MONTREAL-TRAINED CONTEMPORARY CLOWN TO PERFORM IN TROY AT REVOLUTION HALL, OCT 26
Troy-based Aaron Marquise Aims to Change Perception of Clowns in One Man, One Night Only Performance of "This is Not a Test"
TROY, N.Y.- A French clown living in Troy aims to change the perception of clowns with a one-person performance on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at Revolution Hall.
"I'm not a birthday clown or a clown standing in a parking lot trying to scare you," said Aaron Marquise, a Montreal-trained contemporary French clown. "I focus more on the connection I can have with my audience and less on oversized props, colorful wigs, and balloon animals. When I can get a belly laugh out of 45-year-old man who has worked his entire life with his hands and has raised three kids, I know I've worked hard that night."
Earlier this year, Marquise, established the region's only professional touring contemporary circus company, headquartered in Troy, N.Y. Marquise Productions has wowed audiences with three original circus shows in Troy's awesome Gas Holder building, a massive circular brick building that happens to resemble a French circus building. Though Marquise has performed as a clown before audiences in Montreal and Europe, he has only served as artistic director of the previous Troy circus productions, making this the first time for local audiences to see him in a performing role. "This is Not a Test" is Marquise's first solo production.
A mix between theater and a French-style of clowning, "This is Not a Test" is about an isolated clown who finds shelter in a desolate theater. With only inanimate objects as his friends, he attempts to live out the end of times, trapped between the music of yesterday and the disaster of tomorrow.
This show was created through an artist-in-residency program, provided by The Arts Center of the Capital Region and is sponsored by Brown's Brewing Company. The performance contains some mature content and runs approximately one hour with no intermission. Marquise says he aims to show the audience that clowning is an art form. He is not just going for laughs.
"I did not want to have a show that was just all jokes and only focused on laughter but also a show that had some heart and could challenge the audience to think," Marquise said. "My clown is living alone in this sort of post apocalyptic war world, living on a stage in a theater but he's still hearing sounds of bombs dropping and planes flying overhead. He is very lonely."
While the show does not make any direct connections to the current U.S. election season, audiences may infer some references.
"Some people are calling the presidential candidates 'clowns.' They are not clowns, they're all lunatics... except for wazisname," Marquise joked, having no particular political leanings of his own. It is scary, when you give someone that much power and at any moment they can press a button and start a world war. And that is where my show begins, after that button has been pressed by the lunatics in power."
CREEPY CLOWNS VS FRENCH CLOWNS
Though "creepy clowns" are all over the news lately, Marquise said he's not overly concerned about the negative effect they are having on the art form.
"The Creepy Clown thing is just a few people who are bored and decided to tap into a certain level of fear that already existed," Marquise said. "I think it started as a joke and then there were copy-cats. But we also know that some people are inherently afraid of clowns because of the colors and their in-your-face attitude that doesn't observe normal boundaries."
Clowns rarely ever speak in their normal voice, Marquise said, noting that he himself either speaks in French or in English with a French accent, though he is a native anglophone.
"Because I studied as a clown in Montreal, the language there is French and a lot of my classes were in French so I picked up all these technical terms in French and I thought in French and had to communicate with my French-speaking audiences," said Marquise, who is a native of Round Lake, N.Y. "Slowly my clown felt more comfortable talking in French or 'Franglais,' which is a made up word for when you combine French and English."
Marquise said that there are several types of clowns including the contemporary French clown, American circus clown, and the Russian clown. While Russian clowns are typically clever and melancholic they are still very funny. The American circus clown uses more slapstick humor and large props that can be easily seen in arenas. The contemporary French clown exists somewhere between those two styles, because they still use props and can have a sad cleverness, but the focus is on the relationship with the audience and less on the gag.
Though his is a decidedly French clown, Marquise draws inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, who was English, and other American clowns of the Depression era.
"Clowns put a mirror to society and say 'This is what we're dealing with at the moment,'" Marquise said. "Charlie Chaplin is a great example of that, where he's this tramp and shows how the other half lives. He is able to confront authority figures such as the cops and the bosses of the factory."
Whether Chaplin was raising an orphan boy or mistakenly ruling a militaristic regime there was always heart inside the laughter, Marquise said, and that is the balance he is aiming for with his own production next week.
TICKETS, INFO
Tickets for This is Not a Test are $12 and can be purchased with cash at the door on the night of the performance or in advance online at: http://www.marquiseproductions.com.
Doors open at 7 p.m. There will be a cash bar before and during the performance, which starts at 7:30 p.m.
