City of Fools: Chicago’s Clown Theater Festival
Danzig is also the mastermind behind the first “City of Fools: Chicago’s Clown Theater Festival,” a three-weekend event that’s at least as risky as anything he does in 500 Clown Macbeth. But sitting through this year’s offerings it was hard not to wish every performer shared Danzig’s devotion and perfectionism. Of the four pieces I saw, only 500 Clown Macbeth felt fully formed and rehearsed.
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The plot is simple: three clowns attempt a low-budget, high-concept Macbeth, a production that puts them in some physical danger. The challenges they face will be familiar to anyone who knows Chicago’s non-Equity scene. The set looks cool but is extremely precarious–in one of the show’s running gags, one part after another collapses. And the performance is beset by every imaginable mishap: missed cues, lighting problems, “spectacular” moments that fall flat.
There are some amazing moments in the Theatre Corps’ two-person show If You Don’t Have Arms, You Cannot Surrender, especially when Rachel Klem and Kelley Ogden engage in the kind of gross-out humor women were once believed incapable of. In this dark comedy about two revolutionaries locked up in a prison, one of them squats and pees all over the floor. Then the other spitefully reveals the trick: the first clown has a bottle under her dress.
Taylor also has the most amazing costume change in the show. Covering himself in a long piece of butcher paper, he somehow manages to remove all his clothing and cover his face in greasepaint, emerging completely naked in whiteface. It’s a transformation typical of Asylum 137’s unpredictability and creativity in this show, loosely organized around images of vaginas. Watching these performers I was sometimes offended or troubled but seldom bored. Now if only they’d better define their characters and give their piece some structure. i
