There's a hint of danger throughout "The New Bozena," at Off-Broadway's Cherry Lane Theatre. The show--titled after the group performing it--depicts a trio of red-nosed clowns. They improbably evoke the Three Stooges in an absurdist play examining--if that's the right word--a day in the life of its feckless heroes.
In one snippet of this loosely structured narrative, the performers, two of whom sport giant bird heads, toy with taboos: the non-bird admitting to his large feathered friends that he's madly in love with his own sister.
In another troubling and hilarious sequence, a not-so-benign clown-surgeon sporting horns on his head (Kevin Isola) is in the O.R. operating on a terminally ill patent. Everything that can go wrong does.
"The doctor comes from a place other than where he is at present," remarks Isola. "Everything is extremely foreign to him and he's constantly rediscovering and re-inventing his world."
The New Bozena is part of a new clown crop out there, 1990s style--dark, edgy, and slightly menacing. "Bozena" is New York City's current example of the work. But there was also "Fuze," by the group called Orlou, which enjoyed a recent Off-Off-Broadway run at La MaMa. Their predecessors, dating back to the mid-'80s, were dubbed creators of the New Vaudeville: Bill Irwin, the Flying Karamazov Brothers, Penn and Teller, Avner the Eccentric, Blue Man Group. They, in turn, and others of their ilk, trained with such groups as Herbert Blau's KRAKEN and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
Obviously the new troupes vary: Some are silent; others speak. Still others--The New Bozena is a case in point--employ a range of vocal sounds, along with gibberish and an occasional word or two to create a new language.
Most of the new clowns juggle, tumble, do mime and, within parameters, act. Indeed, at one point or another many have had formal acting training. The Bozena trio recently graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, having majored in acting.
So why the sudden burgeoning of clowns? Those we interviewed suggest a number of factors. For starters, clowning has a new respectability, thanks in part to Bill Irwin and David Shiner's successful Broadway production of "Fool Moon" in '93 and '96, and Blue Man Group, for five years a hot ticket Downtown.
In short, clowning has entered the cultural mainstream. Clowns may appear on a sitcom and/or in a movie. They're not infrequent guests on the night-time talk show circuit. Most striking, stand-up comics are increasingly employing clowning techniques in their acts. There is also a greater fluidity between theatre disciplines. Actors clown, clowns act, and everyone writes his own vehicle.
"New Bozena" 's director, Rainn Wilson, suggests that the resurgence of clowning today may also represent a new commitment to theatricality in theatre, as opposed to low-keyed realism: "Clowning is inherently theatrical with its heightened reality and its creation of characters in extreme situations. Clowning is pure performance!"
"The New Bozena"
We meet in a rehearsal studio at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. The three clowns and director, all in their late 20s, are easygoing and affable. "New Bozena" was spawned as a class project a few years ago and has subsequently gone through several incarnations as it has evolved into a full show.
None of the men intended to be clowns. They all have legitimate acting credits and hope to do more of the same in the future. One admits that he wants to be a movie star. Yet all are adamant on one point: They are not doing the show as a springboard to an acting career on stage or on the small or large screen. In their "New Bozena" personae they've had a few nibbles. But they maintain that their interest is in sustaining a theatre piece.
"New Bozena" 's goal is to talk directly to Generation X, "which is overeducated, unemployed or underemployed, and largely alienated from technology," says Wilson. "Yes, that kind of alienation is true of all clowns in all eras, but the questions we had to address [from a clown perspective] is what does it mean to be 20-something and alienated in the '90s? We call ourselves 'Slacker Vaudeville.' "
Adds David Costabile, one of the trio, "Our clowning includes a sense of horror and the macabre. We want to relate it to the modern world and the human condition. We're always one step away from being killed. It's about danger!"
Costabile's onstage alter ego, Ramon, emerges from an overwhelming fear of everything. Indeed, throughout he makes the strangest little noises that comically evoke a familiar sense of dread.
"My character, Spiv Westenberg, is also afraid," declares the third clown, Michael Dahlen. "But he's more driven. In some ways he's a down-to-earth good old boy, but with a real edge."
Says Wilson, with a chortle, "He's a meat-and-potatoes guy and probably a conspiracy theorist. He's trying to understand the world, but is still terribly alienated. He goes for it, but always suffers the consequences."
In his fright wig, bulbous nose, and ill-fitting jacket, Spiv is both victim and aggressor. In an odd-ball bit of group choreography that employs baseball bats and the three clowns flirtatiously shouting, "Look at me!" Spiv manages to seduce and assault the audience simultaneously.
Wilson suggests that their total sensibility is a Jerry Lewis-Samuel Beckett mix: "From the outset our goal has been to create a certain kind of world, full of silliness and non sequiturs, but never to be clever or jokey. There are several rules we work with: A clown always says yes, he is a creature of extremes, and he lives his life in a state of joy or anguish.
"Originally, we had a series of unconnected scenes. We had no idea about structure. Even after we came up with our overall idea, 'a day in the life of three clowns,' we've had to focus on storyline and arc."
Largely created through improvisation and experiments with off-the-wall hats, wigs, masks, and gestures, the piece is now set, but not scripted. "We know scene order," says Wilson, "But there may be variations within that structure at each performance."
The players are convinced that "The New Bozena," targeted at a 20-something crowd, speaks to a broad-based audience. "Yes, we're talking to ourselves and our friends," says Costibile. "We're doing what would make all of us laugh. But we've also found that couples in their 50s from New Jersey enjoy this--and my 70-year-old aunt loved it!"
Orlou's "Fuze"
To judge by the eclectic audience at La MaMa, where the 10-member Orlou's "Fuze" performed recently, it's clear that the new clown has broader-based appeal than one might expect. Still, the bulk of the audience was the late-night Gen-Xers.
"Fuze," a surreal theatre/circus, is a highly visual and theatrical event that brings together large video projections, acrobats, and an array of freakish characters that could emerge from a Magritte painting: a grotesquely made-up monster-emcee sprouting curlicue antlers; a woman dangling from a trapeze, playing the accordion with her feet; and, the central figure, a clown-bouffoon (Gary Chiappa), an armless tailed hunchback dressed in black who is at once absurd and pitiful.
This is a claustrophobic universe that partakes of the sideshow. Orlou was co-founded four years ago by Chiappa, a disciple of clown master Phillippe Gaulier. "I was always funny and physical and so when someone suggested I study with Gaulier, I kind of fell into this. My goal was never to be an actor, although many in the company are legitimate actors."
This bouffoon, who came into being in medieval France, is in many ways the opposite of the clown, Chiappa points out. The source of the comedy is the bouffoon's physical deformity or impairment: "The late comic Marty Feldman with his trademark bulging eyes would be a contemporary example of the bouffoon."
Chiappa's bouffoon is a object of pathos, lumbering about while making hurt animal sounds that combine words and whimpers. He is repellent. "You'd be amazed how difficult it is for me to give audience members balloons. [It's part of the show]. They don't want to touch me. The bouffoon is an unfortunate, but he's gentle and sweet. He also shares characteristics with the wise fool. He's smart. But, Chiappa adds, "because of his disabilities, he's seen as stupid and is taken advantage of."
In "Fuze" the bouffoon becomes increasingly dehumanized in the course of the show. In the familiar magic act, he is placed lengthwise in a box and sawed in half. Here something goes terribly wrong and for the rest of the evening the bouffoon hunkers across the stage with a bloodied bandage across his torso.
Shaped by a loose storyline and visual images, each production--and by extension the bouffoon's involvement in the plot--emerges through year-long improvisations.
"Although I've had offers to appear in sitcoms and movies as the bouffoon," recalls Chiappa, "my ultimate goal is to see Orlou in an Off-Broadway theatre for an extended run!"