Laugh out loud

Clown tricks

The schoolchildren are in disarray as the show kicks off with clown Flubber declaring: "Rule #1: Make some noise; rule #2: make a noise; rule #3: laugh!”

And one can imagine the roar of delight that greets this announcement at the first of a few performances of the International Clown Festival, in its fifth edition, at Good Shepherd Auditorium.

Martin D’Souza, the Indian artiste who brings Flubber alive, then elicited the kids’ “help” to find the four clowns who have come with him — the US-based Benjamin Domask (stage name: Benji), Nicole Marsh Portwood (Maggie) and Pam Moody (Sparky) as well as Oscar Flores (Timmyto) of Mexico.
    
Flubber, who anchors the show, says they are all runaway circus clowns who love to fight and play with one another.

“Like all of you don’t see your friends after you leave school,” he tells the children, “Maggie also didn’t see hers — a very close friend — for a long, long time. How long?”
     
Peals of laughter reverberate in the auditorium as he exclaims, “Exactly three minutes, 45 seconds!”

But as the show proceeds, there’s more trick than talk, more comic mime than wit, a perfect blend for a mirthful couple of hours.
     
Juggling with balls, even baseball bat-like objects, unicycling, Timmyto balancing himself on a big red ball — sometimes spinning and at others stationary — and the artistes tripping one another up for everyone’s amusement.

And most often, Timmyto is the butt of these jokes: he is thrown around by Benji in a mock-boxing round, both of them sporting glossy red gloves; he trips and falls over himself as tries to — in all appearance — master the unicycle in vain.
    
Until Benji slips over to the first row and gets a boy to join them on stage. Then, voila, the Mexico-based performer is riding around the proscenium, the boy riding on his shoulders.
     
He barely gets off and there’s a six-foot cycle waiting for him to mount and the child shakes his head and scurries off stage.

The girls too have their quibbles, including an intense shouting match that turns to gibberish in the last few seconds till Maggie’s amplifying device falls out of her pocket.

In another interactive act, Sparky, labelled the “world’s greatest musician” in jest, tries out a trick on four well-built men. They sit right angles to each other, their heads on one another’s lap. And then, gradually, the chairs are pulled from under them.
      
They balance for a few seconds, and only collapse together on the floor when they are asked to rise.

A couple of times, the children are unstoppable when the artistes are fighting it out on stage, cheering one or the other on. Maggie emerges the favourite when she and the other two usurped Benji’s “concert”.

“But we loved Benji, especially his juggling and when he tripped up the Mexican guy as he was cycling,” says class 4 student Aryan, speaking for his entire bunch of friends who thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In all, it was a good laugh.