Day 13: Comic
It's amazing how challenging a one word prompt can be. Comic? WTF. I didn't know. Finally this...
It's more than just sad clown. I hope whoever is reading this can get beyond the fact that I chose a clown as my protagonist of this piece. I rather like clowns. Or rather, I like the essence of clowns. How I remember it described to me was that clowns live in the moment. And the reason why we laugh at them is because they are intensely human, and when they deal with pain and embarrassment and anger, it's really a reflection of ourselves. A person with serious balls will get up in front of strangers, find the tenderest truest part of themselves as a human, and then blow it out of proportion for the masses to laugh at.
This revealing quality of clowning is something I've been trying to learn as an actor. Perhaps this challenge is my first step of that. In fact, there is an exercise in my basic acting class and it goes like this; choose one aspect of yourself that is holding you back in life (greed, shyness, egotistical), and then create a character out of it. The exercise is called Personal Clown.
I haven't had a chance to do this exercise, though I've heard stories of how revealing it is.
So, look at this clown. This sad clown, yes, I admit. She is lonely. She is sunk in her own miseries, lost to the world. Only when she has an audience does she jump to life. It is the result of being watched that gives her focus. But this facade is short lived, and soon, alone again, she sinks deeper into her thoughts. She has trouble being by herself. Just being, in fact, with herself.
Understand, I am not the clown. But she is an aspect of me. And I can't ignore her.
This revealing quality of clowning is something I've been trying to learn as an actor. Perhaps this challenge is my first step of that. In fact, there is an exercise in my basic acting class and it goes like this; choose one aspect of yourself that is holding you back in life (greed, shyness, egotistical), and then create a character out of it. The exercise is called Personal Clown.
I haven't had a chance to do this exercise, though I've heard stories of how revealing it is.
So, look at this clown. This sad clown, yes, I admit. She is lonely. She is sunk in her own miseries, lost to the world. Only when she has an audience does she jump to life. It is the result of being watched that gives her focus. But this facade is short lived, and soon, alone again, she sinks deeper into her thoughts. She has trouble being by herself. Just being, in fact, with herself.
Understand, I am not the clown. But she is an aspect of me. And I can't ignore her.
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