Dust: A Clown Adventure
by Brenda Waite & Sue Arnold
Theatreworks until March 2, 1997
Reviewed by Kate
Herbert around Feb 21, 1997
Forget Marcel
Marceau. All too rarely do we get a genuine clown show. The last we saw
here, it seems, was a year ago and was the prequel to Dust and, please, do not
think of klutzy clown make-up or romantic mime routines about love lost and
wilting flowers.
Like last year's Happy as Laundry, Dust is unremittingly
cute in the best possible way and never sentimental. Brenda Waite joins her new
partner Sue Arnold in this duo and their two dusty innocents seem to be linked
by an invisible thread.
They are child-like friends, playmates. At times they are
two old-timers, at others a doting pup (Waite) and her opera-warbling mistress
(Arnold). Director John Bolton, himself a clown king, has skilfully and
sensitively woven together a charming, hilarious domestic clown adventure. The
piece is tautly structured and the clown detail is fascinating to watch. There
is only one flat spot quite late in the piece.
There is no linear narrative, simply a series of games, and
familiar actions. The characters seem to dust off their favourite fun things to
do together and run them over and over until they deteriorate into dusty clown
chaos.
They allow each other space to obsess, one about her doggie
bones and silly dancing, the other about her romantic dream of being Nellie
Melba and her sweet ukulele song. All this is done with little or no dialogue,
two chairs, a chest of drawers and a tricky cupboard.
There are some delightful repeated vignettes. They regularly
sit down to a flask of tea -or is it brandy- spilling, splashing, tricking each
other into swapping cups and they still end up friends. The charm of real
clowns lies in their innocence and complete lack of vindictiveness in response
to being duped. They smile and move on. A lesson?
play dusty harmonicas, salute dead friends with The Last
Post, do their own sound effects, purposely out of time. There is definitely a
harking back to silent movies and the hilarious chases of Keystone Kops and the
sad-sack gaze of Buster Keaton with a little of Monty Python-esque Silly Fish
Dancing tossed in.
This show is truly a joy. It is simple fun performed with
honesty by seriously talented performers who are just adorable. Go see!
KATE HERBERT
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