The New York Clown-Theatre Festival Opens!

[post 187]

I just got back from the opening night of this century's 6th NY Clown-Theatre Festival, a cabaret hilariously hosted by the Leroy Sisters (Aimee German & Jenny Sargent) and featuring excerpts from most of the performers we'll be seeing in the festival. If this preview was any indication, it's a strong and varied lineup.

Since this is a physical comedy blog, I should hazard a guess as to which shows are the most movement oriented. From what I've seen, my predictions are Flocked (Audrey Crabtree & Gabriela Muñoz), I Have Never Done This Before (Joel Jeske), Wing-Man (Mark Gindick), and Neon Lights (Chris Manley & Jeff Seal). Also worth mentioning, at least from my jaded perspective, is that on September 16th Audrey and I will be co-hosting a series of short clown films. Come see some good work and say hello! And finally, let me recommend the clown workshop, Touching the Space, being conducted by the delightfully funny Mexican clown Gabriela Muñoz on September 12th and 13th.

Neon Lights

Wing-Man

The festival, once again directed by that multi-tasking, hyperactive duo, Robert Honeywell and Audrey Crabtree, runs through September 25th at Williamsburg's Brick Theater, just two subway stops into Brooklyn, and tickets are only $15.

For more info, go to http://bricktheater.com/ and then click on Amuse Bouche.

For some great opening night photos, see this post on Jim Moore's VaudeVisuals blog, as well as this Flickr album by Joann Jovinelly.

Update (Sept. 11, 2011):  Here's a nicely edited video piece on opening night just posted on the LocalTheatreNY.com web site:



Update (Sept. 13): A review of opening night in Brooklyn Exposed by the one and same Joann Jovinelly.

LearnSlapstick.com

[post 182]

Christopher Lueck, producer and host of The New York Downtown Clown Monthly Revue, has a new project, teaching slapstick comedy by means of instructional videos offered through his new website, LearnSlapstick.com. Here's the infomercial you'll see if you go to the site.



From there you have to sign in with your e-mail address to receive a link to view a free sample video on comic tripping, which as it turns out has less to do with LSD or magic mushrooms than it does with the path of your foot being interrupted, not that the two are mutually exclusive. You'll also learn (spoiler alert) that Christopher is selling a 40-minute DVD teaching slapstick basics. I'm out of the country and have not yet seen the DVD, so you're on your own here. Meanwhile, here's Christopher and fellow NYC clown Joel Jeske slapping each other silly in their touring show, The Hey-Ya Brothers:

Click here to see the rest of this promo video.

And speaking of slapstick, I can't resist reposting this rambunctious, no-holds-barred "rough house" act posted yesterday by Jonathan Lyons on his excellent Comedy for Animators blog  — which you should all be following! Not sure yet who this is or what movie it's from, but it was put up on YouTube just four days ago by Stephen Worth of the Hollywood Animation Archive.  (I have written Mr. Worth to see if he has more information for us.)



Update:  Jonathan Lyons writes:  "Stephen says it's from "Let's Go Crazy", 1951, with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers in his first film appearance."

Beating Yourself Up for Fun & Profit

[post 158]

If you've ever played around with slapstick or stage combat, and I'm betting you have, you know that the victim's reaction is key to selling the effect. As my old friend Joe Martinez put it, what we're doing is Combat Mime, the illusion of fighting, not the painful reality. It's not surprising, then, that many a comedian has had the clever idea of eliminating the attacker altogether, of playing victim to an imaginary foe.

The earliest reference I found to this idea was something I wrote about the acclaimed 19th-century British clown Billy Hayden, who made his reputation in Paris at Franconi's, first as an acrobatic clown, though later as a talking clown:  "He practiced acrobatics alone in the ring for two hours every morning — dancing, tumbling, falling, delivering blows at imaginary partners, and being struck by imaginary feet." (Clowns, p.200) I'm not sure how much from these practice sessions actually ended up in his act.

If you're having a hard time imagining what this might look like, the sofa sequence from Donald O'Connor's classic physical comedy piece, "Make 'Em Laugh," from Singing in the Rain (1952) is a short but sweet example:

Silent film comedian Charley Chase had actually taken this idea several steps further 26 years earlier in his wonderful Mighty Like A Moose, though his fight is heavily (and jokingly) dependent on film editing. The silly but useful premise is that Charley and his wife (Vivien Oakland) are embarrassingly homely, he with buck teeth, she with a big nose. They both have plastic surgery without telling the other, and when they accidentally meet, they flirt heavily without recognizing each other. (Yes, it takes more than a little suspension of disbelief, but then so does Twelfth Night.) Charley figures it out first and, as a staunch advocate of the double standard, is determined to teach her a lesson by staging a mock fight between husband and lover.




Now here's Peter James from the old Spike Jones Show who says "I like to slap myself" and who was breakin' way ahead of his time.




This is the talented Alex Pavlata from his show Francky O. Right, showing what happens when Romeo breaks up with Juliet.

And finally, here's Rowan Atkinson (see this previous post) being tormented by an unseen adversary during his morning commute: A Day in the Life of the Invisible Man.

Drop me a line if you know any more examples!


July 4th Update:  Blog reader Paul Reisman has done just that, providing us with a worthy addition to our collection. Paul writes: "It's from a pretty horrible movie called Trial and Error [1997], but the clip of Michael Richards getting beat up by invisible enemies has always stuck with me."



Let's just say I liked it a whole lot better than that audience of casting directors.

July 18 Update: Steve Copeland writes that the physical comedian on the Spike Jonze show was Peter James. Click here to check Peter James out on IMDB. Click here for a very watchable video about Steve and his partner Ryan Combs and their life on the American one-ring show, the Kelly-Miller Circus.

October 29, 2012 Update: Here's James Corden at the Tony Awards performing his schizoid self-fight from One-Man, Two Guvnors:



Links:
• Four short instructional videos based on material from Combat Mime.
• The World of Charley Chase web site.
• The Francky O. Right web site.
• Official site for Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean.

Comedy Acrobatics: A Catalog of Partner Tricks (who are these performers?)

[post 128]

This video has a gazillion partner acrobatic tricks.  I should know, I counted them.   As is probably inevitable in such a fast-paced club act, the character comedy is a bit of a throw-in, sorta hit and miss, but on the other hand you get tons of terrific stuff.  (One gazillion = several tons.)  But who are they?   This was put on YouTube by Show Pals International, but the performers are not identified, which is pretty odd if you're trying to sell an act. Their web site is a dead-end, so maybe they're out of business.  If anyone knows, drop me a line! 

Update (April 18, 2011): Mystery Solved!

Hi John, the acrobats are dear friends known as "Price & McCoy". They are Terry Price (base) and Henning Pederson (flyer). They are from Australia but have been based in Tarbes, France since about 1990. When i was studying at Dell'arte in 1976 I wanted more acro and found 3 books. One had "EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK". This book was all stick figure drawings. I taught myself what I could on my own, i.e., the solo tricks up to front handsprings and front saltos over a chair. Quite dangerous for a "non-acrobat." Then in 1984 Price & McCoy and my slapstick duet each were performing in the Sydney Festival. We became friends and Terry helped me to relocate to Sydney. He took me to his teacher Clete Ball. Clete began to teach me "Australian Knockabout" (as per the video you have, but I was at a more basic level). Clete and I became friends and also I worked with him in my theatre production at the Sydney Theatre Company (now directed by Cate Blanchet and hubbie). Clete is the person who knows EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK (the one I had). I also trained in tumbling with his teacher i.e. with Clete's teacher, George Sparkes.  Clete was the first teacher of the Flying Fruit Flies Circus. He is now 81 and I think has just moved from Albury to Adelaide. He started a group for 'seniors' called The Flying Fruit Bats, using circus and clown for well-being. I wrote to Carlo when I met Clete and Carlo carried that letter in his wallet for about ten years. Clete had his great trio Bal Caron Trio (see youtube) and was in the Ganges Troupe — a Russian troupe dressed in regal wigs who tossed a single woman across the stage. x ira www.iraseid.com

— Posted by Acting Clown Actor — The Seidenstein Method to All Fall Down: The Craft & Art of Physical Comedy at April 18, 2011 8:21 PM

So a big thank you to Ira Seldenstein, whose Acting Clown Actor blog appears in my blog roll in the right panel. (Check it out!) And now here's another video of.... wait! wait! their name's coming to me....

Price & McCoy

And here's the Bal Caron Trio mentioned by Ira:

Charlie Rivel: Homage to a Catalonian Clown — Live from Barcelona! #4

[post 084]

It is my last night in Barcelona and Jango Edwards brought together for dinner all of the clown / circus /variety historians he could muster in the person of Raffaele De Ritis, whose blog, Novelties and Wonders, is indeed full of wonders; Pat Cashin, whose Clown Alley blog is the place to go for all things clown; Greg DeSanto, director of the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center; and yours truly. Or to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, there hasn't been a greater concentration of clown knowledge at one table since Tristan Rémy dined alone.

This being Catalonia, the meandering conversation had to come around to its most famous clown, Charlie Rivel (1896 –1983). In fact, in Barcelona's Joan Brossa Gardens you will find a statue (photo, below) of Rivel , and there is even a Charlie Rivel Museum in his birthplace, the village of Cubelles, half way down the coast between here and Tarragona.

Born Josep Andreu Lasserre, his father was a Catalan trapeze artist and his mother a French acrobat. By age two he was performing in his father's risley act. Thus was launched an eight-decade performing career that brought him the kind of superstar status in Europe only enjoyed by clowns like Grock and the Fratellini.

It's been decades since I read Rivel's autobiography, Poor Clown so I won't pretend to be an expert on his life. Instead I will turn you right back over to Raffaele De Ritis, whose article on Rivel on Circopedia is the best starting point. Once you promise me you've read that, I'll share a few video highlights with you.

Okay, did you really read it? Alrighty then, let's get started...

Because many of the clips we have of Rivel are from late in his long performing career, his early days as an acrobat and an acrobatic clown tend to be overlooked. But you already knew that, right? Here are two shots of him as the topmounter in an unconventional two-high, courtesy of circus practitioner, teacher, and historian Hovey Burgess:














According to the Circopedia bio, one of the tricks he and his brothers became known for was "The Little Bridge." Though I don't have any footage of this, again with the help of Hovey Burgess I was able to identify the trick and with the help of Nicanor Cancellieri track down what seems to be a more recent version of it as performed by The Three Rebertis.



And as an aside, here's a third photo supplied by Hovey of Los Yacopis, with this commentary: Note the hands-to-shoulders element (not head-to-head, not, at least, in the moment of this photograph). Irving Pond mentions the Yacopi troupe in Big Top Rhythms (1937) RE: their teeterboard four-person high column. This photograph is from: Julio Revollendo Cardenas CIRCO EN MÉXICO (2004), page 71.


Update from Hovey: I herewith submit two (2) photographs from Fernand Rausser (photographer) Le Cirque (1975) [Toole Stott No. 13,465] which purportedly depict the 1975 Circus Knie revival of the unconventional two-high (page 148) and the "bridge" (page 149) by Rolfe Knie Junior, Juanito Rivel and José Bétrix. If we are to judge from the photograph, and perhaps we should not so judge, the latter seems not quite up to snuff somehow. That is hardly a free head-to-head element that is shown. Hmmm!



















Update courtesy of Pat Cashin (3-21-10):
Mystery solved! Here's our bridge, performed nonchalantly by Rivel and company during a 1937 hospital visit. Click on image.

Hovey Burgess comments: "That is it. But with a couple of twists.This 1937 Viennese version clip is also a five-person bridge akin to the Yacopis photograph. Five people are also hinted at in the somewhat inconclusive 1975 Swiss revival version photograph. Unlike the Rebertis clip, however, the non-feet-to-shoulders link is NOT a straight head-to-head at ANY point shown in the clip, but is reinforced with a Yacopi-like hands-to-shoulders [throughout]. With the Rebertis it is a straight head-to-head ("no hands!") all the way, both ascending and descending. Mystery solved? Yes, but we would still like to see and know more."
______________________

And now back to our regularly scheduled program:
Since his father was a trapeze artist, it's not surprising that comedy trapeze became one of Rivel's signature acts. Here he is from 1943, when he would have already been 46 or 47.




Later in his career Rivel became more of a minimalist, extracting a lot of clown gold from a chair and a guitar. Here he is on this youTube piece posted by none other than Pat Cashin. Small world, eh?



And here he is on Eurovision Song Contest:



This is the Rivel segment from Fellini's movie, I Clowns; I'll try to replace it with a version with English subtitles sometime soon!




And to be thorough, here are Rivel's sons, the Charlivels, performing their popular night club act, which included singing and acrobatics.






Like I said, check back soon for additional material.