Loonisee Everywhere
My world was becoming filtered through a clown lens.
It was a time when clowning and the idea of humour and healing became popular. Opportunities opened for us to write original material and perform in schools, at conferences, festivals and community celebrations.
The Farm Show
Mister was pulling a golf cart from behind the curtains onto the stage at the West End Cultural Centre. He pulled so hard that he did a somersault and landed on the floor in front of the stage, almost in somebody’s lap. Sitting in the front row was a mom with a little boy who was afraid of clowns. He started to howl. His mom took him through the theatre, out the theatre doors into the foyer. She stayed there comforting him, telling him that the clown would not come back there.
A few more minutes into the show, the character Mister drove an imaginary tractor right off the stage and down the aisle to the back of the theatre where he went through the door and crashed into a pile of pre-set pots that fell down the stairs so that the audience would think that Mister had an accident. He almost ran into the mom and the boy.
The boy started howling again and the mom took him outside onto the steps. She said that she was trying to be comforting but she was laughing so hard that she could hardly stand up.
Popcorn Philosophy
Quite often in sixteenth-century theaters or twentieth-century film studios the plot, indeed, the script, is no more than a sheet of paper pinned up in the wings, listing situations and routines; the lover hidden under the bed or signing a serenade; the visit to the dentist; the drunk accosting the policeman; the con men tickling each other; the imaginary ladder to climb or meal to eat; the somersault holding the full tumbler; the violin solo, half parody, half pathos. Greene, P 10.
This is how the shows at the West End were played. We had a basic action plan tacked up in the wings – first this scene, then the next and we improvised our way through each scene. As we came off the stage, we would check the list and then head out again. We followed the logic of each character. In rehearsal we asked, “What would your character do when…?” as time progressed, we got to know each other’s characters and would know what to expect. There were always surprises and that kept us on our toes. One time, our musician James, accidentally skipped ahead to the last scene. Through some fancy improvisation we managed to go back to the middle of the scenario and circle around to the end again. It was like a flash of light when we realized what had happened and knew we had to change tack. It was quite a triumph in the end.
Peacock Performance - Puss in Cahoots
I was working at Tall Grass Prairie as a counter person and decided that I wanted to write a musical pantomime. Trouble was, I didn’t know how to write music. Paul Langel, also the lovely clown Alexander, who was one of the owners of Tall Grass, offered to write the music and lyrics.
Puss in Cahoots: The Musical
Written by Sue Proctor - Music and Lyrics by Paul Langel
Based on the story by Charles Perrault – August 10, 2008
List of Characters
3 Mosquitoes - Tiny puppets hanging from fishing rods held by actors who are dressed like mosquitoes but have their headdresses turned backwards, to be turned around when the small mosquitoes transform into large mosquitoes.
3 Mice – Puppets manipulated by actors dressed in grey.
3 Crows – Actors dressed like the Blues Brothers, rock and roll stars with dark hats, sun glasses and capes that flap.
Rabbit – actor with simple glove puppet.
Goose puppet
Puss – A person dressed as a cat
Preston, the Marquis de Carabas – young man who is a farmer’s son and turns into the Marquis once he is wearing fancy clothes.
Preston’s Father
Mother Goose - traditionally, a man dressed up as a woman.
Shoemaker
Cook – for the Ogre’s Restaurant.
Ogre Friends – Monsters with masks wearing capes
Ogre – The Ogre becomes a Lion and then Puss’s Feline Friend - a person dressed as a girl cat.
Set:
The sets can be very simple. The farmhouse is up SR. The boys are sitting on a bench in front of the farmhouse, leaning on each other and dozing as the play begins. After Scene 3 the farmhouse is transformed into the Ogre’s Palace Restaurant and a table and chair CS represent the inside of the restaurant.
Scene 1 – Old Farm Yard: (CAT enters from SR, circle and sleeps near to PRESTON who is dozing on the bench. MICE enter SL doing a Conga Line dance. The CROWS enter from SL cawing and flying in a circle. The MOSQUITOES fly in from SL and buzz around PRESTON. The RABBIT comes hopping on, the GOOSE comes waddling SL. They all sing “Country Living.” CAT jumps up after the first verse and becomes a leader.)
Country Living
Country Living
Suits us fine
We could dance all day
Crows, mosquitoes,
Friends of mine,
Beat those drums and play
(CAT jumps up)
Watch me jump
Watch me skip
Watch out mice
Don’t give me lip
Chorus (Others sing):
Puss is in a dancing mood,
Satisfied indeed!
Belly full of country food
What more could they need!
Country living
Suits them well
They can hunt and chase
Better than
A fine hotel
Is this country place
CAT pretends to threaten mice to audience, but mice
don’t notice because they are so intent on dancing.)
Watch me strut
Watch me prance
Kicking mice
My favorite dance
(Music slows down, there’s room for movement)
Chorus…
Country living
It’s a slice
Don’t mind mud and muck
All day long
They are after mice
Trap them so they’re stuck
Watch me turn
Watch me sway
Sorry mice
It’s time to play.
(CAT roars at the MICE. The MICE run out squeaking when they discover the CAT is after them.)
Chorus…
Repeat. (To be cont’d)
Odds & Ends
References
Green, Martin, and John C Swan. The Triumph of Pierrot: The Commedia Dell'arte and the Modern Imagination. Rev. ed., Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. P 10.
How frustrating. The article is not big enough to read. Barb Nolan was the one who insisted on having my first clown class that was posted in the Leisure Guide. When they told her that the class wouldn't run because of lack of participants, she got all her friends to register so that we had a class. We laughed later because for the first class, she came with Penaten creme all over her face to create the effect of clown white. She became a huge advocate for clowning. So here is what the article says:
Under the picture: Nolan spends most of her working hours with dying patients and their families.
Ttitle: Nurse puts on a brave face, earns smiles from the dying
By Allison Bray
Staff Reporter
BARBARA NOLAN is perkiness personified.
Her warm, friendly face breaks into an infectious smile, disarming the conference guests gathered to listen to her discussion of humour in the workplace.
It's not surprising to learn that she spends her weekends entertaining children as Twinkles the Clown.
But this is no ordinary jokester.
Nolan is a registered nurse who spends most of her time among the dying and bereaved as program co-ordinator for the province's Hospice and Palliative Care program.
Despite the grim and heart-wrenching nature of her work, Nolan is a strong believer in the power of humour for both those who are terminally ill and those working with the dying.
"Humour can make coping easier when times are tough," she told a gathering of palliative care workers at the 8th annual Provincial Hospital Palliative Care conference here yesterday.
"It can be sad, but there are also moments of joy we share with people."
Nolan, 33, said one of the important lessons she has learned in her 10 years in palliative care is no matter how much the body may be failing, life goes on until the person dies.
She borrows a quote from George Bernard Shaw to illustrate her point:
"Life doesn't cease to have funny moments when we are dying, just as life does not cease to be serious when we laugh."
But she was quick to warn that humour must be dispensed with sensitivity. "You have to respect people and where they're at. You have to match their tone."
For this reason, Nolan would never walz onto a palliative care ward with a beaming smile, or initiate jokes with a family trying to cope with a loved one's recent or imminent death. But she said a sense of humour is often appreciated by the terminally ill and their families.
"Sometimes they just want to laugh and be normal when everything around them isn't normal," she said.
"Humour in the midst of sadness can be very helpful."
As a tool, humour is also effective for people who work with the dying.
That stress can take the toll on the 60 volunteers she organizes to visit the dying and their families before and after the bereavement process.
"We take our work seriously but we should take ourselves less seriously," Nolan said. "For us as caregivers, we can use humour to keep ourselves healthy."
Nolan refers to media reports indicating a link between laughing and an increased immune response in the body as well as a surge in the release of pleasure stimulators in the brain known as endorphins.
She added that an average adult laughs 15 times a day, compared with an average child, who laughs between 300 and 400 times a day.