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by Jeff Catanese

show reviewed March 23, 2002

When you’re watching clowns (I mean real clowns, with real big red noses, and real funny shoes) bound around on stage doing their clown thing, you realize how completely influential clowns have become to our own pop culture. I’m not just talking about Roberto Benigni, Jim Carrey or Rowan Atkinson, nor just Benny Hill and Red Skelton. I’m talking about the Commedia dell’Arte archetypes that infest NBC’s Thursday night lineup and appear as comic relief in many of this year’s Oscar nominees.

Clown is everywhere, yet outside of clown circles it is largely misunderstood and often unrecognized. (“Clown” being the insider term to define the act of being a clown; not “clowning.”) So it was with great interest and minor trepidation that I approached The Great Show Show Show presented by The John Brown Theatre. I was pleasantly surprised not only by the show, but also by my own inability to wipe the smile off my face as I sat like a kid seeing Emmett Kelly for the very first time.

These clowns are clowns as we’d expect, yet in many ways different. They were dressed like clowns, but not in clown suits, instead picking their comic apparel from the thrift shops that befit the Lower East Side Manhattan neighborhood that the theater was in. The big red noses were there, but no other garish makeup, so the exaggerated smiles and frowns of these exaggerated personalities came directly from the actors themselves. The scenes that were performed were very strictly structured as to locale and character, but the bits contained within those scenes were improvised, always with great respect to clown, mime and Commedia.

In the semi-darkness before the show even started, the anticipation was palpable as the audience peered underneath the curtain and wondered what belonged to the bright yellow shoes. The clowns burst on the stage in a musical bit that first showed the physical prowess they would utilize throughout the show. The persona of each clown was almost immediately apparent: Mr. Mustard (Eric Davis), who was, in fact, mean and the put-upon ringleader of the clan, Dixie Cup (Linsey Lindberg) a sweet little girl, Captain Napkin (Alex Kipp), a somewhat clueless buffoon, Cornelius Corndog (Nick Jumara), a mischievous man/child, and Peg Tablesetter (Audrey Crabtree), a bossy busybody.

During the early scenes, as much as I was enjoying the comic interplay between the clowns, I was having a hard time embracing the improvisational elements. The flaws were the same as those prevalent in many non-clown improv troupes: performing for themselves instead of the scene, refusing offers, uncooperative tech refusing natural endings, and taking too long to set up a bit that, in the end, would be unworthy of such a lengthy set-up. At one point Mr. Mustard even exclaimed, “That’s not theater… Waiting around,” echoing my sentiments exactly. Fortunately, these moments were few.

The moments that were good were many. And they were very good. The simplicity of each fundamental idea gave the performers a lot of room to expand on them or simply let the wheels spin while they reveled in glorious lazzi. The group was at their best when working together and (sometimes literally) attacking some piece of physical comedy. Also, their self-deprecating characters allowed them to verbally attack and abuse the audience without ever alienating them. Ms. Crabtree had a lot of fun with an inattentive man in the front row, and continued to use his negligence as she went back into her scene. Mr. Mustard, upon hearing my laughter alone at one of his bits, pointed directly at me and screamed “You like me” while performing an odd contortion akin to dancing, and flipping off the rest of the crowd.

The longest scene of the evening began as the singular bit of Dixie Cup mistaking Mr. Mustard’s attentions as amorous. As the bit built it seemed that the punchline would cap the scene, and the show would go elsewhere. But, as the natural ending approached, Ms. Lindberg’s emotional honesty allowed her to display her sadness without forcing a new direction to the scene, and Ms. Crabtree entered sympathetically and the scene moved itself. It soon became a poignant examination of gender relations. (OK, it became a big fight in which Captain Napkin had his dress ripped off, but the poignancy was there if you wanted it.)

The main reason this group deserves applause is their daring, their willingness to go out on a limb and just hang there, even if it’s an uncomfortable position to be in. How many other shows does one see an improvised scene where the crux is something called “Operation Shuteye,” and then have it work? This is certainly not Bozo, but it is also certainly not some arty piece of downtown pretension trying to teach a young audience why they should adhere to the classics. This is a group that has studied. They’ve done their homework and, in the end, learned that the secret to clown is to have a really good time creating extraordinary and ridiculous circumstances. Anyone will easily come away smiling, unless they are scared of clowns.