Clown
Clown is the most spontaneous creature on Earth. When you start restraining his freedom, he loses himself and whimpers like a child. Basically, it means that you offended him deeply. Clowns are very special, and they need a special treatmeant. Like the lunatics or, I don’t know, like the drunk or the dogs.
It’s not merely that you see the one like yourself. You sense him, through the means of perception, through certain external moves, the manner of life… All of this is for him only, but absolutely useless for the rest of people. At a glance you notice how unusual he is. Like, when you offer him a seat, he answers: “I will lie down here”. His answer is inadequate, but that is not because he wants to show off, rather it is his normal condition, the only one in which he feels happy. I always use my son as an example. I tell him: “Vanya, bring me a teapot”. Vanya lies on the floor, rolls to the kitchen and comes back with the pot on his head. This is his normal enjoyment of the game. To live as usual would be dull and uninteresting, he feels the emptiness of this life. All his being fights against everyday occurrence, routine, and he seeks the festival and the game.
Freedom is everything to the clown. The only thing I cannot stand is when my freedom is restrained. I cannot imagine the situation when I have no freedom of choice. Generally, I might never need it. But, when signing a contract, I do never agree not to be free, and I always ask to cross this clause out. I am annoyed with the very fact that somebody dictates me something. This is the reason, by the way, why the majority of clowns take to drinking, being unable to regulate their free zone in the society. The clown cannot stand against the violence, just like a child. You swaddle him, yet he is screaming, bastard. He wants to run to THAT bench, he wants to push his head into THAT tube, for the life of you. The child and the clown are quite alike.
The nature of talent is important for the clown, too, but not as much as freedom. When I was creating my troupe for the Licedei (Pagliazzi) theatre, my criterion for the actors was “an electricity-man”. I found some five like this. But there were others – gracious, languid, and tender. Like Robert Gorodetsky, for instance. He has no energy, no aggression. Instead there is depth, subtlety in him, he and Vertinsky are soulmates. Apparently, it is possible not only within the society. There are periods in history that create conditions for the emergence of such clowns. If there were a normal cabaret atmosphere in Russia, we would get a score of perfect melancholic, poetic, metaphysical clowns. But in the revolutionary vortex and cataclysms only the leaders and the monsters can survive.
The biggest question for the clown is his mask; sometimes you search for it all your life. You try different ways, different varieties: once you find a piece of make-up, next time – a piece of costume, then – a psychological detail, the rhythm, the walk. Doing that, you can go back to different things. But first of all you’ve got to ‘catch’ yourself.
There are lots of masks nowadays. Life became diverse, a traditional duo-typical system, to which everyone was used, has disappeared. There are no Red Clown and White Clown, Harlequin and Pierrot, no city fop and country bumpkin, no Quick and Slow or Witty and Silly Clowns, etc. As soon as the archetype of social life has broken down, so did the type of relationship between the clowns and the audience.
Today’s clowns, as before, are reflecting the archetypes of our life, and mould their own system. My idea of choice of the clowns for the Theatre Olympics was to recreate the image of the 20th century through their masks. I chose anarchist, extremist, philosopher, poet, absurdist and metaphysician, – this, I believe, was an ideal choice. The French Dechamp is a true Kharms!
And the Italian Bassi is a fantastic extremist. For nine days I was talking him off an idea to explode a cask of shit at the Duma! That was a real problem to me, for I knew, if it happened, there would be no festivals for me in future. Yet for him it was natural. “The world is a gigantic Coliseum”, he thought, “and I must make people listen to me. But to do so, I need to hear the world: what are its interests, what is topical for it. What is the clown for? – To give joy to people. And what will give more joy to people than if I explode a cask of shit at the Duma?” He is a very logical man, this Leo.
But generally, all clowns are philosophers, in the end.
Translated from Russian by Julia Shuvalova