the Clown

1. The Clown is about people’s dreams of being successful in a career that doesn’t suit them or is very unlikely catch people’s attention. It’s about the improbable, the ifs. In this situation, the entertainer attempts a stage performance in front of a crowd and fails to impress quite drastically. This shows a conflict between the crowd and the clown. Is the public not easy amused or is the clown simply not funny? This depends on the opinion. By changing the script towards the end, I would have a twist in which the last scene would reveal that the clown is only a cleaner of the venue, sweeping the floor. It was all in his head. He wishes he could be a comedian. In this revised version, the fact that the entertainer fail to make the audience laugh show honesty to the character. The audience would be the same actor as the clown to show a double point of view from what is actually the same person. A lot of people can be very vain to what their true potentials are. This script shows the sad truth that most of the time things don’t happen the way they should and being able to recognise this is a gift. The fact that the actor and the audience are played by the same actor represents honesty within the character. He sees both views.

2. The introductory scene shows us a confident and professional looking clown getting ready to jump onto stage. We can hear a crowd laughing and talking in the background. Everything looks like an exhilarating performance is about to commence. But as the show pursues itself, it seems that the clown is not that funny after all and that he seems to be a bit of a nutcase. The type who, no matter how much they try, just don’t get it right. This brings tension to the scene. This tension is brought to a halt when the compere decides to put an end to the disastrous performance. The compere has a bark at the failure and chucks him out. The last transformation is when you would realise that the clown is just a cleaner daydreaming that he performed on the very stage he is mopping.

3. The first scene is to introduce the main character, the clown. So we need to discover who he is or anything about him which is relevant to the script. We want to see him as a confident, professional and well equipped comedian. So he has a colourful and elaborate clown suit. We see him putting his makeup on in a very precise and methodical way. Note that he himself is doing this and not a makeup artist. This shows that he knows what he is doing. He looks at himself in the mirror swapping his humorous smiling face to his normally more composed and ready face. He has a last look at how he looks and with a self-assured stern seems to be ready to enter the stage. The fat wafting compere introduces the harlequin to the public and the clown approaches the microphone and kisses his lips against it to insure himself of the height of it. He pulls his sleeves up and pulls his trousers exaggeratedly to high so that one can see his ankles and that his waist line is way past his bellybutton. Now looking quite frivolous, the comedian makes a few jokes, make monkey noises and throws nuts in the air which he misses to swallow. The public is dead silent until a heckler, played by the same actor as the clown, rudely interrupts the show by yelling to the harlequin to make the crowd laugh. This creates a chuckle from the crowd which intimidates the clown who now seems a bit out of place. He grunts and composes himself, chin up to the microphone. He suddenly collapses to his knees and start to pray. The crowd laughs but the confused clown stops himself to say that they weren’t supposed to laugh then. It is clear now that the audience is now laughing at the fact that the clown is a rubbish comedian and he is making a fool of himself. The heckler is now at the bottom of his seat crying of laughter and making fun of the humorist. The compere wobbles onto stage and grabs the microphone, nudging off the clown out of the way. He then throws in a pitiable joke to try and regain the atmosphere of the crowd. Then, back in the changing room the compere is yelling at the clown, telling him that he is this and that and that he will not get paid and that he should leave immediately. The compere throws the clown out of a security door, leaving him in his suit on the rainy street. The worried look on the harlequins face zooms out to him casually sweeping the floor of the stage floor.

4. At the start, we identify the clown with an expectation of success. But as the show reveals itself, we are disappointed with his performance and empathize him for the crowd’s (the heckler’s) reaction. The tension is accentuated when the compere stops the show to make thing even worst with his own humour. Then, the enraged compere fires his entertainer with a tone of authority and edgy violence. The baffled clown has a change of expression and body language as the reality of the situation becomes apparent.

5. The objective of the main character is to show that how much we might think we are agile to do something; we must always step out of who we are to find honesty within us. The heckler in this case shows that the cleaner could not make a good clown. The back-story is revealed in the last shot. This explains the whole thing.

6. The first beat can be characterised with action verbs such as: confident, practised and in control. This will probably take quite some time to get right as the acting must be impeccable and make-up is involved. The next beat is informative as we do not expect the poor act. The next beat, in which the heckler, in some sort, becomes the fun of the act, by mocking the not so bright spark, conflicts with the boredom of the show. This change the point of view which is the main objective of the script. The objective of the compeer is to show that even he is not even very talented. You would expect that a host to a comedy night would need a bit of humour as well. His last scene clashes with his personality. The last beat is when we realise that all of the previous was in some cleaner’s imagination.

7. The first scene is in a changing room backstage. The clown prepares himself in front of a mirror surrounded with round lights. The second scene brings us to a stage with a strong spotlight. There are also two shots of the crowd which is represented by seated silhouettes in which we can see only one spectator, the heckler, shown by a dimmed light. There is a scene at a security door which takes us outside.

8. Research: huhum…

9. Overall I wish for people to understand what the end means. I hope that they will catch the twist. I also hope the acting will bring some laughs as we are dealing with comedy.

10. Blocking