Isaac Kessler and Ken Hall of 2-Man No-Show, Play the Fool Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Two of the country’s most energetic, hyperkinetic clown stars are the headliners of this year’s eighth annual Play The Fool Festival, returning Thursday for four days.

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Toronto’s Isaac Kessler and Ken Hall, who have evidently never seen a fourth wall they didn’t want to bounce off, catapult over, or smash into a zillion pieces, have brought their “clownprov” hit 2-Man No-Show to open festivities Thursday. “And they are incredibly physical,” says Play The Fool artistic director Christine Lesiak, who can’t keep the smile out of her voice when she talks about them.

“They bridge clown and improv,” she says of the pair, who are, basically, the conceptual opposite of talking heads. “They use clown techniques to inform improv.” Their comedy cred, across a spectrum of festivals and Fringes, is blue-chip. Hall, who’s worked with Cirque du Soleil, performs regularly and teaches at The Second City; he’s a star of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. Kessler’s 1-Man  No-Show was the artists’ pick at the 2022 Edmonton Fringe. They’ll be onstage with Edmonton musician/composer/musical director Erik Mortimer.

They’ve brought two different formats of 2-Man No-Show. On Saturday night, Kessler and Hall debut their brand new Balls Out edition of the show. As Lesiak explains, the audience is provided with soft balls, and in response to what’s happing onstage, they’re invited to throw them. “A whole new kind of audience involvement,” as Lesiak says, laughing. “A little more hands-on than usual.”

Christine Lesiak in For Science!. Photo supplied.

An expert clown herself with a gallery of alter-egos (including Sheshells and self-help guru Aggie), Lesiak takes the sole honours in the clown/space physicist department of the comedy industry.

Which explains her hilarious hit hybrid For Science!: it applies the scientific method to a series of experiments conducted by a beaming Professor and her lab assistant (Ian Walker).

The raison d’être of Play the Fool is to showcase the species clown, in all its glorious permutations from the cerebral to the physical, the voluble to the silent — the classic red-nose innocent to the more abrasive Euro bouffon, the grotesque satirist to the playful explorer of a brave new world — and (since clowns are natural rule-breakers) every permutation of the above. The high-contrast trio in the 2023 Triple-Bill, running Friday and Saturday night, constitute a tangible seminar in clownly variety.

Terry Knickle aka Tchotchke the Gig in The Problem With Opera, Play The Fool Festival. Photo supplied.

In The Problem With Opera, the red-nosed Terry Knickle unleashes the dramatic tenor within, by creating an opera that hinges on a full-flourish operatic crisis: running out of milk. They are a trained opera singer and music teacher. And much to Lesiak’s delight, the piece, directed by Mark Vetsch (who’s created physical/clown comedy for such theatres as Thou Art Here and the Freewill Shakespeare Festival), hatched from Knickle’s Rookie Cabaret contribution at the 2022 Play the Fool.

The Radical Re-education of Generation Z, Internet Hygiene and Being AFK  is the work of the neo-bouffon troupe Batrabbit Collective., whose Fringe show Rat Academy (which has roots at Nextfest and Play the Fool) was a bona fide hit this past summer. In the multimedia piece by Abby McDougall and Dayna Lea Hoffmann, a representative of Generation Z  explains, with power point (hey, just like TED), the complexities of a life as lived in the interface between the online world and so-called reality. McDougall stars; Hoffmann directs.

The third offering of the Triple Bill, The Routine, is by Vancouver-baed mime Joylyn Secunda. “We don’t see a lot of mime,” says Lesiak, who’s an appreciator of a form as high-precision in its way as magic or sleight-of-hand. “Mime is hard!, and their work is “immaculate,” she says of Secunda.

Friday night’s Festival Spectacular Cabaret, hosted by 2-Man No-Show, includes eight five- to 10-minute pieces. “Always big fun,” says Lesiak. “And all it of is brand new work from artists in full experimental throttle. Michael Kennard, of Mump and Smoot, for example, is testing a new idea. So is Sophie May Healey, whose clown Hysteria Winthrop “is trying out a new thing with an autoharp.” Candace Job’s contribution is “a brand new mask piece.”

The traditional Saturday night Play the Fool finale is always the Rookie Cabaret, by artists trying out a new art form. “Artist-led” and mentored by Lesiak, “they always kill! That’s why it’s the finale.”

Sunday afternoon is devoted to online discussion clowning with an expert international online panel: Ingrid Hansen (SNAFU Productions),  Jacqueline Russell (Wee Witches Productions), Dayna Lea Hoffmann (Batrabbit Collective), Aitor Basauri (Spymonkey). It’s free, moderated by Jake Tkaczyk.

“Life is really heavy these days. It’s grim out there,” as Lesiak says, and we all know it. Hey, Edmonton, we have a picker-upper of a festival.

Festival headquarters is the Backstage Theatre at the Fringe Theatre Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave. Check the festival website playthefool.ca for times and tickets, and information about masking policy, which varies, show to show, from “mask friendly” (with masks required for the Backstage Theatre lobby, bar and bathrooms) and “mask required” for shows with immuno-compromised performers.