Day 7: Chortle

Because serious clowns just seemed appropriate.

“You mustn’t underestimate the seriousness of this endeavor,” the instructor proclaimed. “You are learning a majestic art as old as antiquity. We do everything that the best dramatists do, with only half their tools. We immediately invoke not only the sympathy of the audience, but their identification as well. On this stage, where so many performers work to be larger-than-life, to seem superhuman, to do things that ought to be impossible, we are the audience’s eyes, their voice, their representatives. We are the heart of the circus; without us it would be nothing.

“We are clowns, and we are proud.”