era. Buster Keaton’s masterpiece The General (1927) shows off Keaton’s physical comedy abilities. In one particular scene he demonstrates his talent by jumping on and off of a train multiple times, which he does with ease. Buster Keaton really uses the camera to the best of his ability; for example, he has the same five hundred men play first

Confederate and then Union soldiers and manages to show them charging each other.

The silent film era ended, as the same movie screen that made the physical comedian popular now started to take away from the art of physical comedy. On October 6, 1927, the first full feature-length “talkie” was released, which began the deterioration of the silent film. This was good for the advancement of movie production, but bad for the progression and development of physical comedy in silent films. Many of the famous physical comedians of the time chose not to use the new technology available for talking pictures; Charlie Chaplin waited almost ten years to make his first talking movie. Even those silent film physical comedians who starred in talking pictures played characters who often had few or no lines at all. It makes sense that the physical comedians did not want to use the new sound technology, because they feared that the talking might take away from much of the physical aspect of their comedy. Unfortunately, they appear to have been correct, and many people believe that talking pictures caused a decline in the performance of physical comedy. Now all one had to do to make a was say a funny word. Even physical comedians such as seemed not to see physical comedy as an art, but more as a way for them to act goofy and get paid for it.

Nonetheless, physical comedy did continue to have a role in movies in the United

States throughout the remainder of the twentieth century, although not nearly as central a role as during the silent film era. In the Marx Brothers’ movies, for example, Harpo

Marx never spoke. In The Bellboy (1960), one of Jerry Lewis’ most underappreciated films, Lewis’s character has almost no lines to speak, and his acting exemplifies the

Chaplin style of physical comedy. Interestingly, the movie was a flop in America, but did much better in France, where Jerry Lewis is much more highly respected. The Pink

Panther line of movies, starring Peter Sellers, uses physical comedy to heighten the humor of various situations, frequently employing slapstick gags to interrupt Sellers’ attempts to romance his wife. In the 1984 film, All of Me, a spirit takes over half of Steve

Martin’s body, providing a form of physical comedy in which the body is acting incongruously in the context provided by the actor’s lines. The Bean movies, which have been seen in both Europe and the United States recently, provide examples of late twentieth century Chaplinesque physical comedy. Those movies are much more popular in Europe than in the United States, however. (Itzkoff 1) As a general matter, U.S. films in the last half of the twentieth century have not shown significant examples of high- quality physical comedy.

One factor that may partly explain why there has been less physical comedy in U.S. films following the silent film era involves the type of acting promoted by Stanilavsky, whose so-called “method” acting gradually came to dominate acting schools, theater, and films in the United States by the mid-twentieth century. Stanislavsky’s approach emphasized that the actor should develop the “inner” life of the character being portrayed; some believe this focus came at the expense of developing physical actions to express actors’ thoughts and emotions. (Potter 4) This could well have been true; certainly, an actor focusing on a character’s inner life would be less likely to create a physical comic moment than one who was focusing on physical movement to express a character’s emotions or motivations.

One person who reacted against the Stanislavsky approach was Jacques Lecoq, a

French teacher of physical expression who founded a school of theater for mime, movement, and theater in Paris in 1956. (Lecoq Moving 9) Lecoq’s passion has been

“research into body and movement,” which he shares through teaching. (Lecoq Moving

9) He emphasizes the physical aspects of performance, rather than the “inner” life on which Stanislavsky’s method acting focuses.

In 1962, Lecoq says, his school “discovered clowns, a phenomenon that was to take on an importance which I never anticipated.” (Lecoq Theatre 115) As Lecoq

(Theatre 115) reports: The years since the 1960s have witnessed an interest in the clown. But the

clown is no longer linked to the circus: he has left the big top for the stage

and the street. Many young people want to be clowns. It is a profession

of faith, a taking up of a position with regard to society, to be this

character that is outside and recognized by everyone, to be the one who is

drawn to doing things he doesn’t know how to do, to explore those points

where he is weakest. He shows his weak points – thin legs, big chest,

short arms – wearing clothes that draw our attention to them, where most

people use clothes to hide them. He accepts himself and shows himself as

he is. (Lecoq Theatre 115)

Lecoq is reporting on events in France, but performers in the United States also have shown a growing interest in clowns, both inside and outside of the circus, during the decades since the 1960s. To some significant extent, this is due to Lecoq. Many performers who focus on physical comedy have trained at his school or have worked with those who originally trained with Lecoq. (Towsen 353-54; Wright xi) Some, such as

Tom Murphy, whose interview is reported in this project, went to Paris to be a street performer in the milieu created by Lecoq in that city.

In the United States, as in France, street performers who were clowns became more common in the 1970s, as mimes moved into clowning. (Lecoq Theatre 129) The Two

Penny Circus journeyed from Europe to the United States. (Lecoq Theatre 129) Another circus homegrown in the United States is The Pickle Family Circus, which first opened in

May 1975 in San Francisco. (Schechter 62) During its first two decades, that circus always performed outdoors in daylight, with canvas sidewalls and a ground cover, but no roof. (Schechter 12) Schechter (11), who has written a history of the Pickle Family

Circus, explains that “the Pickles were at the forefront of the movement now known as

‘New Circus’ or ‘New Wave Circus,’ in which artists ceased to use animal acts, multiple rings, and the traditional variety act structure.” One circus historian has noted that the

“New Circus” of the 1970s first came about in the street and open spaces, where audiences might gather spontaneously. (qtd. Schechter 12)

Instead of the usual components of a circus, the first version of the Pickle Family

Circus had two clown acts plus jugglers, unicyclists, and acrobats. (Schechter 10)

Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, clown acts were central to performances by the

Pickle Family Circus. (Schechter 10-26) Physical comedy was typically at the core of these acts. In describing the acts, Schechter (8) states that “one can only imagine what it was like to sit near the Pickle clowns and watch them disappear in storage trunks, juggle plates of spaghetti, play tubas and saxophones in duets, or dance with a gorilla chorus line outdoors . . . .”

Many who performed with the Pickle Family Circus have gone on to perform their physical comedy in other venues. One of the original clowns, Bill Irwin, has become well known as a physical comedian. A review of Bill Irwin’s 1988 show in New York

City enthused: “Some say when the talkies made silent films obsolete, they also put an end to physical comedy. Bill Irwin single-handedly has revived this forgotten pleasure in his new piece, ’Largely New York,” . . . . For one delirious hour not a word was spoken but a lot was said, and the audience was overjoyed.” (Siegel 19) Irwin also has had his own show on Broadway, Fool Moon, and has performed widely in plays, on television, and in films. (Schechter 63) None of this has come easily, however. Irwin says there is always the question:

“God, this profession! Is there really a living to be made?” (Schecter 67) According to

Schechter (30), “[Irwin] and most of the other Pickle clowns have continued to make a living through comic performance, but to do so they have worked in other circuses, theatres, films, dance concerts, and solo shows, even for the Disney corporation.”

In fact, the Pickle Family Circus went bankrupt in 1993 and then was reorganized as the New Pickle Circus. (Schechter 31) In 2000, the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, which was originally formed under the auspices of members of the Pickle Family Circus, purchased the New Pickle Circus. (Schechter 33) In the same year, the National

Endowment for the Arts awarded a grant to the San Francisco School of Circus Arts for the training of clowns. (Schechter 33) This followed the closing of the venerable

Ringling Brothers Clown School in 1999. (Schechter 33)

Now, Schecter says (26), “[w]henever clowns discuss the circus of the future, they are likely to refer to Cirque du Soleil and its integration of diverse acts into a larger narrative.” There are different points of view on whether this trend is producing “better” clowning. One former Pickle clown, Geoffrey Hoyle, performed as a clown with Cirque du Soleil for one season; he felt “the most recent Cirque du Soleil shows’ narratives are so vague and abstract, they become to my mind almost pretentious.” (Schechter 28)

Regardless of personal preference, however, Schechter (28) raises the question whether artists can afford not to join the Cirque du Soleil when it offers an attractive contract?

One clown from the United States, Bernie Williams, who now works only in Europe, resists the trend toward the big shows of the Cirque du Soleil. He finds that the Cirque du Soleil depersonalizes its performers so that one performer can easily be replaced with another as multiple shows go by. Williams much prefers the more intimate and individualized circumstances in which he works in Europe. He explained there is far more work for clowns in Europe than in the United States. Williams grew up in upstate

New York and graduated from Gaulludet College after trying a variety of jobs. Once he decided to become a clown, however, he moved to Europe permanently. In Europe, he explained, there are many small touring circuses. Switzerland, for example, has about 75 touring circuses. For European children, the first performance they attend is very likely to be a circus. Thus, it is much easier for a clown to find work in Europe than in the

United States. In addition, being a clown is a respected profession in Europe. Europeans appear to better understand the sophistication of physical comedy than do American.

(Williams Interview.)

Thus, at the beginning of the twenty-first century in the United States, one finds the opposite situation from that at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unless one goes on an active search to find physical comedy performances, one does not tend to see them. What was once the most popular form of entertainment in America – physical comedy as it appeared in vaudeville -- is now considered to be an “underground” or

“eccentric” art. It is much easier for a physical comedian to become recognized for his or her skill and talent in Europe. By contrast, at the turn of the twentieth century, the opposite was true: one had to come to the United States to become a popular physical comedian.

Nevertheless, the wish to be a clown is still there. As Lecoq (Theatre 116) has explained: The search for one’s own clown resides in the freedom to be oneself, to

accept this truth and use it to make others laugh. There is a child within

us, that has grown up within us, and which society forbids us to show; it is

more permissible on stage than in everyday life.

Some people will always want to find and enjoy clowns. Interview Transcription

Interviewee: Thomas R. Murphy Interviewer: Ben DeSanti Location: Mr. Murphy’s home, Waterbury Center, VT Date: January 4, 2008

Ben DeSanti: This is Ben DeSanti, and I am interviewing Tom Murphy as part of the

American Century Oral History Project. This interview is taking place on January 4,

2008, in Waterbury Center, Vermont. All right. So I’ll just start asking you questions.

Tom Murphy: Can we go through this list, okay?

BDS: Yeah, so, you can just answer them. All right, so, what was it like growing up in

Pennsylvania?

TM: Where I grew up it was, [laughter] quite literally, it was the heart of the anthracite coal region, and, very, very blue collar, but my father owned a jewelry store, and he repaired watches and it was just a small second-generation business and so, I, it was an uneventful growing up.

BDS: Were you expected to work in the jewelry store?

TM: No, there was an expectation for someone to take over, I have two other brothers, and my little brother took a liking to it right from the start. I mean, and it was pretty apparent in, when we were all in grade school that he was, that was his bag, that that’s what he would do. BDS: All right, so, okay, question 2, was there anyone around you in Pennsylvania that influenced your current work?

TM: There was no one [laughter].

BDS: [laughter] No one? All right, okay.

TM: Absolutely no one.

BDS: Question 3. What prompted you to leave professional sports and become a physical comedian?

TM: That’s a good question, you know, honestly both , both were happening at the same time, both the theater career and the professional skiing thing, because skiing was winter, it , and it was the seventies, now, so it’s not like today where you trained all year round,

I’m sure you could and I could have but, I was interested in gymnastics coming out of college, knowing darn well that I wanted, I tried quitting school just about every year, wanting to be a pro skier and then I would, I actually moved up here in each January of my, while I was in college and, you know, the best job I could find was sweeping the base lodge or being a dishwasher and I just thought this is crazy so and, I would get back to school and register before it was too late, and, ended up not quitting. And the day I graduated, I moved directly here and did start training, but worked out in a gym, and was teaching gymnastics to the, women’s gymnastics at the Stowe high school, and simultaneously I had met a guy who knew how to juggle, so I told him I could teach him how to do some acrobatics if he would teach me how to juggle and we ended up becoming partners.

BDS: What was his name?

TM: His name was Benjie Morantz and, the two of us, just had a, the joy of it. We would work out on a daily basis and I started training, juggling, not knowing that I was headed toward a performing career, and then a year and a half later, the two of us decided we would [chuckles], we did, by that time, we did have some influences, in 1976 we watched the, we were watching the Olympics on television. They were in Montreal that winter.

We saw [cough] this group called Locomotion, Locomotion Circus they were called, and they were performing, street-performing at the Montreal Olympics, and the second we saw this, we just said, this is what we have to do. And there’s very acrobatic-oriented and some juggling, and that’s exactly, we were in the same genre, just practicing on a daily basis and hadn’t really thought about performing until we saw these guys on television.

BDS: That’s pretty cool. Question 4, are you aware of the work of Jacques Lecoq,

Marcel Marceau, and Bill Irwin? Which of these greats have influenced your work, and if not one of these, who? TM: I know who all of these guys are . . .

BDS: All right, good.

TM: I’ve never met Lecoq but I did live in Paris for a while and his school is in Paris.

BDS: Yeah, yeah, I know someone who went there, and he does some teaching and is probably going to teach there.

TM: Uh-huh. And so I moved there to actually street perform, I moved to Paris to be a street performer and met all these students, I met at that time who were going to Lecoq’s school, and they would graduate and come out on the street and do their stuff, and I have actually taken workshops from followers of Jacques Lecoq. He’s got several teachers,

French teachers who are kind of following in his footsteps, so I do know him.

BDS: Mm hmm . . .

TM: So there was definitely influence there, huh, Marcel Marceau, as a performer he was definitely influential on my stuff. I, my early career was silent, and I did wear white face . . . .

BDS: Yeah. TM: Yeah, and, of course Bill Irwin, everyone heard of Bill Irwin when he won that . . . what was that called?

BDS: MacArthur grant?

TM: MacArthur grant, and then, actually, I know Bill, I know him.

BDS: Oh, okay.

TM: I know Bill [laughter].

BDS: That’s pretty cool.

TM: So, yeah his work, we’re almost contemporaries, so yeah, but, yeah, I wished I was

Bill, yeah, I wished I had gotten, gotten, a MacArthur grant and was able to have that kind of cash on hand, but I know his work and I do very much, I think he’s pretty hot, I like what he does a lot.

BDS: He’s, he’s a big name, so . . . .

TM: He’s very much in the same, we’re in the same vein actually, yeah. BDS: Okay, so that, that leads us into the fifth question, so have you worked in Europe?

What was that like?

TM: Okay, so starting out, I’ve always been drawn to Europe, so this is back in ’81, I think, I was actually married, and my wife and I went to, to Paris and we, we, let’s see

’81, yeah, we, okay so I worked with Benjie for five years, and then we split, and then I went and started working with my wife and we moved to Paris just so we could street perform, that was pretty interesting, and then in 1994 my ex-wife had turned over my promo material to an agency there, and they called me and said, would I be interested in doing a two-week tour, and I had just, I didn’t even think, I just said absolutely yes. And so I landed in Germany, I didn’t speak a word of German and did a whole two weeks of shows to really great reviews in newspapers, and it was fantastic and I have actually been working there ever since so I’m, I’m very active in Europe and predominately Germany.

BDS: All right, pretty cool . . .

TM: And what was that like?

BDS: Yeah.

TM: I find what I do a much more accepted art form, it’s much easier to sell yourself there than here. BDS: Yeah.

TM: I don’t, and I just guess it’s part of their culture, much more part of their culture than it is here.

BDS: Mm hmm. Question 7, what was your first performance like and where exactly did you perform it?

TM: Ahh, the very, very first performance was actually with Benjie Morantz, and it was the 4th of July in 1976, I believe it was, and we, we were both waiters at a local restaurant, and we finagled the day off and, like I said, we had been working out in the gym for a year and a half, 1975, 4, so going into 75, yeah, for about a year and we said, okay, we’re going to do it, and what we were great at was, we had, we built this one little juggling routine and we were great at, we were young and sprite and we round off flik-flak, flik- flak, flik-flak, back-tuck-somersault, and then the guy would, right as you were doing the last, the third flik, back hand spring, the guy would throw the frisbee, one of us would throw the Frisbee, the other guy was just about landing out of his back tuck somersault, and catch the Frisbee and that was one of our big bits, just okay go, round off, flik-flak, flik-flak, flik-flak, toss the Frisbee, [throwing noise] catch, and then we had this, we created we had never seen anybody do, juggle, or anything we were in our own little world here, practicing, and we learned to juggle up and down with him on my shoulders and pass clubs and [laughter] the next year or two years later we actually went to a juggling convention and went, oh my god, these people do what we do, we couldn’t believe it, we thought we were, invented it, but we did actually invent a very strange way of doing it, we thought, because you pass . . .

BDS: MM, hmm.

TM: . . . in a square [throwing noises] and so my right hand would throw to his left hand, if I’m throwing to you . . .

BDS: Yeah, yeah.

TM: . . ..and so I throw my right hand, goes to your left hand, your left hand now throws it to your right and then over, so it’s a box, well we figured since we already knew how to do that, that’s what we would do up and down, I’d, so I would try to throw to his left hand, which was, so we, it was a criss-cross pattern.

BDS: So it looked like [motion like “X”], oh, that’s pretty cool.

TM: Yeah.

BDS: An “X” as opposed to the normal, yeah.

TM: Box, and then when we got to the juggling convention and people saw this they just thought it was amazing. BDS: Yeah.

TM: ‘Cause it was a syncopated, it had to be syncopated in order to not hit the club, anyway, those were the two routines we actually, we, we parodied, we, we including mime, we parodied this, we did our infamous, our famous tight wire routine, both of us would be, would mime climbing a ladder up and then bounce on a tight wire, juggle, and then he would, I would turn sideways on the fake wire and he would climb up on my shoulders, all this without actually, doing, holding hands at all and he’d go, he’d walk right up and then we would pass clubs and then in the middle of passing clubs we would pretend like we’re falling and then we had this whole comedy routine about falling down and catching the, the wire and we had to hand over hand to get off the wire and half way across he fell off and he would grab onto me and then I would let go of the wire and we’d do this slow motion fake fall, that was the Murph & Benj, we were called Mountain

Mime, [chuckle] I forgot about this stuff, we were called Mountain Mime and that was our famous routine, that, that routine took us a long way, it turned out to be like a 12 minute piece, it was pretty cool . . .

BDS: That sounds awesome. So, number 8, how has your routine changed over the years?

TM: Well, okay, the main part of what I, of my, of my show is still rooted in some of that stuff, that beginning stuff, but it’s sketches now, I mean, you, you write sketches, it’s just you, you get ideas and you, you get a brainstorm and then you write a sketch about it. But in the beginning it was all about the skills, it was all about the circus skills, how do I incorporate circus skills in here, how do I do, okay, I learned to climb a ladder, I learned to juggle, I know how to do somersaults, now how can I fit this into a show?

And now, it’s quite different, it, I kind of want my material to have meaning to me, so I want to say message-oriented, but that would make it sound a little more heavy than what it really is, because it is, it is indeed broad comedy, but, it’s, a lot of the stuff is contemporary and it’s here and now, it’s very in-the-present kind of stuff, I don’t know if

I really answered your question, but so I’ve maintained a lot of the original skills, and so that part of it hasn’t changed but certainly the, the sketches have broadened. I don’t have to introduce a skill, not all of my sketches are about circus skills and they did, they were in the beginning, because I thought that was what I was presenting.

BDS: All right, number 9, can you please describe the typical venues where you perform?

TM: Today, I am performing, I’ll give you examples, like arts centers. Did you see the

Flynn Theater, over in Burlington, by any chance?

BDS: We drove by it real quick.

TM: Yeah. Regional theaters, art centers, corporate gigs, are high on my list. You know, a corporate banquet or a corporate session. And then in Europe, what was really huge in the last 14 years was what they call “variete.” It’s basically our vaudeville, but it’s alive and well there.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: It’s these somewhat posh nightclubs with the little round tables and the drinks ---

BDS: Yeah, yeah.

TM: Where they serve drinks and finger food and they pay anywhere from $25 to $45 to get in. And it’s a review show with an emcee and act, act, act, act, and I, you know, I – the comedians get – have a high profile in those shows. They get – they end up performing quite a few minutes in a 2 hour show. And if not actually being the emcee . .

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: So, so, those are the 3 that, you know, theaters, the corporate venues, and variete in

Europe. And festivals. All kinds of festivals.

BDS: Yeah. Number 10. What changes in physical comedy have you seen in the past

30 years? TM: That’s an interesting question in that one of my biggest influences is not contemporary. One of my biggest influences is Buster Keaton.

BDS: Yeah. I’m a big fan of Buster Keaton.

TM: Not a lot has changed. . . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: When I speak to other physical comedians, maybe not now, because I’m getting older, but in the beginning, I mean, we used to watch, we used to, we would talk about

“Oh do you know the fall Keaton does when he’s in the shop, and he picks up this foot and then he’s got his other foot stuck, and he’s pulling that up, and he puts his other foot.“ You know, I know all of us have watched Buster Keaton and tried to copy his falls and stuff. So falls are important to physical comedians and we will compare, you know, there’s the one away, and then there’s side falls, and it’s a, you know, and then the trip and the smack your nose and all of that. So I really don’t think it has changed in the last

30 years. I have seen quite a bit of work in Europe, a big part of physical comedy is shock comedy. [Laughter.]

BDS: What exactly do you mean by shock comedy?

TM: Yeah, people trying to do things that … BDS: Like “Jackass” or something like that?

TM: Yes, yeah, yeah, a bit like that. I know myself I have created gags that want to make the audience think that you’re hurting yourself.

BDS: Yeah.

TM: You know, like I designed a whole, I was emcee for a show in one of these

European varietes for two months, and I had a, my whole mindset was to be a little bit like the road runner in the road runner cartoon.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: Everything I did was, failed, in a catastrophe. So I had a zipline coming out of the balcony ….

BDS: Yeah.

TM: And I would, like, I’m happy going down the zipline – [makes noise of going down zipline] – not really really fast, but the zipline went into the curtain and behind the curtain

I had put up like this plywood on a stand so I actually came down and smacked into the curtain and one of these slow melts off of that and kind of cool stuff like that. And don’t ask me, I’m a product of the 3 Stooges. And, and I never thought of it as violent, but I had some, I still have even today a violent fall in my show. It’s not like I want to shock the people, but I want them to think it’s a real fall.

BDS: Yeah, yeah.

TM: Like I fall off the stage and stuff like that. What question am I on?

BDS: Uh . . .

TM: What was that. What has changed?

BDS: Yeah, yeah, that was number 10. So, number 11, how do you see the future of physical comedy in the United States?

TM: You know, I think, again, I think it’s not physical, actual physical comedy in quotes. Physical comedy won’t change that much; there’s only so much that you can do with your body. OK, something I was thinking about the last question, what do I mean by shock? And this is physical comedy -- there’s a guy in England, and this is not new any longer, and he puts rubber bands on his face

BDS: Mm hmm. TM: I don’t know if you ever saw it? It really distorts your face.

BDS: Yeah, yeah.

TM: like crazy or…

BDS: I don’t know if I’m thinking of the same guy but I’ve seen someone who does that.

TM: Yeah, I mean, it’s been copied many times. I don’t even know if his is original, but the idea is basically the same: you want to use your body to create comedic situations and

I think there’s probably nothing absolutely new. It’s just reinventing, it’s taking something that’s been done before and putting a twist to it or getting a clever idea.

BDS: So would you consider the guys from Jackass to be physical comedians?

TM: No, see, I don’t because it’s not necessarily comedy at all. I mean, certainly my premise is to present comedy.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: And certainly not reckless. In fact because it’s a performance I have to be able to do it time and time again. I mean, Jackass is not something you do twice. BDS: [laughing] Yeah.

TM: You know, they’re killing themselves.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: So, yeah, I wouldn’t even use them in the same sentence.

BDS: Yeah, ok, so number 12. What are the main differences between physical comedy in Europe and in America?

TM: I would say there’s none. I don’t think there’s any difference. I really don’t, and it’s one, I think that’s one of the characteristics of physical comedy in that it’s old,[laughter] it’s been around forever, and it will continue to be and it, it’s like . . .. what do I want to say here . . … It’s also what makes it not as popular as something that’s new and flashy, and yet it maintains . . . . Physical comedy obviously isn’t for everyone, but it, but you will hear people, “oh I love physical comedy,” so they will seek it out and then you’ll hear others say, “oh, I can’t stand it, I can’t suspend my disbelief, so it’s not for me.” But I think it’s, it’s been with us forever and it will be with us forever.

BDS: Yeah, do you find material for your performances in everyday life or does it come from flights of imagination? TM: Well hmm, the original slapstick stuff that I learned is definitely from everyday life, the trips, the falls, the slapstick stuff. But, material, the material that I’m writing now is a, again, it’s about things that I care about, and things that I want to say something about, and I will pretty much do a truth, and, __, you know, what is the truth in this, what is it that I want to say, what is it that I would pretend like I want to say, and then how do I treat it by making it, by exaggerating it to a, to a point of unbelievableness and then pulling back just a little depending on, on, what, depending on what it is, you can understate it or you can overstate it and somewhere in there you’ll find the comedy.

BDS: Do you find it difficult to make a living as a physical comedian in America?

TM: I think it’s, I actually believe it’s more difficult in America.

BDS: In America, yeah.

TM: Than in Europe. I feel like I can say this without being arrogant, I feel like I’m good enough at my profession that it’s been a pretty good ride. I haven’t found it extraordinarily difficult. But I certainly have had feast and famine. I mean, there were years where I made tons of money and never even thought about it, and then there were other years that I just had to do the hustle every single day to get gigs. So, but I wouldn’t want to change anything. I couldn’t. I work for myself. It’s really kind of cool.

BDS: Mm hmm. Yeah. But, I mean, you even said that you have to go to Europe a lot. TM: Well, I found, I didn’t, . . . .

BDS: Do you think you could just survive in America?

TM: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I . . .

BDS: It’s a personal choice of yours to go to Europe?

TM: It was, it was.

BDS: OK.

TM: Because I’m single, that’s what allowed me to go to Europe. Had I had kids or family, I probably would have been even much more local, like strictly in New England.

BDS: Yeah.

TM: Like, I have a good friend who is a very, very, very good performer, very accomplished, I use him as a director, I use him as a teacher, and we work together, and he, he works strictly in New England because he has 2 kids and he doesn’t want to leave his house, and so yeah, I think, I think it’s a choice. I loved the travel, I loved the, when

I, every time I’ve ever gone to Europe, I’ve felt like luck was with me. Good things have happened there, even when I wasn’t a performer. I was enamored with Europe. Like when I was a sophomore in high school I, you know, bought a Eurail pass and went to

Europe and did the whole backpacking thing.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: I was really . . . . I thought Europe was the place to be.

BDS: Yeah. I can understand that. Do you see differences in different types of physical comedy that are popular in different areas of the United States?

TM: Again, I’m gonna’ say no.

BDS: No [simultaneously, in agreement].

TM: I’m gonna’ say it’s pretty, you know, it’s broad based comedy, and yeah, I mean, it maintains its own little momentum or lack of, and it’s pretty much the same, I’d say, world round. Even cross cultures. That’s the cool thing about physical comedy.

BDS: Yeah. To change the question a little bit, do you, do you see different places in

America where physical comedy is more popular? TM: Mmmmmm. You know, I think the question would be better asked, you know, what’s the different, it, the audiences are different, you know, boy, I gotta think about that. I think the smarter your audience is, the easier it is. And also this might sound like it would be the opposite, but this kind of slapstick humor and physical comedy works really well for highbrow, in highbrow situations.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: Like some of my best shows have been, what’s the…, I don’t know, I forget—what’s the name of the music school in Philadelphia? -- but it’s a place where everyone was in tuxedos and so I’m finding, I would find, I would say that audiences differ. I love New York audiences. I love Montreal audiences. The German audiences are perhaps some of the easiest people to please in the world, so much so that it seems fake, like, that, they’re very polite, almost won’t tell you if they don’t like it, and they’ll always pretend like they do like you. So you can get this false sense of security there.

BDS: Mm hmmm. Where do you feel, I’m just going to skip that question, ‘cause it’s . .

. .

TM: Which one?

BDS: About different parts of Europe. TM: OK, good. Yup.

BDS: What is your view of “big business” circuses that base their shows on physical performance, like Cirque du Soleil? Do they benefit the art of physical comedy and are they a good development for young people like me who want a career in physical comedy?

TM: Oh, boy. Loaded question. Loaded, loaded, loaded, for me. I guess I’m a product of some professional jealously. I turned down Cirque du Soleil, in what year, in 1988, they asked me to go on a show with them, and this is before they opened in L A. And I turned it down. ‘Cause I knew them, I knew the guys, they’re from Montreal. We actually were at the same competition in Paris together, so I got to be friends with them, and so they asked me to be the clown in their show. But they were going to Australia, and I said, I just got back from Australia, I don’t want to go back there. This was in

October. I said, next season, next May, I would love to join you guys. Well, they never, they ended up not going to Australia, they had some sort of, Australia’s home circus had some problem with a Canadian circus coming, so their manager found a venue in L.A. and they opened in L.A., and as they say, the rest is history.

BDS: Yeah.

TM: Then they did that, all the movie stars gave them endorsements, and it was the beginning of this huge, huge thing that it is now. And, so that’s a long way to say I think Cirque du Soleil has done wonders for physical comedy and circus and putting the two together, putting drama and theater into circus, et cetera, and yet it’s having an ill effect on a lot of we independent performers, because it’s, the people coming out of Cirque du

Soleil with their 8 minute acts, they are able, they’re able to undersell us.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: And yet many of them aren’t coming out with full shows. They’re coming out with their 8 minutes. And yet they are such, it is such a “turn key” work. If you say you are with the Cirque du Soleil it turns heads. And to a fault, I find. I have been turned down for possible gigs because I could not say I’ve worked with Cirque du Soleil. And that really rubs me the wrong way.

BDS: Yeah.

TM: But, I love the shows. I’m, I’m, they scour the earth for the best acrobats and then teach them how to be performers. The best of whatever it is that they’re looking for. But they are definitely having an effect – both ways. They have increased the awareness, and yet, they are also flooding the market with the people who are no longer with them.

Which makes it more difficult to get a gig. And also the Iron Curtain coming down. The

Eastern circus performers coming into the West has also diluted the job market, so to speak. BDS: Yeah, a couple of summers ago I was in France, and I met up with this clown there who I have connections to, and he said one of his big problems with the Cirque du Soleil was that they, they get rid of a lot of the personal aspect of clown and stuff like that. Like they put on so much makeup that they can switch out people.

TM: Well, yeah, if you wanted me, I would make the same criticism of any Cirque show, Cirque du Soleil show, in that there is no personalized theater at all. If you think about it, they’re androgynous to begin with. They’re not even male or female. And no one talks to the audience. There are a couple shows where they have a character, but they get someone out of the audience

BDS: Yeah, yeah.

TM: And that’s their clown routine. Did you see “O,” by any chance?

BDS: No.

TM: That show. They get someone out of the audience, it’s very clear that he’s a plant, and so there’s, he talks, he actually speaks. But I find their shows really impersonal, and that is one of my fortes. Even in foreign countries I engage the audience in a conversation, an actual conversation. BDS: Mm hmm. Question 18, I believe that physical comedy in the latter part of the twentieth century has become much more of an “underground” art. Do you think it is a good thing that fewer people might be exposed to physical comedy but the ones who are actively seek it out and are deeply passionate about it? Or do you think a wider audience would be better even if it was less passionate?

TM: I’d go, I’d vote for the wider audience thing, ah, I , I’m surprised, I’m continually surprised, I really thought there was going to be a backlash to all of this electronic entertainment. And, I thought that the shows where you come and watch one person, the one man shows, would have a sort of revival in this, in this age of . . . I mean you go see a rock show now and it’s huge, it’s a light show . . .

BDS: You don’t even have to be a good band anymore to have a good concert . . .

TM: Apparently not, I mean everything can, I’m also speaking for myself in that . . .

My show is not a technical marvel. My show is me. And I am really am proud of that.

That, you know, it’s like when I did my show on Broadway, I had to hire a lighting guy, and I thought, [groan] and I was like [same groan] and I mean it was fantastic, it’s amazing what a professional light person can do for a show, how they dress it up. But it’s all the bells and whistles, when in fact I could just take my show and stick it in the basement of a church, for example, and get equal results from the audience. And I love that idea. I would liken it to Bruce Springsteen walking into a place with his acoustic guitar and being able to rock the place just like he does with his electric guitar and a full stadium. But, what was your question, though, am I even answering it?

BDS: Yeah.

TM: Oh, it was about the bigger, wider audience. Yeah, I, no, I definitely, I, somehow, we are not, as Americans, we are not in the habit of going and seeing lesser stuff. It’s become part of our culture, it seems to me that it’s part of our culture, that you don’t want to go out at night to go see someone that you haven’t already heard of.

BDS: Yeah.

TM: And, you know, TV is huge like that, I mean I couldn’t . . . I shouldn’t use the word “couldn’t” but, if you, I remember a few years ago being an opening act for Paulie

Shore. Do you know who Paulie Shore is?

BDS: Yeah, the weasel?

TM: Yeah, I mean, I really don’t know him personally, I can tell you I hated his act . . .

BDS: Yeah. TM: It was horrible, it was all about, it was sex, and sexual innuendos and all about the whores from Texas, I mean it was horrible material, but because he was a DJ, he was a video jock, on MTV, people would fill the theater to see him, and I was his opening act, and I swear my act was far superior than his . . .

BDS: Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised . . .

TM: But they flocked to get his autograph, again, we’re talking a certain clientele of people.

BDS: Yeah, it annoys me where, there’s a theater in Washington, DC, it’s the Wooly

Mammoth Theater . . . .

TM: I was wondering if I knew it but I don’t . . .

BDS: It’s not where more of the people, you know, I recently saw a one-man Star Wars there, it was awesome, and it’s hard for them to sell out, and they don’t have – it’s not a huge theater, but it’s not small, it’s like, I don’t know, maybe a couple of hundred seats, maybe at most, like a hundred and fifty . . .

TM: Tonight there’s a really great show at the Flynn, you guys are out of here though, aren’t you . . . BDS: Yeah . . .

TM: It’s a one-man, it’s a one-man, he’s a puppeteer . . . .

BDS: Oh, that’s awesome.

TM: But he’s, he’s really political about it . . .

BDS: Oh . . .

TM: Anyway it’s Paul Zaloom, and I bet you, he’s playing, the Flynn theater has a 1400 seat theater, and then it has a little black box theater, he’s in the black box theater and I bet you he won’t sell out, and he should, I mean he’s a brilliant performer.

BDS: Yeah, it’s upsetting.

TM: And the ticket price is right, it’s 24 bucks, I mean that’s not bad.

BDS: No.

TM: It’s a hard sell in the States, it’s a hard sell, and I will say that is one difference between here and Europe, people will come, they will allow the theater the leeway, if you get familiar with a theater, you have a theater that you go to, they’ll trust the presenters will present something good and so they’ll buy the season pass and they’ll go . . .

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: Even though they don’t know them, they’ll take the chance.

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: And that happens much, it’s much more prevalent in Europe. The whole theater- going scene in Europe . . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: is a little friendlier.

BDS: Well, yeah, while I was just trying to figure out information for this project, I figured out there were 23 touring circuses in Switzerland, and there’s maybe like 3 or 4 in the United States.

TM: And we look down our noses at circus . . .

BDS: Yeah, yeah, uh huh. TM: It’s kind of, funny, and that’s why I felt so comfortable in Europe, I would, I’m dealt with, I’m given respect when I’m . . .

BDS: Yeah, yeah.

TM: Here, I feel like you’re almost like a person without a job, you know and when you say street performing, it’s like “you what?”

BDS: Yeah, yeah, that leads into the next question. It is my sense that Charlie Chaplin had to come to America to be “successful” as a physical comedian. I have been told by an American physical comedian who lives in Paris and works primarily in Europe that it would be much easier for me to have a “serious” career in physical comedy in Europe than in America. Do you agree? What do you think changed in America to cause this reversal?

TM: Okay, I don’t, I don’t think it has anything to do with physical comedy, I think it has to do with what our culture has done. I mean, and this is a topic for study, look at the way we are a “pop” culture, we’re very much a “pop” culture, and physical comedy, it can be pop, you can certainly make it pop, Blue Man Group, that’s physical comedy, in my opinion, have you seen the show?

BDS: No, but I know . . . TM: You know about it, you know who they are? And that’s physical comedy and they’ve made it pop, and you know, I’m rethinking my show, repackaging it, and make, you know, I wear the clothing of the people who inspired me, I look like Buster Keaton . .

. .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: when I perform And I think in order to stay alive in the coming decade, because I kind of do want to bring it back to America, I want to start, I’m getting older and I’d like to live here, and not have to get on airplanes all the time, and I don’t want to move to

Europe. I don’t know, but I don’t. So, yeah, I’m thinking it’s our pop culture that has created. And I’m wondering if Europe is just, you know, somewhat behind us . . .

[background noise] that’s my cell phone . . .

BDS: Okay.

TM: . . . interacting with the computer . . . I’m wondering if it, you know, in the future, the same thing will happen to Europe, I don’t know, because Western Europe is very much pop-oriented as well. But they do have that tradition of going to the theater, the middle-class Europeans go to the theater . . .

BDS: Uh huh. TM: Here, I don’t, I think the major middle class that’s becoming more, we’re losing our middle class, . . . .

BDS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TM: We’re losing it, it’s tough to buy those tickets that are 75 bucks . . .

BDS: I mean the Cirque du Soleil tickets are . . .

TM: No, what are they, more than a hundred bucks?

BDS: Probably, I mean . . .

TM: Oh, Vegas was more than a hundred dollars, I don’t know what the going rate is . . . but anything in New York is a hundred bucks . . .

BDS: Uh huh, and it’s either that or the street performers where people are like, I’m not going to waste my time on that . . .

TM: That’s another interesting thing, yeah, well, you do, you definitely see crap out there, yeah, if you give it ten minutes and decide, watch something go, it’s a human thing, I mean there were years where I totally would refuse to watch a street show, and I was a street performer for more than 10 years.

BDS: I always try to watch and give it a chance . . .

TM: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a smart way to be.

BDS: And then if it’s crap I’ll leave, but if it’s good I’m glad I spent that 10 minutes and

I’ll probably spend another half hour. Who knows? Alright, so question 20, what do you think is the best performance you’ve ever done – the one you’d like to be remembered for? And what about that performance is so special?

TM: Wow. Well, I don’t know if I can answer that question. What do I think is the best performance I’ve ever done? Boy, if you’re talking about a specific performance, like a specific night of a specific run, I don’t have one, but I will, my most best memory of a show that I put together was, in 2000 I was asked to be the emcee for these varietes in

Germany, and I had established somewhat of a following in this city, in the city of

Hanover, in Germany, and for two months I was on stage every night as the emcee. The physical comedian emcee, and I created a show that was so physically difficult but so wonderful, it was my dream come true because they said, “carte blanche,” anything, props, I wanted they would get, and so, again, I’m not, I’m not a, I don’t use . . . to me, it’s not about the lights, it’s not about the technical aspects of theater, it’s about my techniques, my personal physical techniques. I want to tell you about this because, I thought it was really great. And part of my schtick is that I can’t do anything, I start out to do something and I always fail . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: So I came out to introduce, to be, to say good evening, and I say “there’s not enough energy here, I’m going to make some energy” and I would start running toward stage left and I had a mini-tramp that was underneath, you know, cloth, and I would bounce on the mini-tramp up to the balcony, would run across the railing of the balcony right across the balcony, all this while I’m getting the people clapping, and there were stairs that came back down to the stage and I get to the top of the stairs, and I’d be talking and I’d trip, and I fell down the stairs and I had placed a painting on a tripod that was very familiar to this audience, it was one of their, a German, vaudiete entertainer, who was very famous, in the, shortly, right after the war. And so everyone knew that this painting was like a valuable painting and I would just wipe that out. And then I’d get up and brush myself off and then I had a little hook built inside my jacket. There was a pillar on stage, I had to walk by the pillar and I had Velcro inside my jacket and I would walk by the pillar and hook this thing and then go [ripping noise] and rip out my jacket, so I was like already a mess, and all apologetic to the audience and I’d say, okay, I’m sorry I have to do it again, we gotta do it, so I’d bounce on the trampoline, walk, run across the thing, and this time I had the zip line . . .

BDS: Yeah. TM: and so everyone is thinking, yes, this is really cool [sound of going down zip line and crashing], it’s like “oh my god, I’m such a loser,” so I take my jacket off and, this big thing is I have an iron burn on my shirt . . . .

BDS: Oh, okay.

TM: So they’re laughing, they’re laughing and I don’t even pay any attention and I hang my jacket on the proscenium on the stage and I turn around and I’m talking to the audience and I have that rigged so that there’s a smoke machine behind it, so it looks like it’s caught on fire. And, I don’t even look at it until the people in the audience are like that [pointing], so I run off stage and I bring on a fire extinguisher, I extinguish it but I forget to turn it off, and I face the people and now I’m getting all these people, they’re covering their drinks, because it’s the powder stuff, it’s not poisonous, anyway, it was great, and the whole night goes like that, I had, it was, I had about a two and a half hour show and I probably had at least 50 minutes of material.

BDS: It sounds like it was amazing.

TM: It was. At the end of the show, I pissed off the entire cast when I was, we were doing our curtain call and they grabbed me and put me into a straight jacket and pulled me up by my feet and I did a straight jacket escape [laughing] for the end. And it was just, it was heaven that I could write myself a show like this. It was just great . . . BDS: That sounds incredible.

TM: Oh, man. So that would be my, that’s my, no one of those performances but that show . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: was really the highlight, a highlight.

BDS: Wow, . . . alright so, number 21, When you meet someone casually, how do you explain what you do for a living? How do people react if you say you’re a clown? Do they assume you wear a red nose and do kids’ birthday parties?

TM: Okay, yeah, I wouldn’t, in the States I don’t tell people I’m a clown. Not first off.

That’s where I started using the term physical comedian a long time ago, because if you say to people you’re a clown they think of Ronald McDonald, . . .

BDS: Yeah, Bozo.

TM: [simultaneously] Bozo, big shoes, the polka-dotted pants . . .

BDS: I get that all the time . . . TM: and green hair. And now, I don’t want to put those down . . .

BDS: It’s just you’re not one of them . . .

TM: I’m not one of them. I taught for Ringling, 3 years at Ringling, and yet I still, I don’t like the way Ringling Brothers tries to revise history. Those clowns have, the reason those clowns look the way they look is because they are arena clowns and they, people, in the circus because there were people sitting way the hell up in the bleacher seats, they starting exaggerating their costumes, making the bow tie bigger, making the hair be green, making their shoes look bigger, and there was a reason for it, and so why, if you’re doing one on one clowning would you . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: wear these outfits. It’s, it comes from a historical place, not because that’s inherently funny.

BDS: It’s not like Chaplin and his big pants, where that’s funny . . .

TM: And he exaggerated his shoes, too.

BDS: He did, but it wasn’t to the same extent. TM: Not at all, no, and they weren’t checkered . . .

BDS: He wore maybe two or three sizes bigger, whereas clown shoes are just ridiculously big.

TM: And let’s look at the idea of what a joke is. A sight gag is [snaps fingers] a second, it’s over within a second, and so, yeah, I almost resent the idea of dressing funny so that that’s what’s funny.

BDS: Yeah.

TM: Yeah, it makes it harder to be, it makes, I find it makes your job more difficult.

BDS: I can understand that, yeah.

TM: I try to come from a nondescript point of view and then, and have the comedy unravel from there.

BDS: Yeah, that’s interesting, yeah. So, have you done much teaching of physical comedy? What’s your view of studying physical comedy versus just learning by doing it? TM: Wow, yeah I’m a, learning by doing is going to take you longer first of all, who wants to reinvent the wheel? Although I feel like that’s what I did, you know? Really I studied very little, although I did study and I take workshops till this day, but it’s mostly on how to construct material and how to get, and when I have an idea of a piece, then I’ll go take a workshop and have the teacher, whoever it is, it’s like paying an audience to watch your self, you know, you get in a workshop, I paid my money, I can fail here all I want . . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: That’s the cool part of that, what was the first part of that question, I wanted…

BDS: Have you done much teaching?

TM: Oh yeah, well, I’ve done quite a bit of teaching and, yeah, the teaching isn’t so much, “ok, this is what you have to, so to be a physical comedian . . . .” It’s drawing it out of people because everyone has a comedian inside them, and the need to find out what it is about themselves that is funny. I teach a workshop called “the innate comedian” . . . .

BDS: Mm hmm. TM: and it’s about putting you through exercises to find out what it is about you, to strike a vein about what is funny about you as opposed to copying what other people do.

I mean there are ways, it’s, oh boy, so I definitely think studying is great. I don’t think you’ll never enter, there are very few places, schools, workshops that you go that say,

“this is what you need do to be a physical comedian.”

BDS: Mm hmm.

TM: You invent your own material, and then you work from there. You work, you learn a lot about do’s and don’ts, you learn a lot about the idea, the structures of, comedy structures, and you basically go there and practice the, the art of sketch writing so to speak, and I don’t mean sitting down and writing. It’s creating sketches because most of my stuff was created from, starting with the physical . . . .

BDS: Yeah.

TM: as opposed to writing a story and finding out what can I do with this movement, what can I do with this, and then of course the skills lead the way for me in the performing world, 100 percent. I just, I was just enamored with the skill levels and so I tried and I tried, and that’s where I pursued, and I felt that as long as I’ve done my homework then I deserved to be in front of people . . . .

BDS: Mm hmm. TM: Which became a problem as I got further along into the career because just writing sketches, I mean, gee, writing sketches that didn’t have juggling in it, or didn’t have a back somersault in it, kind of bothered me like well who am I to, but then you do find your funny bone you find out what’s, I know my knack and I’ll stay close to that

BDS: Mm hmm

TM: but then I’m also willing to grow like I, to become a story teller…

BDS: Yeah

TM: or even act, to learn lines and act uh a piece, it’s not beyond me I just haven’t begun to sing yet [laughter from both]

BDS: Are there any parts of being a physical comedian that you don’t enjoy?

TM: this is a good one, yeah now as I am getting older its this is one of the reasons I’m slowing down in Europe because there are six nights a week and they want double shows on Friday Saturday and Sunday. And my shows are very, very physical and so if I get injured there’s no way its going to get better not when your in the middle of a month run or a two month run and you don’t have any days off or you one day off and you’re doing double shows Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday’s free I think that’s the only thing that I’m, that I don’t like about it. How was that worded?

BDS: Are there any parts of being a physical comedian that you don’t enjoy?

TM: Yeah I don’t like working in pain. It’s also limiting. If every joke has to be physical then that’s limiting. But every joke doesn’t have to be physical. And I would never, I am proud to be a physical comedian and I admire physical comedy and yet it doesn’t hold me back from doing anything else. I mean if I wanted to create comic song and learn to play it on a guitar, then that’s fine. So, there aren’t very many things, but I don’t like performing when I’m hurt.

BDS: yeah,

TM: And lord knows I have.

BDS: And then the final question, what do you enjoy about being a physical comedian?

TM: Um, I feel like it was absolutely a calling for me to be a physical comedian because it, um, I’m very, athletics plays a huge part in my life and always has and I found that it all just come together, dovetail, it all just one great big thing, saying okay know you have permission to be an athlete, I’m basically in my mind a professional athlete . . . BDS: Mm hmm

TM: a lot of it, it feels just like, because I have to train, to do what I do, and I get to learn skills, physical skills that a lay person, another person might be able to pick up a play and learn the lines and be an actor but there’s a whole lot of skill behind what I do. And, uh, it involves, it’s a whole, it’s a lifestyle, that’s it, it’s a lifestyle it involves eating well, being healthy, spiritually and physically, and uh, so it’s was like this great big marriage of everything in my life, just coming together, all together, the athleticism, the physical prowessness, prowessness? the physical prowess, and the love of all of that, I get to present it, I get to do this in front of people, it’s magical for me.

BDS: So, is there anything you wanted to talk about that we didn’t get to talk about at all?

TM: Yeah.

BDS: Or do you want to go back over any questions?

TM: I’m just wondering in terms of what do you think your goal is of this interview?

Do you have a personal goal?

BDS: Well, yeah, I mean there’s the goal of getting the project done, and then there’s . . .

. TM: But you picked this up because you have interest in this . . .

BDS: Yeah,

TM: this isn’t something you pulled out of the blue . . .

BDS: No.

TM: I was surprised that someone would even think of, I mean, you had all the buzzwords, physical comedy, a lot of people ask me, what the hell is physical comedy?

BDS: no, this is something I would like to do professionally, something like that

TM: have you taken any workshops, have you done anything yet?

BDS: There’s a class I can take at my school. My teacher is an excellent physical comedian, the drama teacher, and he has a Physical Performance Skills, that’s the name of the actual class, and we learn things, and I’ve taken it and I’m taking it again.

TM: What kind of stuff you learning?

BDS: Juggling, we spend a lot of time on juggling . . . TM: Skills?

BDS: Yeah, skills. There’s juggling, learning some different falls, some stage combat, we’re doing mime for the first time this year, which I’m excited about; oh, no, no, no, you do mime, we’re doing masks for the first time this year, which I’m excited about.

TM: There are a couple of workshops I can tell you about . . .

BDS: Oh, that would be awesome . . .

TM: That you would be really interested in, some great stuff.

BDS: I’ve been talking to the person I know in Europe that I could maybe this summer apprentice with him. I don’t know, that was more of his sister’s idea.

TM: Well, yeah

BDS: I’m good friends with his sister.

TM: There’s a fabulous, I don’t do [inaudible], Celebration Mime [after end of recording, checked and corrected to Celebration Barn] , in South Paris, Maine, is a hotbed of this kind of, I mean, you need to get their schedule, you can just go online and get it, and you know the teacher, do you know who Ovner is? Ovner the eccentric? Have you ever heard of Ovner?

BDS: No

TM: He’s big in the physical comedy world. And he teaches there, they have lots of different subjects, there’s physical comedy, there’s sketch writing workshops, there’s stage combat, and you have to go online and check it out. But Ovner’s one of the teachers there, he great, great. But most of the teachers are very reputable and very good.

Then there’s a four day workshop, which I just taught, in DC, in Baltimore, I mean, and that’s every November. That’s called manifest, just MiniFest, [spells out], it’s

Minifest.net, you should write that down if you want to check that out. That, you get a lot of bang for your buck there. In a short time, and that’s close to where you live.

[inaudible]

BDS: Do you think it’s uh . . . I’m going to stop the recording. Audio/Video Time Indexing Log

1. Interviewer: Ben DeSanti

2. Interviewee: Tom Murphy

3. Date of interview: January 4, 2008

4. Location of interview: Mr. Murphy’s home, Waterbury Center, VT

5. Recording format: Audio format: Digital (DAT)

Minute Mark Topics presented in order of discussion in recording

0-5 Early life and performance history

5-10 Professional influences and early performances

10-15 Performance routines and venues

15-20 Changes in physical comedy and interests in “shock” comedy

20-25 Performing in Europe versus America, sources of material, making a living as a physical comedian

25-30 Range of audiences, and effect of “big business” circuses

30-35 Audience interest in high-tech shows and big name performers

35-40 Effect of pop culture on physical comedy performances, different attitudes in European vs. American audiences

40-45 Effect of ticket prices on audience size, views on free performances, his best performance

45-50 Explaining physical comedy as a profession, teaching physical comedy, learning by doing versus learning by studying

50-55 Writing sketches, likes and dislikes of being a physical comedian

55-60 Physical comedy workshops Interview Analysis

I interviewed Tom Murphy, who has made his living as a physical comedian from the

1970’s through today. My purpose was to understand the life and working conditions of a physical comedian in the United States in the late twentieth century. This interview provided one perspective on how prevalent live physical comedy is as a form of

American entertainment in the late twentieth century, compared to its prevalence in the early twentieth century when physical comedy was “king.” At that time, many physical comedians performed shows in vaudeville, and some of the greatest physical comedians ever appeared in many of the silent films. This interview also provided a perspective on the role of live physical comedy in the United States as compared to Europe in the late twentieth century. Earlier conversations with an American physical comedian who lives in Europe, Bernie Williams, suggested that, in the late twentieth century, live physical comedy plays a much smaller role in American entertainment than in European entertainment. My interview of Tom Murphy supports my thesis that live physical comedy is much less important in American entertainment in the late twentieth century than it was earlier in the twentieth century. The interview also supports my thesis that live physical comedy has remained more important in European entertainment than in

American entertainment. However, I recognize that Tom Murphy’s experience may reflect personal circumstances not applicable to other American physical comedians in the late twentieth century.

Oral history has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, oral history can gather information that did not appear in print. (Ritchie 4) By talking with a wide variety of sources about particular events, oral historians may be able to put together an account of those events that reports only the facts on which the people agree. (Ritchie 3)

Oral history also allows historians to learn more about “ordinary” people’s lives and not just those of famous people who write about their lives in diaries or who produce famous documents. (Ritchie 5) Oral historians also can ask follow-up questions, including hard questions about what really happened, which historians reading documents cannot do.

(Ritchie 6)

On the other hand, interviews for oral history may be conducted years after an event, when people’s memories have become foggy or inaccurate. (Ritchie 5) Oral history also can be biased for a variety of reasons, including nostalgia or a wish to blank out unpleasant memories. (Ritchie 6) To me, however, it seems that oral history is subject to the same kinds of biases and warped representations of events as history based on diaries and documents. For topics such as mine – the lives of physical comedians in the United

States in the late twentieth century – oral history offers a way to record observations that might otherwise go unnoticed.

In the late twentieth century, it was still possible to make a living doing “live” physical comedy in the United States in the tradition of such famous physical comedians as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. (DeSanti 14, 33-35) However, there was a limited audience for it. In the United States, Tom Murphy performs mostly at

“regional theaters, art centers, corporate gigs,” such as corporate banquets and corporate sessions, and festivals. (DeSanti 26-27) Perhaps surprisingly, Murphy finds that live physical comedy tends to be more successful with “high-brow” audiences. (DeSanti 36)

But “it’s a hard sell in the States.” (DeSanti 43) In the United States, Murphy has felt

“like you’re almost like a person without a job, you know, and when you say street performing, it’s like “you what?” (DeSanti 45) Murphy reports that, “in the States I don’t tell people I’m a clown . . . .That’s where I started using the term physical comedian a long time ago, because if you say to people you’re a clown they think of

Ronald McDonald.” (DeSanti 51)

Although vaudeville no longer exists in the United States, it is “alive and well” in

Europe in the form of what they call “variete.” (DeSanti 26-28) Variete in Europe involves shows in posh nightclubs with an emcee and several acts; physical comedians

“have a high profile in those shows.” (DeSanti 27) It is easier to be a physical comedian in Europe than in America, in part because middle class Europeans have a tradition of going to the theater. According to Tom Murphy, middle-class Europeans “have a theater that you go to, they’ll [Europeans] will trust the presenters will present something good and so they’ll buy the season pass and they’ll go . . . .” (DeSanti 43-44)

This tradition seems to be lost in the United States. Murphy attributes this difference to the role of “pop” culture in America and the loss of the American middle class. (DeSanti 45-47) By “pop” culture, Murphy means that Americans want to see what is most popular. He believes “it’s become part of our culture, it seems to me that it’s part of our culture, that you don’t want to go out at night to see someone that you haven’t already heard of.” (DeSanti 41) In addition, Murphy expresses concern that

“[w]e’re losing it [our middle class], it’s tough to buy those tickets that are 75 bucks.”

(DeSanti 47) As more Americans expect to see physical performers who have worked with Cirque du Soleil or similar circuses, there is less work for physical comedians such as Murphy, who writes his own material and performs on his own. (DeSanti 38) This interview has historical value because it sheds light on how the role of a physical comedian or clown has changed in the United States during the course of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the century, vaudeville was the most popular form of entertainment in the United States, and vaudeville highlighted physical comedy.

(Ashby 119, 132) Railroads moved vaudeville troops all around the United States, because audiences would come out to see the shows. (Ashby 132) Circuses also were popular forms of entertainment. (Ashby 132)

By the end of the twentieth century, by contrast, live performances by physical comedians were much less popular. As Murphy explains, it is tough to sell an individual performer’s act, except in relatively small venues such as regional theaters or corporate dinners. If they go out to the theater, Americans want to see popular shows with people who they already have heard of. (DeSanti 41) Murphy even feels like people look at him as someone who does not even have a job. (DeSanti 45) These observations from the interview support the research in the historical contextualization paper that showed that physical comedy in the United States became less important a form of entertainment in the late twentieth century than at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The interview also has historical value because it raises the question of why vaudeville shows no longer exist in the United States, but vaudeville still exists in

Europe. One reason may be the school of mime, movement, and theater founded by

Jacques Lecoq in Paris in 1956. At the same time that American actors were relying on the Stanislavsky approach, with its emphasis on internal feelings, rather than physical aspects of acting, Lecoq was rebelling against that approach. (Potter Movement 4; Lecoq

Theatre 115) Lecoq’s school has produced many physical comedians who perform all over Europe. This may not be the reason, of course. Murphy wonders whether the same changes will occur in Europe as in America, in terms of the rise of “pop” culture, just later than it happened in the United States. (DeSanti 46)

One of the strongest points of this interview is I was able to ask enough questions to get a plenty of information about different places and situations where Murphy has worked both in the United States and in Europe. If I were to do this interview again, however, I would ask more follow-up questions to get more detail on where and how he has been successful in the United States, such as when he performs as part of a group of acts and when he performs solo and things like that. Also, I would ask more questions to get Murphy to compare the working situations of physical comedians in the United States in the beginning of the twentieth century with the circumstances he has faced as a physical comedian at the end of the twentieth century. I have also learned that it can be difficult to get all the information you want through one interview.

During the interview process I learned how to successfully write, prepare, and conduct a formal interview. I have gained a wide range of knowledge that could only be taught through first-hand experience, from a man who has experienced everything the physical comedy world has to offer. Mr. Murphy shared a chapter of his life that he holds close to his heart. I truly feel the learning experience he has shared with me is something very special, something a book could never teach. Through my research I have found that physical comedy profession has both highs and lows. I am convinced that a true physical comedian comic genius is a gift given at birth. I have always been interested in physical comedy, and doing the research has made me appreciate physical comedy as an art for which I have a true passion. One day I would like to take my new-found passion to make people smile and hopefully inspire other comedians to find the physical comedian in themselves. Mr. Murphy told me something after the interview that stuck with me. He said “to do it way, way big, but not so big that it can’t be done again.” And I will. Works Cited

Ashby, LeRoy. With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since

1830. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.

Dale, Alan. Comedy Is A Man In Trouble. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press. 2000.

DeSanti, Ben. “Transcript of Interview of Tom Murphy.” Waterbury Center, Vermont,

Dec. 28, 2007.

DeSanti, Ben. “Oral Interview with Bernie Williams (not transcribed).” Paris, France,

July 1, 2006.

Itzkoff, Dave. “Mr. Bean Bumbles on Voyage Across Pond.” New York Times, Aug.

28, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/movies/28bean.html,

last accessed, Dec. 9, 2007.

Lecoq, Jacques. The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Trans.: David Bradby.

New York, New York: Routledge, 2001.

Lecoq, Jacques. Theatre of Movement and Gesture. Trans.: David Bradby. New York,

New York: Routledge, 2006. Potter, Nicole, ed. Movement for Actors. New York: Allworth Press, 2002.

Ritchie, Donald. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2003.

Schechter, Joel, ed. The Pickle Clowns: New American Circus Comedy. Carbondale

and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001.

Siegel, Marcia B. “Physical Comedy’s Alive and Well with Bill Irwin.” Christian

Science Monitor, p. 19, July 7, 1988. ProQuest Historical Newspapers Christian

Science Monitor (1908-1994).

Towsen, John H. Clowns. New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1976.

Wright, John. Why Is that So Funny?: A Practical Exploration of Physical Comedy.

London: Nick Hern Books, 2006.