Chain of Fools

Chain of Fools – 9/19/12

Hats off to Trav SD for bringing a tiny bit of history to the festival. Trav took us on a rapid-fire tour of some of the clowns of silent film, famous and obscure. It's interesting to take a stop-off at the early 1900's and get snapshot of the sketches, themes, characters, and structures that continue to swim in the blood of the clown/comedy performer. As Trav pointed out, those roots go back more than a couple of millennia. Remember that the next time your judgmental uncle or former theatre professor asks you, “when you gonna quit screwing around and get a real job/acting gig?” You tell that person, “listen, buddy! Screwing around is a time-honored tradition! It's older than the Internet! It's older than the prose novel! It's older than Christianity! It's older than Aristotle's Poetics! It's probably only slightly younger than screwing!”