What does it take to be considered a ‘clown’? Are all clowns show offs? Judith Lanigan puts us in her suitcase and takes us with her on a ‘fly on the wall’ journey through what she calls Clownland, to discover not only what is clown but also what can we learn from the ethos of clown and perhaps apply to our daily existence. Lanigan invites us to consider that; ‘Clown is….a fresh willing idiot…’
For me that means that a clown disrupts the order and presents to us the chaos that we all have within us – and that some of us are not willing to face. This journey through Clownland invites us to not only accept that chaos, but to tap into it, reach out to it and roll with it. To go beyond yourself and embrace the quirk.
Lanigan tentatively states early on in the book: ‘I don’t want to end up with pieces of clown scatterd all over the floor that I don’t know how to put back together.’ Fair enough, clowns are messy creatures, they represent the human qualities we often try to haphazardly sweep under the rug. But Lanigan does not end up with bits of scattered clown, in fact what she does deliver is an insight for the reader into the various worlds of clown, giving us a an opportunity to see behind the performance and into what drives each clown to be just as they are – to offer themselves up as ‘a fresh willing idiot’ for us, the audience, to laugh at and with.
Laughter is an honest reaction that brings audience and clown together in a shared release of chaos. A wise clown once told me, ‘It takes as long as you’ve got – plus five minutes’. Reg Bolton was what I would consider the essence of a clown – open, honest, daring, unapologetically himself. This book is just that, a great read for those who know clowns and those who want to know more about them beyond the red nose and the white face.
As Lanigan puts it, ‘…because the artist is, after all, just part of the common human state.’
Clownland
By Judith Lanigan
Aerofish Media
Distributed by Dennis Jones & Associates
Paperback, RRP $29.95
