In which Our Hero contemplates monkey business
Why is it funny to watch someone trying so hard? Repeating the same failed strategy over and over? Exaggerating a single specific trait?
Is clowning the humor version of a character’s tragic flaw? Is the same element that drives us to extrapolate a whole character from one personal or physical or psychological deformity also the same that makes us love this repetitive, heightened, exaggerated play?
Do monkeys clown? They certainly have tragic flaws. Do they goof? Perform mockery? Satire?
—
I visited a clown performance today. Half a dozen clowns stuffed into one small stage. One read the story of Snow White and walked oh so slowly across the stage. Another pantomimed a horse and played the audience like a musical instrument. A third sang Disney songs and perhaps was a burlesque performer not a clown. My favorite was a clown singer. Here’s what he did:
- Appeared on stage in a shiny jacket and ascot to announce “and for my final song…” (which is already a funny opener)
- Followed it up by announcing it would be “one from my new album…”
- Cued the DJ by referring to him as “song boy”
- Performed precisely three funny gestures
- Sang the beginning of a song
- The song had some small snag, so he stopped and refused to sing again until we the audience showed him enough love (eg by demanding an encore)
- Repeated from the beginning
I loved the whole thing. My only gripes were 1) the women behind me who were talking during the show, and 2) the ending could increase our love for the performer rather than merely end it.
I have a few hunches on how to execute #2. I’ll share them with the performer when I see him. (It’s unfortunately not legal to execute #1.)
—
The funniest-in-concept performer was a poet who wasn’t obviously a clown nor obviously a poet, who prompted the audience to not know whether it was intended to be earnest or funny. I couldn’t stop laughing.
After the show, I approached this poet. I needed to know if he was real or not. My conclusion: he’s a real poet who really did just find himself repeating reordered sequences of the same sentence of words at an underground clown show.
Maybe that’s the secret: the clown, the poet, and the rest of us: each repeating our flaw until it becomes a performance worth watching. And perhaps that fact is the funniest of all.
Julian Wise 