Slava is Russia’s most celebrated clown, a veritable ludic force. His humour covers the spectrum, from the lighter shades to the darker parts, this gale of guffaws captured in his aptly titled production, Slava’s Snowshow. It’s a show about snow, naturally, but just as comedy covers a whole range of emotions, so does snow.
‘Snow has its own internal drama,’ explained Slava through the assistance of a translator. ‘From one side it is a beautiful thing, like a bridal gown or a ream of paper you write something on. And from other side it’s an image of death and an image of coldness. And because of that, because of those two sides, snow gives an expression of many opportunities to be staged.’
Slava’s Snowshow has toured 25 countries since it’s inception in 1993 and in the process has won a slew of awards, including a Helpmann for best visual and physical theatre. With inspiration coming from the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Marcel Marceau and Buster Keaton, Slava has amassed a following as one of the most beloved clowns in the world. But what goes into clowning and what, therefore, makes a good clown?
‘You will find in small communities that there is always someone trying to be the fool,’ Slava explained. ‘It has to be someone with the right intentions, someone who is willing to be a little bit foolish in order to make others better. It’s like a social function. This person who is foolish is actually performing the role of doctor: the doctor of the soul. In the history of humanity some of these people become professionals. And in society those people are taking their functions to release tensions and make others feel better and feel more important.
‘We can describe several types of foolish behaviour,’ he continued. ‘For example, the first one could be circus clown and the second one could be child, because to some extent the child is very naïve and everything is very interesting to him and the child accepts everything with admiration. And children are forbidden from doing a certain amount of bad things, like smash plates or be bad, but for clown it is possible. It is not forbidden for clown. And because of that, people looking at clown relieve their stresses. But the clown is not just the one image of the clowning. It could be image of poet or an image of anarchist.’
The Snowshow has been created as an almost indescribable cavalcade of imagery, one that is so incredibly subjective it literally transmutes depending on who witnesses it.
‘If ten people were to attend that show, every one of them would tell a different story,’ Slava pointed out philosophically. ‘For example an old woman would be able to say that it was so sad that the main character was so unfortunate. A child, for example, after the show would say it was amazing that the main character created so many games to play. And a clever person like a professor would come back and say that it was a very intellectual construction that would require more time to think about.’
It’s this multiplicity of meaning that has so endeared Slava’s Snowshow to the world. That, and his heartfelt philosophy that the path of the clown exists in everyone, and is accessible at any moment. ‘The most important thing,’ Slava says of finding one’s inner clown, ‘is to remember your childhood dreams and try to live them in your day-to-day life. As a result, clown is a normal – if not perfect – state of human being.’
Slava’s Snowshow runs from September 2 to 20 at The Regal Theatre. www.tickettek.com.
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