THE CLOWN
The Clown is an unparalleled theatre style in terms of authenticity. Unlike other performance styles that center around a character, the Clown is purely the actor themselves. They cannot hide emotions or avoid telling the entire truth. There are no tricks in a bag upon which the actor can rely. He is himself, naked, except for his exploded persona, the Clown.
The work is incredibly authentic since each Clown is born of the individual actor and like snowflakes, no two are alike; even though in watching them, we can identify types of people, perhaps almost archetypes.
Clown is the search for what is human. It is the search for the artist’s true self, the very material that the artist uses as an actor — even though in Clowning, there is no acting.
The opposite of tragedy, the Clown lives in a human world and can stretch no further than melodrama. Though great Clowns can be found in Shakespeare, his is not Clown Theatre. Getting in touch with this naivety, this basic honesty, is essential to all actors. Losing the fear of being ridiculous is a great step for an actor to take and his work is enriched by that step forever afterwards.
The Clown has no past and no future, he exists only in THE MOMENT, which is a basic principle of all good acting skills. Every acting method boils down to this, from Stanislavski to Sanford Meisner. All methods depend on being in the moment. The Clown does not even exist outside that tiniest of time frames. Discovering the style of the Clown will enrich all of the actor’s stylistic work, from tragedy to absurd.
Through a series of specific, progressive exercises, the actor is challenged to dig more and more deeply into himself to discover his clown. The exercise work is solo in the beginning, and then as certain skills are acquired, duos, trios and even more become possible. Lee doesn’t create the Clown, she guides the actor to find it.
It is possible to conclude the workshop by a public presentation, which allows the new Clown to put his techniques to use, immediately after having learned them, before a live audience. This presentation is in fact a part of the learning process since the Clown only exists when he is before the public eye. The public laughs at the Clown because in him they recognize themselves, but they are superior to him and can therefore laugh. The Clown’s red nose, the tiniest mask in the world, allows a distancing to take place. For the actor, the nose protects against any psychological attachments to his own emotions or the public’s reactions; and for the public, the mask allows each individual to look at himself with harmless derision.
There are many great actors who are not Clowns but there are no great Clowns who are not great actors.
~ Lee Delong, artistic director