THIS CLOWN SHOW JUST MIGHT INDUCE SOME TEARS
Troy troupe offers tale of lonely jester
Like a movie that comes out a year or more after its cast last was together in front of the cameras, the latest show from the Contemporary Circus & Immersive Arts Center was filmed in June.
Titled “A.lone,” the 45-minute, oneman show, available to be streamed for a fee for a month starting Friday, is a video version of a production titled “This Is Not a Test” that was performed in fall 2017 at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. The earlier show was one of the first works created, presented and performed locally by Aaron Marquise, who trained for four years at the world-renowned National Circus School in Montreal.
In the time since, Marquise founded the Collar City-based CCIAC, a company dedicated to providing time and funding for small contemporary circus acts and related performing artists to develop and present new work. CCIAC’S last public offering was at Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs almost 11 months ago, in early March, just days before the state-mandated shutdown of the performing arts.
While unable to invite audiences for most of last year, CCIAC hosted a residency that allowed a Philadelphia company to rehearse and film a new piece, Marquise said, and he was able to work with a creative team to revise and otherwise turn “This Is Not a Test” into “A.lone.”
As in its progenitor, “A.lone” brings its audience into the frightening, solitary world of a contemporary clown named A, who lives by himself in a rundown theater while war and wild weather rage outside. As he reminisces about his days in the limelight before adoring crowds, A uses his imagination to build a family life and to start to imagine a future when the world is again more normal.
Shot during two days in June with a multicamera setup over multiple runthroughs at CCIAC’S home in the Troy Gasholder building, “A.lone” is faithful to the themes of the original work, according to its its creator and performer.
“The sentiment of the piece and the
world of the clown is the same, but it’s been improved. We made it for a streaming audience, not just filming the stage show,” Marquise says.
The video version includes new contributions from designers, a composer and a Montreal-based director, who worked with Marquise via Zoom. (He directed the original himself.)
“We made it tighter, clearer; things make a little more sense now,” says Marquise. Further, he adds, “We trimmed it a bit and strengthened the jokes. It’s just better.”
Although “A.lone” was ready for streaming over the summer, Marquise decided to wait to release it.
After the initial quarantine, “People were out and about, at least as much as they could” during the warmer months, Marquise says. “I had the feeling that things were going to get worse over the winter, so we held off until we thought people would be really looking for something new.”