Send in the clowns: Troupe’s show rates ‘a seven on the glitter scale’
A clown-dance-theatre group that enjoys nothing more than glamming it up onstage, Fou Fou Ha! is no stranger to glitter. So, just how glittery is its latest production, The 24 Carrot Show?
“Oh, gosh, you know, I would say that we’ve had other shows that were heavier on glitter,” says director and co-founder Maya Lane. “But, we love all things glitter. We love the sparkle and the magnificence. I’ll have to say this is probably a seven on the glitter scale.”
The 24 Carrot Show follows Whoah-Man! A Musical!, the 16-year-old troupe’s most recent work. Underneath all the clowning in that show was a serious message about finding and being one’s authentic self, fearlessly. Lane says she wanted to come back to that theme with the new production, but in a different format.
“I would say this show is more of a cabaret variety show,” she says. “It’s more interactive. Our MC, Jamie DeWolfe, is brilliant at getting people to unleash their inhibitions, to get onstage and play, to be sexy, to be unabashed.”
Lane formed Fou Fou Ha! after studying dance theatre and European circus in the Netherlands. Based in San Francisco, the troupe is comprised of professional dancers, drag queens and clowns. Last year, member Allegra Misonznick-Davidson moved to Brooklyn, where she formed the East Coast offshoot Fou York. The 24 Carrot Show is the first collaboration between the two “squads,” as Lane calls them.
“With Fou York, it’s a smaller crew, and everyone does it all — they all do drag, they all do clowning, they all do dancing.”
The Brooklyn chapter is also under the influence of House of Yes, a converted Brooklyn ice warehouse that now showcases dance, circus, theatre and cabaret performances. “That is giving it (Fou York) a very particular flavour, which is very Studio 54 meets Paris is Burning — very edgy, very drag, very sexy,” Lane says. “It has a lot of the club-kid quality to it.”
Besides the clowning and dancing in The 24 Carrot Show, three of the performers talk about their personal experiences and the transformative powers of clowning. Monologists include a member each from Fou York and Fou Fou Ha!, as well as DeWolfe.
“He wrote a piece about finding hope when he was hopeless through becoming a clown,” Lane says. (The weekend following Fou Fou Ha!’s appearances, DeWolfe is scheduled to host another show at the Rio, Game of Thrones Live!)
Lane, a practising psychotherapist, is convinced of the therapeutic value of clowning.
“A lot of the work that I do with the performers in Fou Fou Ha! has the quality of looking at their fears, how they see themselves and the way they present themselves. Watching the show has some of that transformative quality as well.”
Audience members are often surprised by how moving the show can be, including Vancouverites who took in Whoah-Man! last year at the Rio.
“A lot of people just looked at the costumes and the makeup and the look and probably thought, ‘Oh, a clown show. I don’t know if I’m going to be interested.’ Then they came and we would hear things like, ‘Oh my God, I had no idea, I thought it was going to be a goofy show, but I was crying, I was really moved. It really changed me.’
“It’s hard to convey when you have a particular look, people are going to project that it’s going to be one-dimensional,” Lane says. “But, I want to convey that this is not just your typical fun clown variety show.
“There’s a lot that people are going to be connecting with around their own humanity, and showing themselves for who they really are.”