Clown Scenes

Clown Scenes recaptures the classic clown routines that flourished in the intimacy of the one-ring circus. They have been all but lost with the rise of the grand circus in the mid-twentieth century. But Tristan Remy, the eminent French circus historian, has pursued the little band of surviving clowns who worked in the old tradition, carefully recording their scenes. Like all popular theatre forms, these scenes developed as oral collaborations. They were invented and jealously guarded by those who played them. No active clown of the time would have considered writing them out for the benefit of his rivals. Thanks to Remy's patience and persistence, the forty-eight scenes presented here contain not only the spoken words but the manner of line delivery and the physical turns.