Clown Cabaret - a great lesson

Clown Cabarets
Host: The Renaldo The Ensemble
Graspy McTakeitall – Audrey Cabtree
3.5 Heads
Coo No More
Dog Ski

This was a great lesson in what turns an audience on so every person in the audience is totally engaged. Of course a lesson also covers the other side of that. You know the side where you look around the audience and no one is laughing just sitting there with blank looks on faces.

The totally engaged lesson… Graspy McTakeitall – Audrey Cabtree, every person in the theatre was alive involved … also awake. She was topical – had a great time and was totally involved in every moment she was on stage and she really did wake people up. She was also funny as hell - and all the laughs in the audience where real and not forced.

3.5 Heads has some nice moments and the dancer was great. There has been a lot more dances in this clown festival by women combining clown, theatre and dance - it has been great.

Dog Ski was interesting and Coo No More I have no idea if they went on or not because the Host really did not introduce anyone so people could understand who was coming on.

The Host … it was not the members of the group it was the leader of the host. There is a type of entertainment where the entertainers torture the audience, and some people enjoy this. The leader of the Host was this type of performer. Maybe it is just me, but it seems like the host is responsible for feeling the energy of the audience and making sure the evening is moving along. When the energy goes down and needs a pick me up the Host comes in and pulls something out of his or her bag of tricks to get the energy of the audience up for the next act. Also making sure everyone knows everything about the act coming on that the performers want the audience to know. Especially when there is no program. The leader of the Host was into abuse torture the audience theatre. If you looked around the audience you saw lots of totally blank looks on peoples faces or the uncomfortable ugly laugh once in a... He did more than that; he started preaching about god - nothing to do with his act. He just wanted to tell people what to think and how to think about god. It does not matter if you’re pro or anti god. You want to start preaching about religion– go start your own religious house of worship or un-worship as the case maybe – but please keep it out of the clown festival. Especially when you are there to move the evening along and introduce the acts. If you want to do political theatre, great – clown political theatre even better - but first it must be theatre, if we wanted to hear preaching about god - we would go someplace else. Some other members of the band had some nice moments – but the leader often stepped on their moments when he could get away with it. Instead of moving the show along – we got everything this entertainer has ever created – or at least it seemed like it. Now if you are into abuse and torture of the audience theatre you really missed a great show. After the Cabaret went past its second hour with no break and it looked like this guy was coming on for another ??? hours - a member of the audience bolted for toilet – I followed. The sad part of all this – the host did a great disservice to the performers of the evening.