A Clown Writes About Paradoxes
A look at how contradiction can inspire improvised work
Hey, clowns!
Trying something different this week. This is a chapter of my book I’ve been working on for the last couple weeks. Any feedback is welcome and encouraged.
The pictures are from my most recent STAND UP AND CLOWN show at The Elysian in Los Angeles. Our last show of the year is December 18th.
📸 by @justoffthesix
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Clown work is rooted in the truth.
Emotional authenticity. Genuine discovery. Uninhibited play. A clown must live in the moment, so they can share their genuine reactions. We need an audience to not only believe us, but believe in us. It’s an integral part of creating a real connection.
It also allows us to tell a lot of lies.
I love deception. It doesn’t matter if I’m teaching or performing. People see me as an authority and I gleefully abuse that power to manipulate and misdirect. Make impossible promises. Set traps. Create games with rules that must be broken.
It’s in these moments of play that I feel like the most honest version of myself.
I wrote this journal entry in June of 2023.
I was planning a trip to teach and perform in Chicago. A theater collective known as Hot Clown Company wanted to talk about live directing clowns in an improvised format. I decided to write out some instructional bullets on my approach.
This is what came out instead. You might have noticed these are not bullets, nor is the information prescriptive in any meaningful way.
It’s more of a mildly pretentious clown poem.
I have written a lot of mildly pretentious clown poems.
It happens every time I’m confronted with a clown paradox.
When I first started studying improv at UCB, it was all about absolutes. Say yes. Be specific. Play to the top of your intelligence. They were determined to teach us a shared vocabulary to improve our chances for success.
It made a lot of sense to me. How else could a group of strangers take the stage and create scenes out of nothing?
The UCB approach absolutely worked. There was less awkwardness. We could find a direction faster and build on ideas throughout the show. It was incredibly fun.
As time passed, my perspective changed. I could see the formula at work. I joked it was the Taco Bell Effect. A million items created from the same basic ingredients. I still found good shows entertaining. But they also felt safe, stable and composed.
That’s what led me to clown work. It was the opposite. The lessons were steeped in contradictions. Be truthful in your dishonesty. Treat nonsense like wisdom. Suffer to inspire joy. They were determined to confuse us, so we’d operate from a position of failure. It made less and less sense the more I came to class.
There was no formula. There were principles. Tactics. Strategies. Every individual had to find their own way of creating games. When the work was good, it felt like a magic show. And when it missed the mark, a hostage situation.
That’s the difference between an absolute and a paradox. One seeks to provide clarity, while the other aspired to creates more questions.
A paradox compels us to find ways to co-exist in opposing energies. This puts us in a constant state of imbalance. The audience can’t predict what’s next because the artist has taken on an impossible task. They constantly make the wrong decision — which often reveals itself to be the best possible choice to save the show.
This is the game we play.
We create systems designed to subvert themselves.
(Thanks for reading! The next part of the chapter is focused on breaking down how we lie to an audience and why… )
OTHER CLOWN BUSINESS!
LISTEN TO STAND UP AND CLOWN (THE PODCAST) I just posted a great interview with Playspace creators Rachel Ho and Paul Schlesinger. There’s a great archive of old interviews with people who use clown elements in their work – along with solo pods where I discuss my philosophies surrounding the work.
APPLE PODCASTS: shorturl.at/DFKR5
SPOTIFY: shorturl.at/HPQ18
THE FINAL STAND UP AND CLOWN (THE SHOW) of 2023 takes place on Monday, December 18th, 930pm at The Elysian Theater. As of publication, comics Irene Tu, Luke Null, Matt McCarthy, Christina Calph will be entering the clown Thunderdome.
12/18: https://tinyurl.com/mr3nbu9r
ALSO CHECK OUT MY LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/chad.damiani
AND FOLLOW ME @THECHADDAMIANI ON IG!