Discovering the Clown, or The Funny Book of Good Acting

Preface

By Virginia Scott

I moved to Minneapolis in 1993. I have no satisfying reason to give for taking this action. Most everybody I knew at the time was vaguely befuddled by it. (And boy, oh boy, did it seem like a big mistake when winter hit and it got cold like I never even imagined cold could be!) But, perhaps, it was fate, because one night, new in town and looking to get in on the local theater scene, I stumbled upon a show that would change my life. That sounds dramatic. It wasn’t really that dramatic—no thunderbolts or explosions or chorus of angels—but it did completely blow my mind and send me in a totally new, unexpected direction. The show, This Ridiculous Dreaming, was a clown show performed by Christopher Bayes and I’d never seen anything like it.

Up to this point, theater had been defined for me by the repertory theater productions to which my parents had escorted me throughout my childhood and adolescence—lots of Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and the occasional Robert Wilson opera inexplicably sprinkled in for some reason. And I thought clown was Ronald McDonald or Bozo or just some shirtless guy with long hair and rainbow suspenders twisting balloon animals. The whole clown thing was mixed up in my head with Kiss and Robin Williams and TV variety specials. It was weird being a kid in the ’70s. Anyway, This Ridiculous Dreaming was something else entirely. It wasn’t boring for one thing. So many of those repertory theater shows felt like work, like something you had to make yourself sit through because it was good for you, like eating lima beans or doing sit-ups. This Ridiculous Dreaming was exciting, not because it was action-packed, but because there was no remove. Chris was so open, so vulnerable, and so honest, acknowledging a vital, genuine relationship with the audience. It felt like we were all in the room together with this incredible creature. And it was magical, but not because there were disappearing white tigers, or card tricks or helicopters landing on giant Cadillac cars. Chris presented a world of so much innocence that he could transform time and space through the simplest of means. A trunk became a bubbly bathtub. A menacing Nazi appeared through nothing but a coatrack, topcoat, and the repetitive flick of a metal zippo lighter. By the end of the show, when the theater transformed into a night sky, and Chris disappeared into its embrace, we knew we’d been visited by an amazing, fragile, hilarious little one, sometimes called a clown.

To me there is nothing more beautiful than a clown. I feel a little weird about that. I feel weird because the term clown is such a complicated one and can mean so many things, many of which I don’t find beautiful at all. I’m the type of person who craves clarity, so when I talk about clown I want to define what exactly I am talking about. I want to know the context. I am always asking myself, ‘Clown,’ okay, what is it, again, exactly? (I drive Chris nuts because he hates to say what anything is exactly.) What we’re talking about here is not the kind of clown who comes to your birthday party or performs in the circus (yes, even the Cirque du Soleil—I know some of you were thinking that was an exception). It’s not a Christian ministry clown or a hospital clown or a busker or a skills clown (one who juggles or does acrobatics primarily) or a rodeo clown or a slapstick vaudevillian. But if you wanted to do any of those things for some reason, you could do it with the simple spirit, appetite for fun, and generosity with your talent of the clown we are talking about. Or you could perform in an Ibsen, Chekhov or Shakespeare play (maybe even a Robert Wilson opera), and make the whole thing a whole heck of a lot more interesting, funny and alive. It’s kind of like the force in Star Wars. When the force is strong with you, it is strong with you no matter what you do. It is both the force (if you will) and the means through which you develop it that is Chris’s approach to clown.

But back in 1993 I didn’t know any of this. I knew only that what I had just seen that autumn night in Minnesota was the kind of theater I wanted to make. I also quickly found out that it wasn’t being made in many places and that not many people even knew how to make it at all.

Years later, Chris and I ended up in New York City at the same time. He thinks I don’t know that he tells people I was stalking him. Well, I wasn’t stalking him! It is true, however, that I did weasel my way into his advanced clown class at the now defunct Actor’s Center, a class into which I had no business being admitted. I had to do it because he never seemed to teach an introductory one. I wanted to take his class so badly that I was willing to give a ridiculous audition to gain admission to the Actor’s Center, falsely agree to take voice classes, and spin my previous experience as qualifying me for the advanced class. At the same time I did not want to take that class at all. I have a terror of performing, and clown class is, for even the most accomplished performer, a terrifying experience. If there is one thing I can offer to new students, it is sympathy. Clown is hard. There are no answers. You can’t figure it out. You can’t plan it. It’s incredibly frustrating for all those good students who want to work so hard and do such a good job. (I understand you very well!) But all that doing it right, for me, as I imagine it is for many, is basically just another way to hide. And in class, Chris insisted, Come out of your hiding places and show us what you care about, Olly Olly Oxen Free for God’s sake!

As we followed him, I saw my fellow students come into focus as they copped to their peculiarities and began to celebrate them. They became sensitive to the audience and willing to play in the moment. They ventured forth into the uncomfortable and the unknown and discovered new and profound things. Even I had a moment onstage I will never forget when I got to sing a song entitled, Oh, Little Clown, when I celebrated the mystery, courage and vulnerable spirit of the performer who hopes to be beautiful.

When that class ended, I convinced Chris to open a studio with me dedicated to his approach to clown and commedia ultimately named The Funny School of Good Acting (a name he chose over the runner-up, The École de Sac). Over the fifteen-plus years that The Funny School has been in operation, I’ve seen thousands of students transformed by Chris. It is remarkable to see them arrive in their polite bodies with their appropriate conversation, communicating to everyone that they are so very professional and super boring (it’s not true!), and then to see them become so full of life and fun that you can’t stop watching them. Chris reveals them and ignites in them an insistence to create a theater they value. He transforms them into the kind of artists who can make the kind of show I saw in Minneapolis, all those many years ago.

I’ve heard tell of (and maybe even encountered) clown teachers who start by breaking down the actor, relentlessly commenting on how horrible they are, mocking them, and even throwing things at them. And I understand that sometimes when the actor is pushed to complete failure and despair they give up all their bogus schtick and self-conscientious solutions so that perhaps they can find something new. Chris understands that a clown who only exists in failure leaves so much more to be discovered. But Chris gets to the failure part, but he doesn’t start with it. He does not focus on showing you how all your schtick is terrible (and of course it’s terrible). He doesn’t have to yell, No! at you, because if you are intent on pursuing a clever routine of some kind, you will hang yourself quite presently, and the monstrous silence in the room will yell, No! for him. It may be a heretical stance for a clown teacher to take but Chris is more interested in your success than in your failure. He is fond of saying that the audience wants the clown (and the actor) to be great. No one goes to the theater and thinks, I hope this is really bad. We go to the theater with hopes of being entertained and maybe even transformed. We want you to be good!

Sometimes some guy (strangely it is almost always a guy) gets all cranky with me (as the Funny School Dean, if you will) because he didn’t get what he thinks he paid for in clown class, which is some kind of comic technique, a solution to his fun, a matrix, a fill-in-the-blank instruction manual. But The Funny School of Good Acting doesn’t sell road maps for the soul. Instead, Chris shines a light ’round the bend in the darkness and gestures wildly, Over that way! No, you missed it! Back that way, just a little bit and … Yes! Look at you go! Meet you at the next intersection! Clowns discovered by Chris in this way are distinct from other clowns. They defy categorization, type or status. They become iconic—each unique, specific, and instantly identifiable. And they live on in your imagination between the time you last glimpse them on the stage and the time you get to see them again.

Watching Chris coax so many clowns into existence over the years has been one of the most profound experiences of my life (and it has been my great privilege to do some of my own coaxing too). I am so grateful to Chris and the artists who, with great courage, have taken and will take the leap into the unknown with us. For those of you who will never have a chance to be in the room with Chris, here’s a little bit of what he’s like. He has an aesthetic—a theatrical one I mean, not a personal one (although I suppose he has one of those too—boots, rolled cuffed jeans, tank tops, frameless glasses, a big ol’ messenger bag and tattoos [but only two and on the shoulders where they belong!]). His theatrical aesthetic is antique, low-tech, mysterious: a turn-crank music box, an old-fashioned valise, footlights, something on a pulley, carny lights with one or two missing on the string, a metal bucket, a moon in the night sky. If, as you are heading to class some night, you catch a glimpse of him lurking around the corner, you can almost see him standing in this world: an emissary to a place that is simpler, more romantic, more comic, more fun and more tragic than ours. In class, you may not notice, but Chris is always watching and listening, looking for an indication of where you need to go next and how to send you there. His particular genius is very connected to his sensitivity. He has an uncanny ability to see through all your defenses and good ideas and actor-y choices to what is essential and perhaps even special about you. Then he has the patience to try to get you to cop to it already! And he never gives up the hope that you will run with it and finally have some big-time, sparkle-town fun.

It must be peculiar, and perhaps not always easy, to be Chris. We all want so much from him. Make us funny! Unlock the comic world! Let us in! Fix us! You have all the answers, right? You are magic, aren’t you?! Perhaps because of that he chooses to remain somewhat personally mysterious. I’d definitely call him one squirrelly individual, but I’d also call him the greatest clown teacher of his generation. Catch sight of the twinkle in his eye and then he’s gone.

—VS

Brooklyn, NY

May 2019

Introduction

By Christopher Bayes

This is a book about clowns: the unique, the courageous, the fragile, the ferocious, the innocent and, of course, the hilarious. It is not a manual about how to teach clown or how to learn to be a clown. It is not an instruction book. It is (I