Watch this:
Then, watch this:
You don’t have to get the whole way through, but check out at least 2 minutes of each.
The first video is American clown George Carl, and the second is Russian clown Slava Polunin. To me, these two represent the two different worlds of clown. Or two sides of the clown spectrum – with most modern clowns falling somewhere in between.
These artists are completely in different in costuming, rhythm, and relationship to the audience. Even in in what’s required for them to work – Carl needs only a microphone, while Polunin needs a whole production team and a snow machine. Yet, if you started a conversation with someone about the great clowns of the 20th Century, each name could come up. So what’s happening there?
I’ve gone back and forth on what to call each style, but what I’ve come up is that Carl is an “Action” clown and Polunin is a “Special World” clown.
But What Does That Mean?
In the first clip, what happens? What about in the second?
This is the first difference between the two forms for me. Carl’s routine is a pretty simple set up that he stretches out through a variety of comic business, but at base it’s this: A guy comes onstage to play harmonica for an audience, everything goes wrong, and then he leaves. With Polunin it’s harder to pin down – it has a more fluid logic, like a dream. What we get definitely is a moment with a coat rack, a train ride, and then a storm. The how’s and why’s are a little more unclear here.
“Action Clowns” build material on story & logic, “Special World” clowns use theme & idea.
So, each clown is coming from a different place in terms of story. What about character? How would you describe George Carl’s character as a clown? Polunin’s? I might be able to come up with a handful of adjectives to describe Carl, but mostly what I think of is clumsy, and fast. Polunin, we could probably fill a page with the things that we know or feel or imagine about who he is.
“ACTION” Clowns build routines around What HAPPENS; “SPECIAL WORLD” Clown is about WHO THEY ARE.
This idea partly explains why they’re so different in pacing. We don’t know a lot about Carl’s clown as a character. He doesn’t present a backstory or pause to share with us how he feels. He faces challenges and looks for solutions. So once he solves one problem, we have to move to the next one and then the next. For him to stay ahead of us & us to remain interested, he has to find and solve new problems at bullet speed. Rapid-fire hat tricks are impressive; slow hats tricks are not. Carl can’t slow down, or we check out.
Polunin, however, is very slow. As we’ve already established, the intrigue of his routine isn’t necessarily a crystal understanding of What Happens, but we get a lot of insight into Who is doing it. Everything about his costume, posture, and walk are expressive. Polunin takes the time to create a feeling for the audience. The smallest thing happens, he has a feeling about it, and he has an incredible ability to be open and invite the audience feel that feeling with him.
If we felt the anxiety of a Carl-like person where everything goes wrong, we’d go nuts. We don’t experience his troubles of everything going wrong, but we identify with them. That’s what makes them funny.
We FEEL FOR Action Clowns, We FEEL WITH Special World Clowns
There are more distinctions I’ve found, which you can see on the table below. But, as I mentioned, most clowns aren’t working so strictly on one side of the spectrum or another. Bill Irwin, for example, in his break-out show Regard of Flight switches back and forth between the dream logic of Special World clown (which guides the show overall) and then the fast, logic-oriented routines of Action Clown (he even does hat tricks). Marcel Marceau’s pantomime probably sits right between Carl and Polunin – swinging from one side of the line to each depending on what routine you’re watching.
Steal from both, make something new, and when you know what style you’re working in you can embrace the tools that serve that particular moment.
Chalk is probably a Special World play, stealing the Action Clown vocabulary as much as it can.
HEY! But What About That NOSE????
The last, and most obvious distinction between these two clowns, which I’ll sneak in as a postscript, is that Polunin has a red-nose and Carl doesn’t. While red-nose clown is a form, in terms of the Action v. S.W., I’ve found it to be a red herring. For example, Avner the Eccentric is an Action Clown who has a nose, and The Family are Special World clowns who don’t.
Have your own thoughts or ideas? Share them by tweeting @ChalkThePlay and hashtag #Clowntdown
