What is tall or sometimes short, wears a fuzzy hat, juggles, rides unicycles, does magic and has a red nose? A clown, of course! These fun human beings with painted faces and a trick or two up their sleeves were in Bengaluru for the International Clown Festival. If you weren’t at Good Shepherd Auditorium on Friday, you missed a golden opportunity to ROFL. “But don’t be sad,” says Martin D’Souza, who plays Flubber, the clown. “Cheer up! We’ll be back.”
As the clowns stepped off stage to meet and greet the audience before the show kicked off, children and adults alike clamoured to shake hands, pose for selfies and high fives.
There was never a dull moment in the hour-long performance by Flubber and his friends Sparky, Timmyto, Benji and Maggie. From juggling baseball bats to seven balls in the air, pulling pranks on one another, making comical expressions and performing a hilarious boxing match, the clowns made the crowd go berserk.
Timmyto even pulled off a seemingly risky unicycle stunt with one of the kids from the audience atop his shoulders. Magic, pranks, stunts, music, singing, more pranks and mimes kept coming.
A hyper-happy George Kuruvilla, all of 10 years old, couldnt contain his excitement, at the end of the show. “This is the best day of my life!” he said adding, “I got to make friends with a clown. I want to be a clown when I grow up!” He runs to join his friends who scream in delight as Benji, the clown, steps off stage to shake hands with them again.
Sarah Daniel, mother of two, says she has never seen her children so happy. “I’m so glad I got them to the show. There’s so much warmth in the clowns’ performance.”
Twelve-year-old Nikita Dinesh says the best part about the show was they were told to make as much noise as possible. “Usually, our teachers are always telling us to keep quiet. This is the first time the clowns encouraged us to be as loud as possible! We screamed at the top of our voices when we saw the clowns doing tricks, laughed till our stomachs hurt when they boxed each other, cheered when they juggled and even danced in the final dance performance!”
Martin, who is also the vice-president of the World Clown Association, says while they’ve performed in Bengaluru before, this is the first time they showcased a theatrical production. “We like our audiences to have fun. I believe, practice is play, play is practice.”
He adds that the success of their performance hinges on practice. “We are highly-skilled entertainers. Children these days do not look at hard work as fun. Any kind of excellence has to come through practice. As long as that is enjoyable, we dont have to work since we are having fun.”
How does one become a clown? Martin pretends to put on his thinking cap, pauses for effect, laughs and says: “The fact is we are clowns. We don’t work towards being one. We are not pretending. We don’t just put on a costume and act. We have a clown’s heart.” He goes on to say that his biggest challenge is bringing this reality to the people in India. “I want people to know that it is a serious, respectable art form and profession. It is not frivolous. People usually make fun of clowns. I’ve been trying to make people aware that it is a professional art form. The clown does everything – from juggling, miming, acting, unicylcing and more. Our comedy is not something that just happens. The practice is real. Even the most spontaneous act requires three months of rehearsal.”
Martin makes it clear that clowns do not try to make people laugh. “We make people happy. When we try to make people laugh, we tread on what stand-up comedians do – picking on someone, embarrassing or making fun of people and bringing laughter at the expense of others. When it comes to clowns, we find a problem in society and we create our way of exploring this situation. And in the bargain we discover new ways of doing it that turns out to be comical.”
To those who want to be a clown, Martin says: “You need to internally be a happy person and be ready to explore yourself. You should also be ready for failure. With practice comes perfection. Anything that you do should be fun. There are different levels and areas of expertise, since not everyone is an accomplished acrobat or a skilled juggler. At the end of the day, it is the heart of the clown that will connect with people.”
