BrilliantSteve's last Lesson.

So to BrilliantSteve’s last workshop- Clowning. First half an hour doing stupid games during which BS, no pun intended, heartily berated our inability to do the simplest things. Very funny. No really. This culminated in us each saying in turn, “I’m (our name) Stiffmouse and I’m really stupid.” As BS is too young to have spent time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp I assumed this was theatre school stuff. It was fascinating how we each said ‘really’. Maybe only a subservient adverb but redolent with inflection, which ranged from meaning ‘very’ to ‘I'm not sure if I'm…’ to ‘I’m not stupid but I’m really trying to say I am’, to in my case, “I am intelligent but at some level I’m really..” It was the unavoidable honesty of each minute inflection that is the centre of clowning. It’s as if we are only real when caught off guard and the rest of the time we’re in some play of our own construction. Yet again Shakespeare, the iambic pentameter Elizabethan rapper, keeps it real. We moved into pairs. One said expectantly, “I hear you know all the moves”, the other answered yes. The first gave encouragement as the second, thus encouraged, showed his moves. As ‘moves’ is not particularly explicit only conviction is necessary to get even more encouragement. This was a truly wonderful experience. My inner child was ecstatic; just like my first success at peeing on a potty, before the long trek downhill to rightful trying at the hands of reprimand. I really shone at ‘bottoms out’ and ‘sideways’. And then came clowning. The clown is visceral. We find him funny because we experience the delight of knowing our true self still exists however long forgotten; that visceral presence of truly being who we are, our essential laughter. It’s very difficult to find one’s clown place. One is disarmed of the constant checks and balances of one’s contrived existence. One exhibits shame, confusion, wonder and unknowing with the beautiful vivacity that’s only allowable under the constant conviction of one's ultimate success and its approbation. It’s not easy but it’s well worth the trying. And never underestimate the power of joyous encouragement.