Clowning Around in Williamsburg, at the Brick

Move over Bozo, because the clowns of the New York Clown Theatre Festival at Williamsburg’s Brick Theater aren’t interested in performing magic tricks, pulling rabbits out of hats or inadvertently giving nightmares to the children they were hired to entertain at a backyard birthday party somewhere in the suburbs. In fact, this kind of clowning is very, very different, maybe than anything you’ve ever seen before.
The NY Clown Theatre Festival, now in its fourth year, lasts roughly three weeks and serves as a forum and stage for the borough, the city, the country and even the world’s best clowns to come together for workshops, festivities and, of course, theatre performances. The brainchild of performers Audrey Crabtree, Eric David and Devin Ludlow, the NY Clown Festival is one of the only events of its kind in New York City or elsewhere.
“I wasn’t always a great lover of clown as a child—I remember seeing some birthday thing that freaked me out a little bit,” Crabtree said. She, along with Robert Honeywell, produces the festival each year. “I came to clown through being a performer. The idea for the clown festival was to try and show people that clown is about catharsis, emotions, laughter, joy, tears—it’s a variety. In the US we have this idea of a scary white-faced clown, and oddly enough the only people who do that are the birthday party clowns. We wanted to erase that image in people’s minds, and replace it with something else. Clowns show us ourselves, allow us to laugh at ourselves and show us compassion.”
Throughout the NY Clown Festival, the Brick Theater will feature more than 20 full-length shows and five cabarets showcasing more than 100 performers from as far away as Australia, Ukraine, Israel, Mexico, Canada and Whales, not to mention a smattering of states across the country.
While the Festival is, for the most part, an opportunity for clowns, entertainers and performers to watch and learn from one another while celebrating a unique and often misunderstood art form, the organizers hope that it will simultaneously help to debunk the myth of clowns as creatures inspiring fear and discomfort.
“It’s an amazing art form for one, plus it’s a lot of fun,” said Honeywell, who is also the creative director of the Brick Theater. “At the Brick we do all original theatre and we love theater that is physical and in-your-face. Clown theater is all of that: highly original, cutting edge, and really in people’s faces so much so that it makes people uncomfortable. It breaks boundaries. I love the element of anarchy—people think of clowns as funny, but really they are dangerous. They make some people nervous. It introduces unpredictability in theater work that I’ve become addicted to.”
Clown theatre, unlike many other forms of performance, emphasizes audience participation and interaction. Honeywell explained that clowning revolves around character study, though ultimately the effect breaks down the barrier between performer and audience: Both are vulnerable to the other’s unpredictability, volatility and humanity.
“With clown work, you don’ t know what’s going to happen. It’s about who they are, and that’s really challenging as a performer,” Honeywell continued. “It’s sophisticated improv work that’s rooted in character; it is about making the audience vulnerable, and about making the clown vulnerable. And with both of them, you don’t know what is going to happen.”
The NY Clown Theater Festival will run through September 26 at the Brick Theater, 575 Metropolitan Avenue between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street. The Festival will wrap with a funeral procession leading back to the theatre, inviting all clowns and those who love them to parade through the streets of Williamsburg, red noses and all.

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