Be Interested, Not Interesting
A Classic Clown Tenet for the Everyday Human Who Wants to be Alive
Barnaby King broadcasted a live stream interview last week with none other than the eccentric and effervescent Avner Eisenberg! It was a great refresher on Avner’s key takeaways from his workshop, which I attended at The Celebration Barn in 2019. If you dig clown, physical comedy, and philosophical approaches that will get you through all obstacles in life with joy, check out the recording here.
A piece of the interview I’d like to discuss is Avner’s suggestion that you can’t solve a problem in frustration.
Let me back peddle a beat; it is to note that one way to approach clown theater is to create a show by solving problems in interesting ways.
“Interesting” here, under Avner’s tutelage, means to solve simple problems in complicated ways and to solve complicated problems in simple ways.
You, the clown, arrives on stage to complete a task. Problems inevitably arise. Allow them to! Listen to everything. Even a laugh is an interruption to your task. Wowing the audience comes from your response to these problems and your unique way of solving them.
Avner poses that one may show visible frustration, but the audience doesn’t want you to stay there. The truth of it, and an audience can always feel the truth, is you can’t solve a problem in frustration.
And we need to see you solve this problem! Truthfully! We need to see the clown overcome hurdles and try again until she succeeds. That is the light of the clown. That is the hope they imbue. To try again with absolute earnestness until they succeed.
And, as Avner has so cleverly deduced from life and applied to clown, you can’t succeed in solving a problem while in a state of anger or frustration!
You have to go back to the state of being interested. “Ah, interesting…”
“Nobody ever solved a problem while they were frustrated or angry… you have to go back to the state of being interested.” - Avner the Eccentric
Be interested, not interesting.
Is probably the biggest all-around lesson any person can learn from clowning. There are all sorts of info toks and blogs and books and presentations about how to listen to people. It all really just comes down to being curious. Being interested. You don’t need to dazzle your first date to make a good impression. Just be interested.
I went on a nature walk the other day with a new clown friend I’ve met here in San Marcos, TX named Molly J Clown. She asked me how Olivia, my clown, relates to me. I responded that she is just the most ME. The me that exists without all of the knowing.
The knowing that took Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden; the knowing that created shame. The knowing that we can’t help but accumulate as we grow up in this matrix of condemning systems. The knowing that boxes us up into pre-conceived notions and confirmation bias. This knowing is important; it protects us and allows us to participate in the world! With it, we are able to blend in adequately enough to engage with society at large. It has its place, the knowing.
But… the curious, the interested, the wide open heart of a clown recalls the innocent state of a child before all of this knowing. That is where so much of the intrigue of good clowning comes from. We need that curiosity to forge the courage to get back up again and again and explore our terrain with fascination. Clowns show us the hope we can all readily access through curiosity. We have everything we need right here. They illuminate that magic is everywhere by simply being interested. You don’t need to prove yourself as stupendous to experience a stupendous life or be worthwhile, heard, and witnessed.
We live in such a magical world. You are enough, just as you are.
At the core of Olivia is this very tenet. Her gravity comes from being curious and interested. She leads with her face, a place that houses the senses with which to prod the material world. A place where she openly engages while puzzling over everything she encounters.
This profound curiosity creates an undeniable gravitational pull. I can go out into the world on a stage or at an event with the only source of my energy being deep curiosity and have the audience with me from the get-go for as long as we play.
What if we approached all of our problems with this same inquisitive energy? What happens when a hurtle comes up, and after initial frustration, you returned to the state of being interested?
I’d love to hear about how this clown nugget shifts a task for you. Next time something erks you, try thinking to yourself, “Ah, interesting…” and approach the problem from there! What solution did you get to? How did you feel along the way and about the outcome?
Until we meet again,
Julia Fae
Interested in attending a clown workshop? Catching a Yarnballs production? Give our clown troupe’s Eventbrite a follow to get an alert when we put them up!