Arts & Life, Fine & Performing Arts

It’s a clowns life

A few California State University, Long Beach alumni have done nothing but clown around since graduation. And believe it or not, they’ve made a career out of it.

Four Clowns, a self-described “band of idiots” who have synthesized the art of clowning and acting into an internationally touring theatre company, premiered a new show titled “The Halfwits’ Last Hurrah” at The Hollywood Fringe Festival on June 4th.

“There’s stilt walking, ventriloquism, opera singing, dancing, knife throwing, death, mayhem, destruction, money, finger traps,” said Director David Anthony Anis, a 2013 CSULB alumnus. “But most of all, there’s fun to be had.”

The show’s premise concerns a motley troupe of circus performers who look like they’ve just climbed out of a time-traveling boxcar straight out of 1925. Under the guide of their megalomaniacal, but lovable, ringleader Butterbeans Arbuckle, they take turns performing their talents on stage. Laughs abound as their ragtag variety show slowly but surely spirals into a violent crescendo of absurdity.

Recent CSULB graduate Tyler Bremer played Henchman #1, his first role since joining the company in March. He says many of the jokes were developed in a collaborative effort through weeks of improv and were later worked into the script by the writers.

The vaudeville extravaganza is full of slap-stick comedy and racy double entendres aimed at poking fun at the struggles of being a performer.

“Everyone is always saying theatre is dead, theatre is dead. In the [Los Angeles] theatre scene, everyone is struggling to make stuff happen, and I think there’s a lot of things that come with that,” said Anis. “The passion doesn’t get the spotlight that it deserves. This show is a little bit of a tribute to that.”

Four Clowns was founded in 2010 at the inaugural Hollywood Fringe Festival by CSULB alumnus Jeremy Aluma, who is now the company’s Artistic Director.

He says the audience responded so well to his first clown show that he immediately knew he was onto something special. And, as they say in show business, the rest is history.

The tightknit company is now comprised of 30 members, many of whom have graduated from clown school. But these aren’t your typical rent-a-clown birthday party Bozos.

The company looks to create compelling shows that hold a funhouse mirror to society. While they’re wrangling out laughs, they’re also forcing the audience to confront personal assumptions and uncomfortable taboos, such as incest, all under the guise of jest.

“There’s a lot of truth in what they do. Shining a light on humanity is the mission,” Anis said.

The experimental combination of clowning and acting that has become Four Clowns’ trademark gives the characters in “The Halfwits’ Last Hurrah” an extra dimension over those in traditional theatrical performances. The emotive quality of human body language is exaggerated and interactions between characters and spectators blur the lines between fiction and reality.

One of the first sketches involves a teetotaling liquor vendor who asks an audience member in the front row how she should take her first ever drink.

“[With clowning] there’s no fourth wall, there’s no pretense, there’s just a sort of honesty to it,” said Anis. “It comes from a very innocent perspective, of seeing the world with new eyes and experiencing everything full-on without shame, without apology or anything else. It’s a sort of a child-like perspective on the world.”

“The Halfwits’ Last Hurrah” is playing at the Lillian Theatre in Hollywood with only five more dates though June 26th. Tickets start at $12, and show times vary by date.

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