No Kidding!: Clown as Protagonist in Twentieth-century Theatre
- ISBN-10
- 0874138086
- ISBN-13
- 9780874138085
- Category
- Clowns in literature
- Pages
- 198
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2003
- Publisher
- University of Delaware Press
- Author
- Donald McManus
Description
No Kidding! Clown as Protagonist in Twentieth-Century Theater examines the way clown was transformed into a serious character in twentieth-century theater. Modernist theater practitioners recognized that clown's approach to performance is profoundly different from other modes of theatrical representation. The paradox of clown, a traditionally marginal, comic character thrust into center stage as the focus of the agon, provided a stimulating new way to renovate tragedy. Experiments with clown by Jean Cocteau, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Giorgio Strehler, Dario Fo, and Roberto Benigni are examined as a means of exploring how and why clown became, in contemporary theater and film, a character from whom audiences expect philosophizing, angst, or political criticism as much as physical comedy and fractured language.
