Chapter
5
Undertaking
and Gothic Romance
Cal is interested only in
making people laugh: ‘I’m not an artist, I’m an entertainer. Things that I do
might turn out to be artistic but I don’t set out to make art.’[1]
In fact, if one were to reduce Spymonkey’s shows to a single thematic concern
it would be exactly that: the battle of entertainment vs. art.
Cal’s theatrical training at
the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama was a rather formal one, ‘very
Stanislavsky’ to quote Cal. His instinct for a relationship with the audience
meant he ‘used to get told off for being too
charming on stage’[2] and he was
inevitably cast in the comedy roles. He took a delight in transforming
completely from role to role, disguising himself.
‘It's
dressing up taken to an extreme, and it's showing off in a different way. In
fact that's what I was doing: just showing off, but without the permission I
give myself now, that Philippe Gaulier gave me to show off just as myself. I
would show off in a way that they thought was good.’[3]
So
when Cal met Philippe, it was a revelation to be told that the ‘showing off’ he
indulged in was not wrong or unprofessional, but was his greatest quality – it
is the pleasure of having fun which Gaulier insists be present in any performance
- and Cal recognised that a great many performers disguise their showing off as
‘art’.
‘I think that possibly one
of the main reasons why my shows are as they are is because of why I
became an actor, which was not because I thought, ‘I’d love to become an actor
and interpret somebody’s text’ … I became a performer, actor, because I like
being looked at, I like being onstage. So it’s a personal truth for me that I
like that. I always just saw the play as just a vehicle for me to show off in.
And I think few actors would admit that but most actors probably do that.’[4]
When
we watch Forbes’ noble artistic efforts thwarted by the clowns, there is great
potential for pity to stem the flow of laughter. We could see three idiots, in
their constant desire to show off, trampling over one man’s honest efforts to
pay tribute to the wife he dearly loved and sadly lost. The laughter, however,
does not stop. Forbes Murdston has the same ego, the same desire to show off,
that Alfredo, Udo and Amanda Bandy have. The difference is that they do not try
to cover it up.
‘In
a way Stiff is just the Gaulier School doing battle with the Royal
Scottish Academy - Toby even has the line "They did not train, as I did,
at the RADA", and the three clowns bash him to death and bring the show to
a standstill, and they win!’[5]
Here,
the nature of Cal’s use of clowning is steeped in the tradition of clowns,
jesters and fools. ‘Fools most usually emerge as primitive and magical in
contrast with non-fools who are, or who at least pretend to be, rational and
realistic.’[6] Fool figures
in cultures throughout the world have served to remind us of our absurdity, our
pompous claim to have ‘grown up’, and the belief that we are civilised.
‘When I was a child, I spake
as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a
man, I put away childish things’[7].
Whilst Forbes wishes to be
admired but uses ‘art’ and ‘tragedy’ to claim service to a higher calling than
his own ego (which is more acceptable to society), the others are honest in
their aims to be loved by the audience. The clown, like a child, does not
adhere to received notions of good and bad or right and wrong, but instead is
led by desire and spontaneity. He is equally unaware of the formulation of
societal rules or correct behaviour, but sees and responds to almost everything
with naïve honesty and, in so doing, ‘the fool plays with some of the
irrational hopes that motivate the makers of order and some of the doubts that
plague them.’[8]
PLAY CLIP 8
Alfredo mimes the door in Stiff and responds
to Forbes’ letter in Cooped
The
clown brings chaos to an ordered structure, the world of the play, and simply
through his own idiocy, destroys the flimsy pretence. When Forbes wants to use
a simple piece of mime it is unwittingly ridiculed by Alfredo’s pleasure to
take it further. When Forbes wants to use the narrative device of the letter,
Alfredo cannot resist joining in the game. I chose clips from both shows to
demonstrate the continuation of this theme through Spymonkey’s work. Stiff
may be more overtly a battlefield, making direct reference to training at the
RADA and workshops with a well know performance guru, but, as long as the
clowns are trying to perform a play Forbes has written, the theme will remain.
And so Undertaking and Gothic Romance Novellas are secondary to the comedy,
just as the policeman’s terrible news was secondary to Michael’s attempts to
prove himself as a magician[9].
To a certain extent, therefore, they are arbitrary choices. Or rather, they are
chosen to serve a function, just as Laurel and Hardy found numerous settings in
which to string together their gags (from construction sites to the foreign
legion) forever finding a new mess to get in to.
‘It is impossible to list
themes for clowns: the whole of life is a clown theme, if you are a clown’[10]
In Spymonkey’s case, the
clowns need a show to ruin and the subject or nature of that show can be picked
from an endless list (the only restriction being the feasibility of Forbes
having written it). A Spymonkey show can be described as “the clowns’ attempts
to stage a play about ….” (fill in the gap).
Therefore, the idea is picked on a basis of personal taste and
inspiration. No one theme can necessarily be better than another but some ideas
speak to people more than others. For Spymonkey’s second show, Cal was inspired
by the idea of the Gothic Romance Novella. It was a subject that opened up to
him as ripe for comedy. As a genre, it has it’s own world, it’s own set of
rules and conventions and is, therefore, a wonderful playground for clowns to
be let loose in. Genre however is also extremely ripe for, in Cal’s eyes, a
less desirable fruit: spoof. This is not because he sees spoof as an
ineffective style of comedy … ‘the audience love spoof, they love it. It’s
something they recognise and so they go, ‘Oh, yeah. I know what they’re doing.
This is great.’ … but because his preference lies elsewhere ... ‘Spoof is too
pat on the back, we’re all in this together, we’re all making fun of this
together.’[11] The laughter
produced by spoof is a safe laugher, a laughter of recognition. Cal would
rather people were surprised by their laughter and could not control it. This
means that very few gags rely on wit. ‘Good material is for comedians. Bad
material is for clowns.’[12]
Though
the content of Spymonkey’s shows is inseparable from the four different clowns
and their (competitive) relationship, not all of it is born in improvisation.
‘There are some things that I just think, ‘this experience that happened to me
or this thing that I saw or this thing in this serious boring film or this play
I did at drama school, I’m going to put that onstage and make fun of it’ and I
teach the clowns how to recreate that scene.’[13]
Cal told me once that he would steal from anything except other comedies. In
fact, the basis of some of these set pieces is little more than the clowns
attempting to do something serious. Cal describes it as ‘throwing something at
the actors, something I know they can’t do, seeing them fail, pissing myself
laughing at it because I think that’s terribly funny and then turning that into
something that is usable and can work every night.’[14]
fig.8 (Modern dance in Stiff)
Unless you have lived a
parallel existence to Cal McCrystal you cannot possibly ‘get’ the references
that litter his shows and, therefore, the laughter is not in recognition of
something specific we are all mocking. For example, in the workshops I attended
in Brighton with the company, Cal was setting a lot of improvisations which
were to perform scenes from great English plays and novels which at least half
the company would not be aware of. These included Dickens’ Oliver Twist,
Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter,
Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and W.Somerset Maughmn’s For Services
Rendered. These scenes would never reflect the work they were supposed to
be based on and so the comedy does not mock Charles Dickens or Oscar Wilde, it
merely uses them to expose the clowns idiocy (for example, the clown who
believes that he can do anything and, as long as he is holding a cup of tea, it
will still be Oscar Wilde). In this clip, Udo performs a speech, clearly
written by Forbes, which he doesn’t really understand. Once the task is over he
skips across the stage like a child.
PLAY CLIP 09
Udo Keller setting the atmosphere in Stiff
‘I’ve
been wondering a lot recently about whether it’s – this sounds a bit deep now –
but whether it’s to do with my sexuality. I’ve been wondering this a lot. When
I was a child, I stayed innocent for such a long time about so many things
because when I watched any kind of film which deals with normal heterosexual
society, it just didn’t ever – I’m realising this only now – I never went, ‘Ah,
yes, of course. Well, that’s what we’re like.’ I just felt on the outside of it
a bit. Not miserably, because I wasn’t aware of being different from anybody
else. But I do think that’s got a lot to do with it, is being on the outside of
something. You don’t even know you’re on the outside but you are and you’re looking
at things from a slightly strange angle all the time because they are films
that are made to speak to you, and yet they don’t really speak to you. Whether
it’s the handsome prince and snow white or whatever, it somehow doesn’t. Most
people aren’t even aware of being affected by those things but they are because
it’s the story of your life that you’re looking at up on the screen and,
somehow, you just go, ‘Well, actually, no. I don’t know why but it isn’t the
story of my life.’ And I see everything, everything, in a funny way.’[15]
Cal
understands that feeling an outsider places him in close proximity with the
clown. From the ancient shamanistic clowns to travelling comics and court
jesters right up to the modern film and stage clowns, ‘The Clown must stand
aside and observe good society from the outside … The philosophy of clowns is
the philosophy that in every epoch shows up as doubtful what has been regarded
as most certain.”[16]