Clowns

 

Clowns

                                            Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Many people don’t like clowns. Some are actively scared by them.  A clown phobia is called coulrophobia and is more prevalent than some other fears, like arachnophobia or claustrophobia.

Traditionally, there are three major categories of clown to be seen in circuses, though some clowns, like Joseph Grimaldi, performed only on stage in pantomimes.

The whiteface clown is regarded as the superior clown, his face and neck completely masked in white greasepaint, ‘clown white’, the features painted on in red or black. He often wears a conical hat and a fitted, full sleeved costume with short trouser legs. The suit is usually colourful and elaborate and may be decorated with sequins. The clown in Pagliacci is a whiteface clown, the jocular exterior hiding the pain of his inner sorrow.

The Auguste or ‘red’ clown wears red or flesh-coloured makeup and outlines his eyes and mouth with white and paints other features in red or black. He wears baggy trousers in strident patterns and colours, oversized shoes, outrageous wigs and a bright red nose. He is ‘the fall guy’, the stooge to the whiteface clown. He is the one who receives a pie in the face or falls on his backside or has his clothes ripped off. He is the butt of every joke.

The third category is the character clown, who may support either of the other two clowns, depending on circumstances. He is cleverer than the Auguste clown but inferior to the whiteface clown. He is an eccentric version of any one of a number of standard characters, like a policeman, a housewife or a tramp. His make-up is flesh coloured and accessorised with such things as a false beard, big ears, huge glasses or an odd haircut.

Laurel and Hardy are examples of character clowns, though they relied on costume rather than make-up and bizarre accessories.

Marcel Marceau was not a circus performer and not traditionally a whiteface clown, though he adopted white make-up. He was a brilliant mime artist but also deserves to be remembered for his work in the French Résistance, saving at least seventy Jewish children from the Nazis.

I find circus clowns quite grotesque and not at all amusing, but am happy to watch Buster Keaton or the Marx Brothers, or any of the modern clowns.

Modern clowns include actors like Rowan Atkinson and Sacha Baron Cohen, though they may prefer to be known principally as actors, but then surely clowns are actors, too.

Clowns make you laugh – don’t they?

My attitude to clowns is somewhat ambivalent, due, I suppose, to my dislike –maybe misunderstanding - of slapstick. I appreciate and giggle at Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and cringe at Charlie Chaplin, but custard pies? NO! The make-up also, though traditional, I find hard to like. A mask, however cleverly painted, is a mask nonetheless, and what is more disturbing than a visage which appears to be something it is not, in fact hides its true character? Strangely, in other cultures, the white mask is not threatening. I had not thought about this for some time until I read an article recently about children's entertainers and saw photographs of them in unlikely and definitely unflattering costumes and remembered the reactions of two of my children.
Gareth was about three when I took him and his older and younger sisters to an after-school show. I remember nothing of the show, nothing of Gillian and Susannah's reactions, but even now, almost four decades later, I recall Gareth's reaction and smile. He laughed so hard he almost fell over – he laughed so much that the rest of the audience turned to smile at him and laugh with him – he still has a robust sense of humour.
Susannah was never very fond of clowns – they frightened her, for she was a sensitive child - but one Christmas, when she was about two and a half, my parents gave her a life-size (for her) clown doll. My mother, a gifted needlewoman, had made it for her. It was made of cheery red material, robustly stuffed and had foot straps which enabled her to slip her feet in and move the clown as she wished – to dance with it. As she opened it – my parents holding their breath – and revealed it she said, 'Cloudy' and that was his name for ever after. She had hours of pleasure playing with this life-size doll until eventually she outgrew him and he had pretty nearly disintegrated. I will never forget her delight as she uncovered him and the joy she had playing with him. He was for her alone – far too small for her older siblings to commandeer and though my mother never said anything about it, her little granddaughter's pleasure was as great a gift as the gift she had so lovingly created.