2019-10-24
"The world is filled with anywhere elses."
I first encountered this quote when an author took our variety show's stage to read an original children's story. The context was about the world being full of places potentially better than the bad one you're currently in, and that choosing to escape to one of those places was sane, sound, and terrific idea.
The rest of the story was kind of a rambling dud, but the quote stayed with me.
I've noticed that the longer I've immersed myself in the work of clown, the more at odds I've found myself with this quote. It made me uncomfortable on some fundamental level, and it took me a long time to understand exactly why.
After a lot of reflection, I came to this ironically inescapable fact:
Clown may sometimes feel like a respite from real life. It may even serve as a brief escape to a simpler state of mind. However, this is the exact opposite of the clown's purpose.
Clown is not about going anywhere else. The job is to make the place you, in the moment you're in, an "anywhere else" you want to be.