500 Clown Strikes Again

On Monday night 500 Clown presented their production of Frankenstein while serving their audience franks and steins of beer in the lobby. The event was well attended in the Galaxie art gallery on Barry Avenue where the performance troupe also has its resident offices. The troupe has returned to its roots of performing in small and intimate spaces so they can be more present with their audiences. The choice is certainly paying off.

Once again the clowns distill the story down to its essential element of "the other" and do a wonderful job of affecting their audience through physical play. They start off with a little bit of comedy then comes the physical daring as the do acrobatics and other physical acts on a massive wooden table (they even pull the Charlie Chaplin falling house move with the table). Finally they get to the essential human emotion as one clown becomes the monster and is isolated, derided, and abused by the other two. The audience and the monster realize that it isn't a game any more like it was in the beginning and the performance takes a darker twist to its ultimate conclusion.