A Conspiracy Of Clowns

Phew, so…well, this is vaguely embarrassing – I’m sure the 2 readers that we used to have (no, it’s not our moms) must have gotten the hell in and gone over to the YOU blogs or something…but slowly slowly the Conspiracy wakes up and will soon return to the fray with more zing and spring than before.  Yes!  To entertain and edify (ed – que?) you, and bring back the snappy tales you know and love.

OK, that whiffle done, this is a shout out to say yeah, we’re back, and there’s news and stuff, which we’ll get to soon…and not one, no, but TWO new shows a-comin’ up in the not so distant future. Yes, TWO.  We’re so super impressed with that that I put that in caps…kinda like I’m shouting.  Geddit?

Welcome back the two of you cry…why thank you.  Apologies for radio silence, and from on in the Conspiracy will endeavour like never (heh! rhymes!) before to keep you on your toes, on the edge of your seats, and head in the wild blue magic of it all.

Watch this face for details…

This one’s a beeg bolt of love, wishes, and congratulations to Janni and Luke Younge, who last week brought their daughter into the world.  Mazeltof, guys.  May her life be long, happy and adventurous.  All love from the clowns.

Starting to become undone by the food here in Buenos Aires (after 7 breakfasts of frosties and fruit for breakfast, ham and cheese rolls/little pies whose name escapes me now, we strike it lucky with the discovery of a Chinese buffet self-service restaurant.  $19 buys you a plate and you can keep returning as often as you like.  So we pig out on vegetables and salad and the body weeps its thanks.

This is the view from our hostel window, with all the forlorn beauty that is Buenos Aires.

Another technical set up.  Another day on the boards.

With the previous night’s exertions still fresh, we limp down to breakfast to bump into the other SA show, Living in a Strange Land and watch them become more nervous as we regale them with our horror stories and they await their turn for the marathon technical. 

Our day is no less packed, as we’re back to IUNA for our 2nd talk and a workshop in the afternoon. 

The lec-dem is about the making of GUMBO and FTH:K’s development into visual performance.  It’s a smaller crowd than the previous one, but a great chat with everybody. 

After a very healthy lunch (we finally track down a decent greengrocer!) we launch into the first part of our 2 day workshop.  We’re exploring our approach summed up by Listen With Your Eyes, and have a great mix of Deaf and hearing both SA and Argentina.  Yep – more wild translations!

In the 2 days we’re dealing briefly with the cornerstones of our work, which are silence, space, image, and play. A quick introduction leads us into spatial investigation and interpersonal awareness.  This analysis evolves into a short possible scene where everybody is trapped in a burning building, and participants are running around playing a movement game while responding to the stimulus.  It was great to see how quickly we can make bonds.

A really interesting group – made up of some drama students, members of ADAS (an Argentinean integrated group doing similar work to us), a psycho-analyst (intrigued by the possibilities of the non-verbal), and various others.

An interesting thing to note is that our workshops are changing – previously we’ve always been guilty of trying to stuff too much into them, and consequently rush through stuff getting through everything. Now we’re taking longer, spending more time on fewer exercises, and allowing them to develop and grow organically.  Fascinating. Look forward to Part 2 tomorrow!

Then the weirdness of an hour or so with nothing to do.  Truly.  Both other SA shows were opening, and we decided to go to Living in a Strange Land and maybe Magnet later. 

Strange Land is very interesting.  I knew the subject matter was about Tsefendas and his assassination of Verwoerd, but little other detail.  It poses the fascinating question of how far one would go to stop something (or someone) that you knew was wrong…in this case, the architect of Apartheid.  At some point, reflecting on the current state of SA politics, we mused that you could just shift those characters and you end up with a hectically political vehicle.   Hmm.

Feeling a little tired and drained after another very busy day, we decided to keep Magnet til tonight, and went to dinner where we hooked up with the Strange Land cast and talked kak over red wine.  Isn’t it strange that sometimes you have to go halfway around the world before you get to know some of your fellow country people?

Phew. Opening nights are exhausting - such a blast of adrenaline and nerves and people and catching up and schmoozing and hatching plans…no time to have much more than a glass of the wine sponsored so generously by Distell.

But what a great night. People were out in force and flying their support flag - we even had a few friends who happened to be in town from Joburg, heard we were opening, and managed to sweet talk their ways in. Thanks for all the support and well-wishing.

The show continues to grow - one of the best things about a season is the opportunity to really get into the meat of the performance, and Liezl and Dorian are starting to tuck in. Apart from a bizarre day yesterday when the puppet’s arm broke a few hours before the show, and then Dorian’s pants split, and then the puppet’s (her again!) neck wire snapped in the last scene…we were helluva lucky Janni was in the audience so she whisked her away to do emergency surgery today.

We’re getting the most interesting and detailed feedback. People are being very forthcoming with opinions and their interpretations, and that’s great. We wondered if the silence of the show builds up so much in the audience, that come the end, they have to talk immediately, specifically, and with much vigour. Pop! Just like that. Pop goes the word.

There’s a review clip of the show on Bizcommunity here, and Megan has blogged about the show again here, which is a rare honour.

Onward to the dreaded second night…

And so here we are - we have arrived at Opening Night. The theatre’s full, the performers are ready, we’ve been steadily building up over the last few nights, we’re about as ready as we can be. Here beginneth the next phase…

And we got prizes! Yep - Coffebeansroutes, those amazing guys, have generously sponsored a lucky draw prize tonight of a double ticket for their Cape Town Jazz Safari. It looks fab…but unfortunately not up for us thespy people, but for you guys out there.

And buying a ticket to Pictures of You enables you to enter our Grand Prize of a weekend away for two to Buffelsdrift Game Lodge. Wow! All you have to do is fill in an entry form - draw takes place when our season ends on 21 February.

See y’all at the theatre…

And so, with the butterflies in full flight, and excitement fuzzing our eyes, we set off on our biggest adventure with Pictures of You yet - moving into the Baxter for our premier season! It’s gonna be 3 weeks of testing this awkward, strange little child of a play against the big boys in the industry backyard, and see what local audiences make of it.

But in spite of the nerves, we are in a good place having done two shows at Suidoosterfees - good houses, great reception, and we’re confident that the new bits and the tweaked bits are playing smoother and adding their texture to the narrative. James has tweaked the sound as well, and it’s a delicious new monster to discover all over again.

Phew. Eyes on the prize and realise that challenges come in all shapes and size. Here we go…

It’s been an interesting few weeks of getting back into rehearsal and chipping away at the show again and that’s included going right back to the source.  I was chatting to Zane about it this week too, and again it struck me what a long, convoluted journey we’ve been on.  That’s really one of the joys and major frustrations with the devised work we do – sometimes the process meanders along, and you don’t have a clue where it’s going, and other times it sits in the doldrums and you start prostrating yourself for some kinda wind for the sails.

Anyhoo, Pictures of You all started back in 2007.  We were touring GUMBO all over the country and spending a lot of time away from home, and dealing with that slightly displaced alienation you always get on tours.  Me and Liez had been talking for yonks about working in masks, and it was weirdly suddenly in the air – we bumped into Ellis Pearson in Johannesburg, who treated us to a sneak preview of his half-mask show for schools, and Aldo Brincat was around doing Arney at Kalk Bay. at some point.  So we plotted vaguely about incorporating masks into some work we did…y’know – sometime in the future.

The future came a lot closer when at National Arts Festival that year, the bare bones of a story fell out of the sky.  Was it a dream?  I can’t remember.  It would suit the show, but I skiem I’d be making it up if I said that for sure.  But for some reason, a scene from Battle of the Sexes popped into my head.

Now in this, Peter Sellers is quite creepy as he plays Mr Martin – a mild mannered Scot clerk who, taking umbrage at the hostilities of a brash American woman (Constance Cummings) hired to investigate inefficiency at the firm, decides to murder her.  The scene in question is inspired, with Sellers at his best in his half-hearted attempts to kill her, and always just being foiled.  This all takes place in a kitchen and involves, amongst other things, ice scrapers, carving knives, and a whisk (you’ll just have to see it).

It’s not the best Sellers film, by a long shot.  But the scene is great.  Really funny and pretty dark.  And for some reason, the action of trying to kill one’s spouse stuck.  Let’s not get too analytic here – I was a few months away from getting married, but not for a second a I suggesting anything that you’re reading between the lines.  Nor am I condoning domestic violence.

What interested me was the question: what would drive a seemingly mild-mannered man to the point of murdering his spouse?  What extreme crisis of character or identity would lead him to such lengths?

At the same time as all of this, I’d been reading up on male identity, midlife crises, self-actualisation, and so on for another project.  So everything was simmering away merrily, and at Grahamstown came this seed of a story: a husband and wife’s marriage is perfect on the surface, but underneath is a broiling mess of unfulfilled desire.  He starts dreaming wildly, and in his dreams he meets a Dream Creature.  She entices him more and more to visit her, and eventually he is hooked.  Addicted.  Can’t get enough of her.  So he cooks up a plan (or is coerced) to swap his wife for the creature, by killing her, thus opening the portal for dream-real exchange (some dodgy quantum physics there, I know…very Vurt, very Pan’s Labyrinth, very very David Lynch: Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, etc…did I ever say I was a shameless borrower?).

Thus began a battle for their souls, and a clash between the real and dreaming worlds.  Pretty obscure.  Slightly abstract.  And we figured that maybe not to so many people’s taste.  Especially when funders started saying “no”.  But through this process of development, we had succoured the services of 2 other main collaborators: James Webb for sound design and Janni Younge for visual design and creation.

We also had a title - “Of Quiet Desperation”, from that awesome quote by Thoreau: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

This was the original mock-up of the poster.  Notice how originally Liez and I were going to play the parts, and Tanya was down to direct.  We had also ambitiously marked March as our premiere.  (Boy, was that quickly gonna change!)

But what we had to start with was a cool, creepy, dark, slightly comic, very surreal, and all round disturbing glimpse into human behaviour under pressure.  It was certainly something build on.

Stay tuned for the next instalment…

Internationally renowned clown and theatre pedagogue Giovanni Fusetti will be in Cape Town in March to do a weeklong residency, “The Essence of Physical Comedy: From the Neutral mask to the Red Nose”.  This is gonna be huge!  And Liezl and I  have both been accepted, so it will be a great tonic and refreshing play session for the Conspiracy before we knuckle down to some national touring (more about that later).

According to the website, the application date has now closed, but maybe you can try your luck?!?!  Email Yve at clowningworkshop@gmail.com

In the meantime, we dream our dreamy little dreams and wait all expectantly.

Phew.  It’s true – less than three weeks to go before Pictures of You opens at the Baxter and we are bundles of nerves.  At once hectically excited and pants-wettingly nervy.  Which is kinda normal, I guess.

But there is a slight pressure to do better at the Baxter than GUMBO did last year – we gotta surely keep growing.  It’s also the beginning of the year, and a good season will set us up very well.  And, of course, let’s not forget the whole prove that this kinda theatre can work.  And by that, I mean non-verbal, visual, slightly alternative, somewhat surreal, and fiercely independent in a mainstream venue.

Whatever happens, it’s a glorious adventure and we hope people come along for the ride.

But man, those butterflies!