Violence Horror by Clowns & Mimes

October 19, 2007

Over the course of the festival I have seen a lot of Mime-Clown Violence – complete with blood, gore, and mime-clown horror. Most of this mime-clown gory bloody violence is in bad taste and a mark that the show is in trouble. This bloody, gore, and mime-clown horror has been in solo shows and group shows through out the festival. Is this influence from bad television or our clown society dealing and making fun of all the insane violence in our world today? If it is the later they need to do a much better job. It is most likely that they do not know what else to do so they find it easy to fall back on to violence. Often with shows and not all shows go into this state - often the clowns loose that clown essence and being in the moment and go into this kids playing bloody violence, gore, mime-clown horror because they do not know what else to do. In the creative process when you fall into this you must push beyond this to get to the truth of what you're really saying.

If you look at the successful shows you will not see this kind of mime-clown – gore – bloody violence. There our shows in our festival that are cruel and they are in good taste with any violence or cruelty being supported by clown theatre piece. When you find yourself doing violence check to see if it is supported and if there is a real reason for it. As Jacque Lecoq said about clown and theatre in general if the moment calls for it, “Because is a reason.” You will find shows are on a higher level, stronger, funnier and have a longer life where the violence is supported. This goes for scatology as well.

What do you think?
by: Stanley Allan Sherman