Introduction
Cal McCrystal, Spymonkey and the
aims of this dissertation…
‘It is meat and drink to me to see a clown’
- As You Like It, Act V,
Scene 1.
The
clowning of Spymonkey can nominally be traced back to the 1960’s when Jacques
Lecoq, along with his students and teachers, began to develop a practical
exploration of the art of clowning. ‘One day I suggested that the students
should arrange themselves in a circle - recalling the circus ring - and make us
laugh. One after the other, they tumbled, fooled around, tried out puns, each
one more fanciful than the one before, but in vain! The result was
catastrophic. Our throats dried up, our stomachs tensed, it was becoming
tragic. When they realised what a failure it was, they stopped improvising and
went back to their seats feeling, frustrated, confused and embarrassed. It was
at that point, when they saw their weaknesses, that everyone burst out
laughing.’[1]
The clowning they had discovered was akin to the great film clowns such as
Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton who all came from a
traditional of Vaudeville and touring players[2].
But why had these figures been lost in contemporary theatre?
It is possible that the
beginning of the end for the Vaudeville tradition was when its own stars jumped
ship and began to make the comedy short film a meteorically popular form (and a
cheap one too, at the Nickelodeon). The short films were the equivalent of
stage numbers. Even the great film clowns, however, would soon move on (through
choice or not) to feature length films. Faced with this time to fill, the
material would change. Chaplin became interested in the art of the story and
creating pathos - films ‘with a smile and, perhaps, a tear’[3]
- thus the gags were relegated to a supporting role. Laurel and Hardy continued
to produce gag-based material but this was often diluted at feature length,
‘padded’ out with interludes of singers or dancers, or simply made episodic
(like Saps at Sea which is made up essentially of two films, one at home
and one on the boat). The art of clown ‘numbers’, created solely to make their
audience laugh, began to dwindle. Having ‘re-discovered’ the art of clowning,
Lecoq and his students had also discovered the reason for its loss:
‘I like the students to
practice short comic cabaret turns, working up short numbers, never longer than
ten minutes. Sadly, all the places where young actors might present such work
have disappeared … Today young performers are expected to come up straight away
with a one-man show lasting an hour, which is far too difficult and ought to be
the result of extensive research on shorter forms’.[4]
By
the late 60’s, however, a number of companies began to put the techniques into
practice. Members of these companies would usually include former students of
the Lecoq school or later students of Philippe Gaulier - himself a former
student of Lecoq who went on to teach with him and then set up his own acting
school in London. Cal McCrystal is one such ‘disciple’ of clowning.
fig.1
Cal trained at the Royal
Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and was working frequently as an actor
(and presenter) in television, theatre, film and radio before he discovered
clowning work with Pierre Byland and later Philippe Gaulier. Since his first
venture as a director, taking over from Mick Barnfather on Peepolykus’ Let
the Donkey Go, Cal McCrystal has worked almost constantly, putting
his acting career aside to work again with Peepolykus and an ever-growing range
of companies. What is unique about Cal’s body of work, however, is his devotion
to clown based work. Whilst many companies, from Theatre du Soleil to
Complicite to Told By an Idiot, began with clown work and moved on to explore
physical theatre and storytelling, Cal McCrystal is staying put. ‘I think it’s
the most difficult thing to do and there’s nothing for me to grow out of. I’ve
arrived where I want to be with this work. It’s not a stepping stone to
something else.’[5] His
directing credits include Let the Donkey Go, I'm a Coffee and Horses
for Courses for Peepolykus; Between a Rock and a Hard Place and This
Way Up for Cambridge Footlights; The Mighty Boosh (Perrier Best New
Comedy Award Winners 1998) and AutoBoosh for the Boosh; Mel & Sue's Back
to our Roots Tour 1999; Peggy Lee and Music to Watch Boys By
by Kate Dimbleby; Leikin Loppu's The Tailors and Basking With Sharks;
Day of the Dead large-scale performance for The Eden Project, 2002;
Director of Clowns for Cirque de Soleil’s new touring show Varekai;
Director of Clowns and ‘comedic director’ for Cirque du Soleil’s forthcoming
Las Vegas show Zumanity; and finally Spymonkey’s Stiff and Cooped.
Spymonkey (fig.2) was
founded in 1997 by Toby Park, Aitor Basauri and Petra Massey. 'Stiff', a
comedy about a tragedian's thwarted attempts to make a moving funereal tribute
to his departed wife, was created with Cal McCrystal at the end of 1998. In
spring 2000 Stephan Kreiss joined the company, replacing Paul Weilenmann in the
role of Herr Keller. Stiff became one of the hits of the Edinburgh
fringe festival that summer, winning a Total Theatre award. In spring 2001
Spymonkey created Cooped, a demented take on the pulp gothic romance
novella, which opened to great acclaim on the Edinburgh fringe in 2001. Both Stiff
and Cooped have been performed all over the world, from the USA,
Canada and Mexico to Syria and Taiwan, and Stiff was included as part of
the British Council's showcase of the best of British theatre in 2001.
Spymonkey’s planned third show about the lives of Saints Bless was cancelled
having been refused arts council funding. The arts council claimed that
Spymonkey’s work did not meet their priorities, implying that their work lacked
intellectual depth. At the time of writing, Spymonkey are in Montreal as Cal’s
clowns preparing for Cirque du Soleil’s New York New York in Las Vegas.
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Aitor
Basauri |
Stephan
Kreiss |
Petra
Massey |
Toby Park |
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fig.2 |
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I came to meet Spymonkey and
Cal McCrystal after writing to Toby Park to ask if Spymonkey would be able to
accommodate me for a short placement, to watch their work. I spent a month with
them as they presented a run of Cooped at the Battersea Arts Centre. We
spent the days experimenting with ideas for television work which they were
exploring at the time. I went on to assist Cal on Your Face Here’s Gladiatrix
and on further work with Spymonkey including early workshop development for the
ill-fated Bless (fig.3). Contrary to the Arts Council’s opinions, I
found the work completely profound, an extremely pure form of theatre. This dissertation
will focus on Cal’s work with Spymonkey who Cal says ‘express my work better
than any company I’ve worked with’[6].
fig.3
Though
clowning has found its way into fringe theatre and even the West End and
Broadway with companies like The Right Size[7]
(though their work has moved towards a broader style of comedy), the word
‘clown’ is often avoided in marketing and there remains an unwanted connotation
with circus. As I have discovered, when discussing clown, it is wise to make
the immediate assertion that when you say ‘clown’ you do not mean white
make-up, big shoes and buckets of water. Indeed, even Jacques Lecoq, in his
book ‘The Moving Body’ states on the first page of the chapter on clowns, ‘The
reference to circus, which is bound to surface as soon as clowns are mentioned,
remains marginal.’[8]
It
is clear that this kind of clowning has not completely entered the
consciousness of the wider theatre community, certainly in Britain. Indeed, the
majority of writing on the subject is limited to short chapters in books on
physical theatre and actor training with reference to Jacques Lecoq. With this
piece of work, I hope to go beyond the existing descriptions of clown-training
and provide a discussion of clowning in practice through the work of Cal
McCrystal and Spymonkey.
What is the difference between clowning and acting?
What is the importance of clowning to Spymonkey’s work? Why is Cal so drawn to
clowning? To what extent does Cal use clown methodology in working with
Spymonkey and to what extent does Cal take Spymonkey away from typical
clowning? And to begin with: What is the role of the director in creating and
rehearsing clown material? Cal has a simple answer…
‘My job as a director is to
help people find out why they’re funny.’[9]