Staring Mark Jaster & Sabrina Mandell
Director: Elena Day
Writer: Antony Bolante
Co-producers: Antony Bolante, Elena Day
Video Editing: Antony Bolante
Videography: Antony Bolante, Michael Day, Dan Catalano
By Stanley Allan Sherman
© copyright September 13, 2012
Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell, I loved. They were funny, joyful, playful and the exchanges between them were great. The pie in the face lecture was fun. Sabrina’s testing piece was freeing. I will not tell you what it is because I do not want to give it away.
We have a lot of video of clowns talking about clowning, clown theology and themselves. These clowns are not in make-up or doing bits. They are just as they are talking to us on video. The only video clip that really worked for me was Amy G, because it included a few clips of her doing drop down really funny on the edge stuff; showing timing, skills and just being wonderfully funny. Even if the videos looked like they were taken with a cheep cell phone, it was the best part of all the videos and I stayed fully awake. The rest of the videos quality where excellent, it was good seeing my buddy Hovey Burgess talking about clowns. For the most part I do not remember anything any of them said. In fact I was falling a sleep during some of Bill Irwin, Jeff Raz and others. Even thought I do not believe they are boring. There was one part of the video where they had endless clowns saying the exact same phrase. For the people that really enjoy and love seeing clowns talking about clowning, hearing theory, theology on clowns and see a little of it in action; plus seeing several working clowns talking about clowning this is the show for you. This show does have a place somewhere, but I will not be looking for it Off Broadway as three other shows in the festival could rise to. Director Elena Day and writer Antony Bolante failed to find how to use all this video well or maybe it is the editing and plain backgrounds.
The live clowns in on the nOse were wonderful and they get credit for their play together and a really nice dramatic line. Love the love tension between the Mark and Sabrina. Would like to see a lot less video and a lot more of them. They did do some interaction with the videos, maybe they need a lot more.
Final Show is tonight, Thursday September 13, 2012 at 7 PM
The New York Clown Theater Festival runs through Sept. 30th at the Brick Theater http://www.bricktheater.com