Portland clown festival takes audiences beyond the red nose

What began as an idea for a circus during the early days of the pandemic has now culminated into a three-week clown festival that kicked off at the CoHo theater in Portland on Sept. 16. From physical comedy to interactive improv and modern dance, audiences can experience more than a dozen performances showcasing local and international clowns, and learn the basics of theatrical clowning through a class taught by veteran performers.

Phil Johnson is the program director at CoHo Productions. Sascha Blocker is a Portland-based actor, director and a member of the CoHo Clown Cohort. They join us to talk about the festival and getting audiences to see there’s more to clowning than just the red nose.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller:  Send in the clowns. This past Friday a three week long clown festival kicked off at Portland’s CoHo Theater. It includes physical comedy, interactive improv and modern dance, more than a dozen performances showcasing local and international performers as well as a class taught by some veterans. Sasha Blocker is a Portland-based actor and director and a member of the CoHo Clown Cohort. Phil Johnson is the Program Director at CoHo Productions. They join us now to talk about this festival and the serious funny business of clowning. It’s good to have both of you on Think Out Loud, thank you so much. Sasha first. How did this festival come to be?

Sasha Blocker:  Phil Johnson and Philip Cuomo really were the ones that dreamed this up, I think, Phil, pre Covid. Right?

Phil Johnson:  Correct. We had a couple conversations about initially starting a circus and we talked about having aerial acts and having contortionists and everything. And really this idea was inspired by the Clown Cohort wanting to create something that featured clowning. And then what we ended up doing was we had Summerfest happening, CoHo and we were thinking about how to expand it. And then this year, after we did the workshop series led by yourself, Sasha, we were like, let’s just go for it, you know? And so that’s how we ended up where we are.

Miller:  There’s an important piece here that we need to turn to. You’re talking about Philip Cuomo who died in November of 2021. Phil Johnson first, can you introduce us to him? Who was Phillip Cuomo?

Johnson:   Well, he’s kind of the godfather of clowning at least at CoHo. And we looked up to him as a mentor. He was the former Executive Artistic Director of CoHo Productions and beyond clowning, he also was a great artistic leader. He programmed or he actually started the artistic council model at CoHo, which was the way that we used to select, meaning that we reached out to the community and the community would submit plays that would go through an artistic council and then be produced. And he’s just a big, big figure in this community and specifically in the theater community and really a funny, humorous intellectual person.

Miller:  Sasha, what did you learn from Philip Cuomo?

Blocker:  Oh my goodness! So many things, the importance of laughter and going for the joke and the world of clown. Philip was one of my first teachers in Portland at the Portland Actors Conservatory and he taught me clown and movement and through Philip, as a performer, I really learned to trust my instincts and my voice. He was working with me on a clown piece and we worked all night on it and I came in the next day and I said, ‘I think this clown instead of arrogant egotistical, this clown is super excited and happy’. And that moment of Philip was like ‘we worked, we created something already’. But then he’s like, ‘you’re right, yes’. And it was that first moment where a director/teacher was really letting my instincts and intuition come forward. So through Philip, he is such a collaborative partner, collaborator and just that ability that [encouraged you] to trust your artistic instincts.

Miller:  Let’s have a listen to a little bit of Philip Cuomo talking. This is from Phil Johnson, your “Radical Listening” podcast from back in 2020. And at one point he talked about the universality of clowns. Let’s have a listen:

Philip Cuomo:  The more serious we take ourselves, the more ridiculous we are. That’s the whole guiding principle of clown. I mean, if somebody says they’re not a clown, they’re lying to you. If they have never felt the humility of making a mistake over and over again, they’re lying. And that’s essentially clown. You make a mistake over and over again and you don’t really learn from it, you just keep going. That’s, that’s life. So everybody, everybody, displays clown behavior and the more they try not to, the more they do.

Johnson:  Oh, well, that’s very evident in the world today.

Cuomo:  Right? Right? Buffoonery, which is a little different than clown. The buffoon is grotesque. And in the clown world, the buffoon knows they’re grotesque and relishes their grotesqueness and points to us and says you think I’m grotesque. You’re the grotesque one.

Miller:  So if I understand these distinctions correctly, there’s a kind of innocence to clowns that buffoons don’t have. I’m wondering how that innocence meshes with our times right now, which are so divisive, so often mean, so full of internet trolls, and where the humor so often has an edge. Where does the innocent clown fit into that?

Johnson:  Really good question. I think that, honestly, this is a part of the conversation that we were having with Philip. So I highly recommend people to go back and listen to that conversation. The role of the troll, which is a little bit more connected to the buffoon, comes from the cynical nihilistic worldview that we seem to be developing recently. And this is why we decided to do the clown festivals, because we feel the clowning is actually the antidote to this. It’s about helping people realize their own innocence and about helping people realize that, just as we just said, we all make mistakes. We’re all going to continue to make mistakes. And we can’t cast judgment on other people from this point of view of cynicism because we are all clowns. I think that what the Clown Festival is already showing is that when we just focus on the joy of the human experience, that’s something that unites us all, no matter what background you’re coming from. When you build a room where people can just laugh at themselves, that’s something that is a very healing thing for the community, as opposed to trying to critique this and that. And that’s not to say that you can’t critique using clown, but it’s that same kind of idea of going down easier with sugar than vinegar. [It’s the] kind of thinking where it’s easier to process the hardships of life when it’s done through this kind of innocent, joyful point of view as opposed to how a lot of comedy is today, that’s really kind of punching down and critical.

Blocker:  I agree with Phil, and the clown really fosters empathy. The point of view of the clown is ‘do you see me, do you understand me? Do you see what I’m feeling?’ And then the audience empathizes with that clown and ultimately can empathize with yourself. The clown who keeps failing and doesn’t take that too seriously, then can be in a really playful state. Whereas if I fail in my real life, the stakes can feel so high. And then I can be angry and defensive versus kind of releasing that in a more playful way, whereas the buffoon is ‘I see you and I become you’ in a really grotesque way of making fun of you or poking at you, right? So shifting our focus to the state of empathy through the clown is, like Phil said, really healing.

Miller:  Given what you’re talking about here and the kind of empathy machine that clowns can be for us. I’m curious and Sasha, maybe you can try to tackle this, why do you think certain versions of clowns have become sort of famously creepy for a lot of people? I mean, Stephen King for example. I don’t think he made clowns scary for people. I think he tapped into a fear that was already there. What is that fear?

Blocker:  I read this article once, and it was really interesting, about clowns in the circus and how the makeup was really enlarged because the audience is so far away. And so to help see the clown and the expressions of the clown, the makeup is really garish and the costumes. Then when you come up close and personal that’s so scary to a small child. And so the scale, I thought, was a really interesting perspective on up close and personal. That huge big smile and teeth can be really scary

Miller:  That rings so true because I mean, it’s like the four year old looking up to this garish face that’s just a foot away as opposed to a far away on a stage?

Blocker:  Yeah.

Miller:  Is that something that you think about as a performer now? I mean that you have to be aware of being creepy. It seems like it’s the antithesis of basically everything you’ve been talking about. I can imagine it has a role if that’s what you’re going for, but that’s not what you’ve been mentioning. You haven’t talked about wanting to scare people. So how do you reckon with this whole new layer of societal fear?

Blocker:  I absolutely think about that in clowning work. I think about how I communicate about clowning, how I post about it. And I was going through all of these old posts on some of our early clown work and I saw this picture that the marketing team posted. And it had It and Ronald Mcdonald and I can’t remember the third clown it had and, in big letters, [the poster read] ‘it’s not that kind of clown. Come see for yourself.’ To recognize that people have perceptions of what clowning is and this is different. This is theatrical clowning, referencing the European mime or Charlie Chaplin or trying to give cultural references to our audiences. Even referencing things like what we do in “The Shadows” or “Abbott Elementary” or “The Office” or “Fleabag”. In these shows, there are elements of clowning that audiences delight in. So people have actually a point of reference for the type of clowning work we do. They just might not realize it. So giving some of those examples are like oh my gosh I love what we do in “The Shadows”. Guillermo is amazing - how he takes to the audience. And we empathize with Guillermo and it’s exactly the elements of the clowning that we incorporate in our work.

Miller:  A couple of those examples are not american. I mean is there a difference between clowning as it’s seen here and as it’s seen in Europe or other countries?

Blocker:  I absolutely believe that. I spent some time in London and the culture around theater and street performers and clowning is really different. And in the U.S. I think the birthday clown or the scary clown is what comes to mind first. Those have a very valid place in our culture but I think the prevalence of the type of theatrical clowning that we do in the U.S. is not, first and foremost, what people think of.

Miller:  But you mentioned “Abbot Elementary” too. That’s a network comedy, a big celebrated hit for a couple of years now. So where does clown fit into that show?

Blocker:  In “Abbott Elementary ‘’ there’s [a character] in the show who takes to the audience. And so this is a moment where a clown technique is, ‘do you see me? Do you understand what I’m feeling?’ So this moment when a character takes to the audience, ‘hey audience, are you in this world with me? Do you get what I’m feeling?’ And then they go. So it’s a break from realism at that moment. So the audience really enters the show. And in our work that we do, that would be called a clown take. And so in comedy, there’s all these different techniques that are used and sometimes you’ll see those blending and merging and popping up in tv shows. And it’s novel, it’s effective for the audience and, again, we’re able to then empathize with that character and what they’re experiencing. Yeah, that principle is being ridiculous right now.

Miller:  I think of that as the phrase ‘breaking the fourth wall’.

Blocker:  Yes, correct.

Miller:  So I mean, is there ever a fourth wall for a clown? I mean, are they always basically with us?

Blocker:  It can really depend. This is an artistic decision that this is the clown that always breaks the fourth wall. And so there’s something really funny and the connection and bond with that character that’s different from the others. In some clown work the clown may never take their eyes off the audience and then this creates really funny physicality. And this obstacle of keeping that connection with the audience, there’s some artistic decisions that come into play with that type of decision.

Miller:  We’re talking right now about the CoHo Clown Festival. It started on Friday [Sept 16]. It goes on for three weeks at Portland’s Coho Theater. Sasha Blocker is a performer and a member of the CoHo Clown Festival. Phil Johnson is the Program Director at Coho Productions. The opening event on Friday was called A Clown Dance Ritual. What does that mean?

Blocker:  Philip Cuomo taught clown at Portland Actors Conservatory, ICP and did clown work at CoHo. And one of the things that he always did with his students was lead them in this dance ritual. It’s a really playful way to immediately get into your body and test your physical limits and connect. Eye contact is a big part of this ritual. So the first couple of minutes you’re just dancing, warming up. Then there’s a moment where you intentionally put on your clown costume pieces and this is a moment of transformation. All of a sudden I step into that clown and my physicality changes based on this costume.

Miller:  Do you have a particular piece that you always wear?

Blocker:  I do have this favorite piece. It’s a really kind of sparkly gold little half sweater jacket and I have this kind of bowler hat that I always wear. But my costume, you know, some people find they have one clown and I feel I have different clowns. So I have different costumes depending on the clown.

Miller:  We actually have some of the music that I understand you’ve used at these events in the past. I want to play part of one of the songs. It’s called “Artist”. It’s by Amadou and Mariam. Let’s have a listen: [music plays and continues in the background] This is a far cry from what I think of as circus music or sort of big top [theme] music. What is it about a song like this that gets you moving in a way that makes you feel like a clown?

Blocker:  The fast beat of it, there’s a playfulness to it, it’s easy to move to and dance to and it just instantly transforms a room when the group starts moving to this music.[music fades]

Miller:  Phil Johnson, on the website for the Festival, it says ‘this festival is a festival designed for artists by artists’. What does that mean?

Johnson:  It means that we are going to not only have programming, that is, ‘come in and watch, sit down and watch the show’. But it means that we’re gonna have programming like the clown dance ritual and the workshop where you can participate and get to be on stage and get a different type of experience in the theater.

Miller:  Where does the audience fit into that?

Johnson:  We don’t distinguish between audience and artists. When you walk into our building you become an artist. And I think a lot of what’s great about this type of work is that everyone gets to discover their own inner artist. The clown dance ritual opening night, there were people in there who may or may not have identified as artists but they got to put on their clown costume and be a clown with the rest of us. And in that moment we were all artists and all clowns.

Miller:  And all clowns. But I mean to go back to that idea, your argument is that we literally are all clowns or at least clowns remind us how inherently silly all of us are as humans?

Johnson:  Yeah, and I think that’s what’s important to remember and that’s what clown helps remind us of.

Miller:  Sasha, What are your hopes for what this festival could become in the coming years?

Blocker:  I think that this is already launching in such an amazing way and there is a fantastic group of clowns and comedy performers in the Portland area. Just giving them that platform and helping audience members, like Phil is saying, discover that and come forward and further their participation.l also think it’s something that is really missing in the U.S. and the pacific Northwest. So to have this hub and bring in outside artists as well is just amazing for Portland, to get these outside influences as well.

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