A Conspiracy Of Clowns

So after a long time of planning and dreaming and meeting and dealing with stallings like builders and dust and plaster and hectic schedules and so on we’re on the next step of the journey.

First step was to cast our faces for the mask making process.  We’ve been thinking about which materials to build the masks with - do we go more organic with stitchings and bandages and so on, or closer to the Pictures of You style with papier mache?  One would love the time to truly explore even the choice of construction and different options, but time and budget is not always on our side.

Our venue in Woodstock is being renovated, which is awesome.  Truly awesome.  But man, such bad timing.  So we’re having to rent a space in the Obs Community Centre where…yep, you guessed it, renovation is happening.  Can’t wait to see what effect the drills, hammers, scrapings, dust, paint, and so on have on the ultimate shape of the work.

But no, the photo to the right is not to protect us from the dust, but an investigation with the ‘flu mask.  That’s all I’m saying now…or is it?

Stay tuned for hopefully more regular updates and behind the scene sneak peeks.  QUACK! is gonna be something else…

It’s a week of announcements, clearly.  Not only does Megan announce the imminent arrival of Noah of Cape Town, but at FTH:K we are proud to announce our latest venture – QUACK!

It is simply an exceptional team: on the performance front is Liezl de Kock (Pictures of You and GUMBO), Lysander Barends (GUMBO and Ek Roep vir Jou Vanaand), Taryn Bennett (Frogs and Dr Collinger’s Funeral Service), and Marlon Snyders (GUMBO and Ek Roep vir Jou Vanaand).  Masks are by Janni Younge who designed and made our excellent masks for Pictures of You).  Set and props are by Jesse Kramer (of Koos Sas, Ghoema!, The Kramer and Pieterson Songbook fame).  Costumes are by Leila Anderson (BeLongings and Isabella).  And the sound design is by the award-winning James Webb (of Pictures of You, Rump Steak, Orpheus, and…ooh, just about everything else).

And the whole shebang is produced by FTH:K which means that the hottest up and coming theatre manager, Tanya Surtees, is behind it all.

Yes. Stop right there. Read back and let those names wash over you again. Those are like your director’s wet dream, and I am the lucky, lucky director.

So what is QUACK!?

From the makers of Pictures of You and GUMBO comes a new venture into the unknown.

So many lies, so little time…welcome to the shadowy, clown noir world of QUACK!

In a world where everything is for sale, and nothing has any value anymore, an ambitious drifter, addicted to quick scams, dreams up his definitive deceit - his masterpiece of mendacity.  Enlisting the aid of his long-suffering partner, a quiet and melancholic woman, he sets his plan in action.

But lies have the habit of consuming the liar.  And karma is sometimes waiting just around the corner.  And then there are the ghosts and victims of a million failed scams and past misdeeds…

In a thrilling blend of physical and visual performance, infused with their signature approach to creating accessible, non-verbal performance, QUACK! is FTH:K upping the ante and boldly leaping out of the frying pan and into the pyre.

It’s a battle for the soul of humankind.  It’s a visceral, visual bombardment of the senses.

Listen with your eyes!

Step right up!

QUACK! drops 2 July 2009 in Gatstad.  Capetonians, hang onto your dominoes – you have a sneak preview that you’ll hear about in a little bit right here.

Set your clocks.  Set your minds.  Ssh!  Don’t say a word…tell a soul…the clowns are coming…

I flippen love this!  Ever heard of Slava Polunin? He’s a great Russian clown who’s been touring the world for years and years with his famous “Snow Show”.

Anyhoo, great master and clown that he is, he’s just announced a new venture.  This one with the modest aim of creating what Derevo leader Anton Adassinski calls, “the biggest project of the 21st Century”: The Tower of Human Foolishness.

Basically, it’s this structure four pillars of 690,000 tons each which will rise 11,720 metre high tower to the sky.

Its base will consist of circus tents and hooded carts brought here from all over the world, as well as 32 temple buildings: from the log huts of the Old Believers to the Masonic “Khruschev’s concrete panel constructions”. They all, as symbols of the religious mess, will be used as foundations of the tower and will be frozen forever in highly transparent liquid kevlar glass.

The pillars themselves will be constructed of Thermit Aluminium by DuPont so that it can sway back and forth a distance of up to 300 metres at the top.

Why? I hear some ask…well, apparently at the top of the tower a Hand Palm will be constructed, where everyone who made a contribution can curl up and hold a tiny thread for approximately five minutes. That’s what they say.  This thread will dangle down from the satellite named CHIME which is scheduled for launch in 2014.

The CHIME is connected to a smaller satellite that holds the other end of the thread approximately 500 kilometres above CHIME’s orbit. This far end of the thread is not isolated and serves as an antenna to receive the Unknown.

5 minutes of holding the thread — this is The Very Essential, what the famous Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev described as follows: “Laughter, mysterious laugh is the last thread, connecting a Human being with the Universe. When it’s torn, the cranes will be shouting…”

Brilliant.  More power!  Mo’ fire!  Please let it happen!

(You can contribute too - go to www.derevo.org to find a fund to donate to)

And, as they say - HURRY!  Don’t you want to hold the thread?

Phew, that was a bit of a gap, ne? After some manic daily blogging on shenanigans in Buenos Aires, it’s almost like we fell off the map.

But not quite. Oh no - not yet.

Barely pausing to draw breath, we had to get Pictures of You back on its feet and then hit the airport again to fly up to Joburg for a week’s performances at the Festival of Fame. We playing at The Fringe at Joburg Theatre (the old Tesson at the Civic) and it’s been great to be on the boards again. The Fringe is a really great little venue…well, little 200 plus seater, that is. The staff are awesome, the equipment rocks…the show’s going really well.

We have two more performances - tomorrow at 10am and Friday at 6pm. Tell everyone in Joburg - we’re hoping to scare up a bit of interest to hopefully return before very long for a full season. And we’re doing a workshop at Oprah’s School! Although…sssh! Don’t think I’m allowed to say that. Er…we’re doing a workshop at OWLA. I can say that. Right? (Love to include pics and stuff, but that we’re really not allowed. Seriously. Strictly verboten.)

Argentina seems like a dream already, which sucks. Still want to collect the fragments of thoughts and reflections and write them up.

But in the meantime…Pictures of You. Friday night . 6pm. The Fringe at Joburg Theatre. It’s a measly 50 bucks! Ssh! Tell a soul, tell the world…

This was good and bad. It all started very well - keen to get home after exhausting but rewarding tour, last dashes of shopping/seeing to do, packing up, downloading photos, talking excitedly.

Then, the kak hit the fan. All 5 of us outside the hostel en route to final debrief and farewell lunch with GUMBO bags and stuff like laptop, we turn momentarily to hail a cab, we turn back (seconds later) and pfff! Laptop’s gone. Just like that. So now some @#!**$## now has a laptop full of your friendly neighbourhood integrated theatre company’s stuff (which is luckily backed up and all good) including all the pics of Buenos Aires (which unluckily we’d just completed downloading that morning and didn’t have a disc to burn them onto).

Incredibly frustrating and unluckily, Tink’s passport and all our tickets were in the bag for safekeeping. So our day now takes on the pallor of red tape and beaurocracy as we mission to get an emergency passport so that she can fly home in…ooh, just about 7 hours time.  Angry as all hell that none of us saw anything, we strike out to accomplish the impossible. And after several blind alleys and wild translation moments, we manage to do just that. Come 4/4.30 we actually have emergency document in hand and are en route to airport.

We have to say that the cops and the SA Embassy were really cool. They remained totally unruffled (although the slow-moving Argentine time, coupled with a lovely friendly interest in the rest of your life, can get a bit much when you want the wheels to turn a bit faster) and did their jobs with a great deal of efficiency. Thanks, you guys.

And, to keep it all in perspective, we were unharmed, alive, and had just lost a technological apparatus.  There was this guy at the police station that had been out the night before, someone slipped him a roofie and he woke up some point the next morning sans everything with no memory of what happened. That’s scary stuff.  Mr Eli Roth, come on down!

So we boarded the plane with a slightly sour taste in mouth, wanting now more than ever to be home.

So farewell Buenos Aires, thank you for a great tour that will get over the last hiccough in time; thanks to Nikki, Amanda, Juan, Paula, Nadia, Chistian, Clare, Maga, Mariano, and all the Saffers and hope to see y’all again soon.

Check out a homage to GUMBO made by awesome photographer Clare Thomas here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8_9FK5-bk or on the FTH:K blog.