Clowning #7 - Clowns and Shakespeare

“How can I be actually funny in a clown role in a Shakespeare play?”

In this workshop we will look at the practical problems how to stage the clowning in Shakespeare’s plays and his contemporaries. In order to do so, we will workshop techniques specific to known clowns of the late 16th and early 17th century, using texts which span the careers of three of the most influential clowns of the period: Richard Tarlton, Will Kemp and Robert Armin.

• How to work in a dynamic conversation with the audience as a clown responding to laughter

• How to exist in the dual world of the performer: the fiction on stage and the reality of the auditorium

• How clowns and actors co-exist in their contrasting performing modes

• How to read, analyse, and stage clown parts in a script - producing clowning from the texts.

• How the clowns are actually funny whilst the actors get on with the play

• Clowns as solo performers independent of others

• Clowns embedded in the fictional world of the play