How Clown Saved Me (3/4)
in Total Idiocy
Here in Los Angeles, there is an alt clown scene fueled by a pedagogy referred to as Idiot. Idiot is a mashup of clown and jester performance types and was coined by John Gilkey in the early to mid two thousand and teens. Gilkey is a lanky, juggling clown who worked with Cirque du Soleil for 35 years before swooping into Los Angeles to rough up the black box comedy scene with his idiot workshops. He continues to cultivate experimental theater here in LA and was my first mentor with fame in the field. Once a month, Gilkey hosts an open jam for idiots in Hollywood to get up and play under his live direction.
The name of this monthly idiot jam is Hippodrome. A hippodrome is also the circle of architecture found in a classic tent circus, the bit of in-between that designates the round stage and divides the audience from the performers. This in-between space got its name from the ancient Grecian outdoor chariot racing arena also called the hippodrome, whose Roman counterpart was called a circus.
The circus clown interacts with both the world of the audience and the world on the stage. They are the only being of the circus whose existence is meant to cross the threshold of the hippodrome; they unite the worlds, bring relief, open the hearts of the spectator, and bug you if you are too stiff in your seat to let yourself dream. Remind you of some other clowns crossing thresholds? It should! Refresh your memory via my last publication here.
In Gilkey’s Hippodrome, the night is devoted to one of the many exercises we do in The Idiot Workshop, The Lions Den. Three bold idiots take the stage with their backs to the audience. One at a time, Gilkey calls their name and claps. Upon the clap, the idiot called on turns around and, with no fourth wall, attempts to entertain the audience, to “save the show.”
This primarily means following your impulses, exploring your joy, leaning into whatever tickles the audience and acknowledging each failure along the way. Whenever the live director– Gilkey or another esteemed LA idiot– feels you are done, for now, they say as much, and you return to face the curtain upstage until called upon again. This exercise can be thrilling, humiliating, exposing, delightful, ridiculous, and, I believe, tremendously healing.
Clown is a mighty existential exploration of the human condition. One done with hope and love and joy for the curiosity of it all. One that takes on fears and failures and death and comes back to try again. To discover in real-time: how to create an authentic experience with everyone and everything happening in the room, how to listen to them and your instincts simultaneously, and how to jump off a cliff and trust that you’ll build a parachute on the way down! Well, it is all to discover the healer in you.
Tune in next week for the last installment of this 4-part Clown Saga that began with a nightmare, wove through history, to LA, and will end… well… somewhere unknown if not unexpected!
