Shall we go? Yes let's.

So Waiting for Godot is a tricky piece. Much analyzed and thought over and done to death, really. But there's no denying that it redefined modern drama as we conceive of it. Plus I got to see it on Broadway with Bill Irwin, Nathan Lane, John Goodman and John Glover. So nyeh.

The thing I like and continue to find intriguing is how to use Godot as template with clown duos and performance in general. Vladimir and Estragon were written as clownish types so it's not hard to make the connection, but I'm more interested in bringing Didi and Gogo-ness to clowns rather than bringing clowniness to Didi and Gogo; making that existentialist absurdism more accessible I guess. Last spring I directed a children's show called Noodle Doodle Box that was described as Waiting for Godot meets Spongebob. I was extremely proud of that.

There are a million examples of comic duos, the whiteface and auguste, that have excellent dynamics but I'm more interested in how we can take this simple and very well-known structure and mix it up to show people something new and thought-provoking. Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about.

This is a Jan Svankmajer piece called "Breakfast" Svankmajer is a Czech surrealist filmmaker who is all around awesome. I might just post a bunch of things he did without any commentary from me to show you how awesome he is. I showed my NDBox cast this to illustrate repitition, routine and to show the comical and weird relationships possible between two people when the body is redefined. Plus it's awesome.

Here's another one, Mummenschantz on the Muppet show. I'm hugely in love with them for the way they integrate mask, movement and puppetry (sidebar, I taught a class this summer called just that) in a simple way that still conveys a lot of nuance and character. Here's a story not just with two masked characters, but their faces are their characters and as their relationships between themselves and their faces change, so do their relationships with each other.

I don't know that you would call either of these pieces 'clown pieces,' but I would say that they're comic performances. You could argue that the Svankmajer piece isn't comic, but then I'd argue that you have no sense of humor.

I really like that both of these pieces play with personal space. One guy is all up in another guy's face, pulling and pushing it to change what he looks like and change his status, one guy is reaching in another guy's mouth, sticking his fingers in his ears, eyes, chest cavity, what have you. I've been really interested in playing with bodies in space as relationship; not just what gestures or expressions a person does to define their character but the physical space they take up. It's like what I was saying before about Buster Keaton vs. Charlie Chaplin, Keaton's lines and shapes defined his world and character, not just his faces and gestures. Guess I'll keep trying stuff out.