The performance I took part in at The Cultch on May 30th wasn’t exactly about anything. The general plot of the three-scene “Mump and Smoot (with Thug) in Something” was that Mump (Michael Kennard) and Smoot (John Turner) visited a café, a wake, and a doctor’s office, interacting sporadically with the impassive, intimidating Thug (Candace Berlinguette). As the lights dimmed and dark, pulsating music began to play, there arose an atmosphere of tense excitement, as promised by the event’s description in my pamphlet: “Enter a giddy, scary world of pure imagination, as the duo turns conventional clowning on its head in this darkly humourous work that ranges from zany to macabre. Not for children!”
Now, I am no child, but I had never been to a clown show before. I had no idea what “conventional clowning” was, let alone what a zany and macabre twist from two “clowns of horror” might look like (mumpandsmoot.com). As improbable as it sounds now, typing from the safety of my living room, I began to sweat as I sat there waiting for them to appear, wondering at some level whether I was somehow in danger.
When Mump and Smoot finally made their appearance, my fears were partially confirmed: their “stage” was the entire theatre. There would be no fourth wall tonight. While we all fixated on the stage below us with a palpable sense of expectancy, they crept in behind us, each wielding heavy-duty flashlights which they used to find “their” seats in the dark, right down in the front row. The two lucky audience members sitting in these seats were promptly evicted and made to awkwardly crouch in the aisle while Mump and Smoot settled in, appearing to wait for the “real” show to begin. There were a few awkward chuckles at the meta-dramatic tension, as the two clowns conversed in semi-hushed tones in “their own brand of gibberish, Ummonian” (mumpandsmoot.com). Their use of Ummonian broke another theatre convention: the central importance of coherent speech and dialogue. Actually, “broke” is a bit misleading. It felt more like they were twisting the convention. Their rapid back-and-forth exchanges included just enough well-placed English words for us in the audience to follow along with almost every sentence. This semi-circumvention of spoken language placed the majority of the focus on their hilarious and evocative body language—a goal I suspect most clowns would share.
I found myself slowly adjusting to their gibberish, watching more closely than I would have otherwise for physical clues as to their intentions and emotions. In this way, I soon came to appreciate the differences between their personas. Mump’s movements were rigid and deliberate; his tall, lanky build suited his stern (yet slyly goofy) demeanour. Smoot was a rounder, younger soul. He was permanently goofy and very clearly pure-hearted, swinging from one end of the emotional scale to the other, almost like a child. The dynamic between the two reminded me of Napoleon and Lafayette in Disney’s The Aristocats (1970). Like Napoleon, Mump continually insisted that he was the leader, taking charge of the props in each scene while Smoot mischievously, joyfully pounced on whatever toys his counterpart discarded or neglected. In the several moments when their one-way dynamic came to a head, the audience couldn’t help but support Smoot every time against his bully-ish friend. At the same time, it was clear in moments where Mump cried or laughed or jumped with fright that his brusqueness was just a front for his equally playful and mischievous impulses.
After a few minutes, they eventually ventured into the tidy café set and began interacting with Thug, their impassive, volatile server. This first scene played with the limits of manners. Mump seemed nervous and bent on making a good impression, chastising Smoot several times for stuffing waaaaay too much food in his mouth. As the scene progressed, however, Thug began breaking the rules too, pouring wine in their laps and wrist-shotting spilled spaghetti into the audience with a broom. I had never seen food and drink incorporated so messily into a performance before; they treated the semi-sacred space of the stage like the straw-strewn floor of a common pub. By the end of the scene, the stage (and those in the front row) was covered with half-chewed spaghetti and spewed-out wine spittle. [I couldn’t help but think, watching Thug sweep at the sticky mess between scenes, how much of a pain it was going to be for someone to have to find every damned piece of spaghetti at the end of the night.] While the café bit seemed mostly light-hearted, the image of Mump chastising Smoot for his joyful indulgence with the spaghetti stuck with me—something about the absurdity of reigning in the natural enthusiasm of a loved one just to fit in socially. Each scene left me with a similar ball of feelings. Their (to me) unorthodox style of exploring issues like manners, death, and health left me with a whole set of riddles that I began to slowly unpack on my bus ride home.
After this goofy, spaghetti-filled café scene, the next skit—set at the wake of one of their recently-deceased friends—introduced darker elements of gravity and horror. It began with them sobbing, wailing, and comforting each other, but soon transitioned into an absurd moment in which they grabbed a woman who came back from the bathroom mid-scene and made her to play basketball with a wastebasket and their dead friend’s body parts. Although it was grotesque, their impulse to shoot hoops with an arm seemed somehow part of their mourning process. Caught up in what Stephen Nachmanovitch might call the “pure joy” of play, it felt as though they were beginning to let go of the connection between their friend and the silent body on the table—exploring both the “impish” and “supremely solemn” aspects of play (43). As crazy as it may have struck me in the moment, I can see in hindsight how intentional these deeper layers were. The final skit, set at a doctor’s office, continued this theme of severed body parts and grotesque physical humour. Before the performance came to its raucous conclusion, Mump extracted Smoot’s blood, removed his tongue, and tore off his leg from the calf down. While it was clearly a performance, the convincing acting and realistic props gave the obvious humour of the skits the sort of jagged edge one might expect from two “clowns of horror.”
Above all, this performance made me continually re-evaluate the limits of audience interaction. What level of participation is acceptable in a show that strains at the dramatic conventions of space, time, and social decency? From their unconventional entrance, constant expectant pauses, verbal sparring with the audience, and their repeated practice of turning on the house lights and zeroing in on anyone who hollered a distinct contribution or returned from the bathroom, it was clear that Mump and Smoot wanted to draw us out of the comfortable anonymity of sitting as a group in the dark. Maybe it was the bearded fellow in the back of the upper balcony who called out increasingly inappropriate comments and suggestions at increasingly inappropriate times, clearly forcing them to recalibrate at several moments and even restart one scene, but I felt extremely tense throughout the show. I didn’t want to get “picked on,” clap too loudly or at the wrong time, or shout out something inappropriate. With many of the dramatic rules I was familiar with turned on their heads, I found myself in a space of uncertainty and discomfort. This was part of the show’s magic, however, because as their Director, Karen Hines, attests, she has never been bored yet, even after working with them for years and years. Every Mump and Smoot show is different, because every audience is different.
Now, I am no child, but I had never been to a clown show before. I had no idea what “conventional clowning” was, let alone what a zany and macabre twist from two “clowns of horror” might look like (mumpandsmoot.com). As improbable as it sounds now, typing from the safety of my living room, I began to sweat as I sat there waiting for them to appear, wondering at some level whether I was somehow in danger.
When Mump and Smoot finally made their appearance, my fears were partially confirmed: their “stage” was the entire theatre. There would be no fourth wall tonight. While we all fixated on the stage below us with a palpable sense of expectancy, they crept in behind us, each wielding heavy-duty flashlights which they used to find “their” seats in the dark, right down in the front row. The two lucky audience members sitting in these seats were promptly evicted and made to awkwardly crouch in the aisle while Mump and Smoot settled in, appearing to wait for the “real” show to begin. There were a few awkward chuckles at the meta-dramatic tension, as the two clowns conversed in semi-hushed tones in “their own brand of gibberish, Ummonian” (mumpandsmoot.com). Their use of Ummonian broke another theatre convention: the central importance of coherent speech and dialogue. Actually, “broke” is a bit misleading. It felt more like they were twisting the convention. Their rapid back-and-forth exchanges included just enough well-placed English words for us in the audience to follow along with almost every sentence. This semi-circumvention of spoken language placed the majority of the focus on their hilarious and evocative body language—a goal I suspect most clowns would share.
I found myself slowly adjusting to their gibberish, watching more closely than I would have otherwise for physical clues as to their intentions and emotions. In this way, I soon came to appreciate the differences between their personas. Mump’s movements were rigid and deliberate; his tall, lanky build suited his stern (yet slyly goofy) demeanour. Smoot was a rounder, younger soul. He was permanently goofy and very clearly pure-hearted, swinging from one end of the emotional scale to the other, almost like a child. The dynamic between the two reminded me of Napoleon and Lafayette in Disney’s The Aristocats (1970). Like Napoleon, Mump continually insisted that he was the leader, taking charge of the props in each scene while Smoot mischievously, joyfully pounced on whatever toys his counterpart discarded or neglected. In the several moments when their one-way dynamic came to a head, the audience couldn’t help but support Smoot every time against his bully-ish friend. At the same time, it was clear in moments where Mump cried or laughed or jumped with fright that his brusqueness was just a front for his equally playful and mischievous impulses.
After a few minutes, they eventually ventured into the tidy café set and began interacting with Thug, their impassive, volatile server. This first scene played with the limits of manners. Mump seemed nervous and bent on making a good impression, chastising Smoot several times for stuffing waaaaay too much food in his mouth. As the scene progressed, however, Thug began breaking the rules too, pouring wine in their laps and wrist-shotting spilled spaghetti into the audience with a broom. I had never seen food and drink incorporated so messily into a performance before; they treated the semi-sacred space of the stage like the straw-strewn floor of a common pub. By the end of the scene, the stage (and those in the front row) was covered with half-chewed spaghetti and spewed-out wine spittle. [I couldn’t help but think, watching Thug sweep at the sticky mess between scenes, how much of a pain it was going to be for someone to have to find every damned piece of spaghetti at the end of the night.] While the café bit seemed mostly light-hearted, the image of Mump chastising Smoot for his joyful indulgence with the spaghetti stuck with me—something about the absurdity of reigning in the natural enthusiasm of a loved one just to fit in socially. Each scene left me with a similar ball of feelings. Their (to me) unorthodox style of exploring issues like manners, death, and health left me with a whole set of riddles that I began to slowly unpack on my bus ride home.
After this goofy, spaghetti-filled café scene, the next skit—set at the wake of one of their recently-deceased friends—introduced darker elements of gravity and horror. It began with them sobbing, wailing, and comforting each other, but soon transitioned into an absurd moment in which they grabbed a woman who came back from the bathroom mid-scene and made her to play basketball with a wastebasket and their dead friend’s body parts. Although it was grotesque, their impulse to shoot hoops with an arm seemed somehow part of their mourning process. Caught up in what Stephen Nachmanovitch might call the “pure joy” of play, it felt as though they were beginning to let go of the connection between their friend and the silent body on the table—exploring both the “impish” and “supremely solemn” aspects of play (43). As crazy as it may have struck me in the moment, I can see in hindsight how intentional these deeper layers were. The final skit, set at a doctor’s office, continued this theme of severed body parts and grotesque physical humour. Before the performance came to its raucous conclusion, Mump extracted Smoot’s blood, removed his tongue, and tore off his leg from the calf down. While it was clearly a performance, the convincing acting and realistic props gave the obvious humour of the skits the sort of jagged edge one might expect from two “clowns of horror.”
Above all, this performance made me continually re-evaluate the limits of audience interaction. What level of participation is acceptable in a show that strains at the dramatic conventions of space, time, and social decency? From their unconventional entrance, constant expectant pauses, verbal sparring with the audience, and their repeated practice of turning on the house lights and zeroing in on anyone who hollered a distinct contribution or returned from the bathroom, it was clear that Mump and Smoot wanted to draw us out of the comfortable anonymity of sitting as a group in the dark. Maybe it was the bearded fellow in the back of the upper balcony who called out increasingly inappropriate comments and suggestions at increasingly inappropriate times, clearly forcing them to recalibrate at several moments and even restart one scene, but I felt extremely tense throughout the show. I didn’t want to get “picked on,” clap too loudly or at the wrong time, or shout out something inappropriate. With many of the dramatic rules I was familiar with turned on their heads, I found myself in a space of uncertainty and discomfort. This was part of the show’s magic, however, because as their Director, Karen Hines, attests, she has never been bored yet, even after working with them for years and years. Every Mump and Smoot show is different, because every audience is different.
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