A New Face of Commedia
How can something change and yet remain the same?
The shows were coming fast. We didn’t know what we were doing but it was working. We hoped that someday we would “make it.” Make what? Make money and fame, I guess.
Two shows that Loonisee did at the West End:
A Clown in Every Home
“Our house is a very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard….”. Rockbert sang the song by ‘Crosby, Nash and Young’, Buffalo Buck played the banjo and Humphrey played the mandolin. How do clowns live? We explored household management and family relationships with play and humour.
Rockbert emerged from the trap door in the middle of the stage floor. He had been crawling through the cobwebs under the stage. He was trying to clean and he was looking for Mister. The chase was on.
Humphrey was trying to have a shower but Rockbert was doing the dishes. As the water turned from hot to cold, to hot, Humphrey shivered and shook.
Close to four hundred people of all ages would fill the theatre. Our friends and neighbours would fill up the first row.
To Sleep or Not to Sleep
“Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed”. We used my friend’s wonderful hand-made quilt on a double bed in the middle of the stage as our set and explored the trials and tribulation of putting clowns to bed. “Sleep, sleep, you’ve got to go to sleep.” Sang Rockbert, Buffalo Buck and Humphrey. Clowns, like children, never want to go to sleep. Humphrey sang a wonderful lullaby about a child going to sleep, and all the clowns dropped off where we were. At one point, Rockbert sang “Lean on Me” but accidentally moved as Mister put his head on Rockbert’s shoulder and didn’t notice as Mister did a pratfall.
Popcorn Philosophy
I love this quote from Joel Schechter about Popular Theatre:
“Popular theatre rarely ends up in print. Circus clowns in Paris, shadow puppeteers in Java, commedia dell’arte troupes in Venice, Yiddish vaudevillians in New York have not been reviewed regularly by the press; and few of them published program books, scenarios or plays. The artists kept their work alive by performing it, and passed scenarios to future generations through oral transmission or apprenticeship. Their art lives in bodies and voices, in their memories and stage acts, and those of people who know them; their repertoire reposes in people and in that sense among others their theatre is popular.” P 3
The performers in Loonisee were going through a time of raising young families, as were our friends and neighbours. These shows became an expression of what we were going through as young parents and the shows also became our recreation. We hoped that money from the entrance to the performances would be able to pay for babysitting and the theatre rental. The West End was in its new days and would charge us 4% of the door for stage and rehearsal time. It was an excellent opportunity.
When we sat down to plan the eight shows of the year, we looked at all the different aspects of parenting and how that could reflect in our performances. It was a wonderful way to address our own challenges as parents and great for our neighbours and friends to identify and laugh at the issues that caused us so many difficulties. Children’s music with performers like Raffi and Fred Penner was just beginning and there was a rich assortment of music to choose from to enhance our performances. Sometimes Rockbert would change the lyrics to a well-known song and we would have fun with it. James Meagher wrote some beautiful original music for shows, but we didn’t even record it. The shows were very much a one-time celebration of living in a family. When I think of how easy it is to take pictures and record now, it seems like magic. We have very little archival material from Loonisee and there was so much original work. Like commedia, it was meant for that place and that time and carried on in people’s memories.
Odds & Ends
THE WINNIPEG SUN Tuesday, August 23, 1998 p.23
A little Loonisee goes a long way
By KAREN CROSLEY
For The Sun
If you’re wandering around downtown this weekend, be prepared for a little Loonisee on the streets.
Loonisee, a local clown troupe, is one of the 29 local acts who will be participating in the Winnipeg International Street Performers Festival, Taking it to the Streets ’88.
Unlike many of the acts that will be appearing on the city street corners between Aug 25 and 28, Loonisee members are not professional street performers. Guitarists Jake Chenier and Jeff Olson and clowns Sue and Brian Proctor, David and Lynn Langdon, and Karen Ridd all have wide ranging performance backgrounds, but they have only been working together for a short time.
Though they have some routines prepared, the group plans to make up new routines on the spot, depending on the type of audience that is watching them.
“It’s very free-form stuff, with no stage or fixed areas to perform in,” says Ridd.
“You have to be thinking on your feet.”
The troupe agrees that it takes a special kind of courage to perform without a stage. But there are also special rewards.
“When you carry the stage with you there are no boundaries,” says Sue Proctor.
“After a show kids will come up and want to meet your character, to touch you and hug you,” Ridd adds.
“One time, by the time we were finished a show we had more kids up with us than were watching,” David Langdon recalls.
“We had to end it gradually.”
“When you have your audience all around you there’s no escape,” says Chenier.
The members of Loonisee say they love that kind of thing. Rather than cracking under the pressure of having to be funny, they thrive on the freedom of clowning.
Lynn Langdon says being a clown lets you do lots of things you might like to do, but wouldn’t normally be caught doing.
“You find you are doing things you might do privately in a mirror or something. Because you have the mask of the clown, you have that freedom and are allowed to become vulnerable.”
Aside from having fun, the members of Loonisee feel there is a real purpose in clowning.
“We need foolishness, because we’re all to wise and serious,” says Brian Proctor.
“Clowning is about things like peace, love, and understanding. We bring that out in people with a little bit of luck.”
References
Schechter, Joel, ed. Popular Theatre: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2003.