Jim's Friend: Hey, weren't you, like,
studying to be a clown?
Jim: I was for a while, but it was just
too depressing.
[cue laughtrack]
Without the laughtrack, I had that
exchange a couple of times in my senior year at college. Clowning
was, believe it or not, something I'd considered as a career. Not
party clowns or circus clowns, but theatrical clowning.
See, I love theatre. The excitement of
a new script, the nervous energy of a first rehearsal, the growing
collaboration between across and crew, all building up to performance
night? Nothing like it. Unfortunately, the people you work with?
Yeah, theatre attracts some enormous egos.
I enjoyed clowning a lot when I'd
tried it and early reading on theatrical clowning was fascinating.
Comedia dell'arte was known to me, but there were so many other
options, even sacred clowning some Orthodox churches. Sacred
clowning. Wow.
And then I read a line from a
professional clown that went something like, "Being a clown
means never being happy." It seemed so very, very dark to say,
but the more I thought about it, clowns run around on stage, always
striving, always falling, always, well, failing. Never getting what
they want, always ending up with their hopes dashed and their pants
around their ankles.
I salute good clowns, I really do, the
ones who go out every night and make people laugh at how pathetic
they are and walk away happy. That's hard, that's really, really
hard. And in the spirit of good clownings, I give you Puddles, the
Pity Party Clown, howling "Hallelujah."
[cue laughtrack]