Look who’s clowning on the street!
View(s):We step into Goethe Institut on a warm Monday afternoon with a certain amount of trepidation. But Adrian Schvarzstein, to our relief, is just as one would expect of a man who has made a career out of clowning. Not for him the muted real-life persona of most funny men; he draws us in with both hands, finding us seating amongst his students and encouraging everyone to form a circle around us. Our interview has begun, and we have an audience of ten.
Thoughts of a clown: Adrian Schvarzstein
He doesn’t complain about the stifling Colombo heat nor the timing of this interview which has interrupted his workshop on the day before their penultimate performance. Instead, he launches into an account of a party he was at on Saturday evening. They wanted him to do something outrageous, so he dressed up as a waiter and threw a party in the elevator. It’s his job to draw people out of their shell after all. You can’t be a funny man by making people comfortable. “It’s not what I did that matters,” he explains. “It’s what I provoked, you see? People are thinking ‘is this really happening to me?’” It’s his favourite bit when it comes to his profession, he laughs. Street theatre, that element of surprise, has always been his passion.
It was back in 1993 when he first discovered the medium while rehearsing with an opera. Opera, he declares in mock exasperation, is all about ‘ze ego’. “It’s about how high you can go, how much you can moan,” he rolls his eyes. “I was bored.” So one day, when a group of street performers came to a rehearsal, Adrian pulled a runner. He would spend quite a number of years traipsing the world with the troupe, eventually going back to Barcelona to join the circus in 1999. “Like Pinocchio,” he adds.
During these years Adrian developed a number of personas which have earned their own street cred. At one point the entertainer’s impressions were so popular that he was approached by Cirque du Soleil, looking to have him on their show for a couple of years. “But my contract, it said I could never perform that character again once I left the show. So I declined,” he sighs. “That’s show business-it’s good money but they take your soul.” He would eventually go on to direct his own circus and operas, even founding and directing Kamchatka-a show that has already travelled to 30 countries and completed 500 performances.
By this time, he will be back in Germany for another run of his show ‘Music for Wild Beasts’. It’s a concert for children-or to be more precise, children who find classical music boring, slow and think it’s for old people. “I will show them,” says the director. “That classical music is none of these things when it’s done the right way.” Before he leaves, though, he’s curious as to the fate of his young protégées who have signed themselves up voluntarily for this week-long workshop. He wants more than anything for a government arts representative to be there to see what potential these new avenues of expression have. “Invest in your artists Sri Lanka,” he advises.
The day after, his new students have entertained the Colombo public with their antics on the street. Adrian chooses to hover in the background, letting them be the stars of the show. But he just can’t help himself-and that’s how a bemused bus driver found himself staring into the face and flailing arms of a white man, precariously balanced on his bumper on Independence Day.