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Clowning Through Dire Circumstances by Richard Dodds Both armies and theaters are in the killing business. Soldiers slay their enemies; actors murder their audiences. The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes began putting it all together about 2,436 years ago when he wrote his first comedy about the Peloponnesian War. Fourteen years later, he was on his third play mocking the foolishness of the seemingly endless Peloponnesian War, and what better inspiration to cast a wonky spotlight on the longest war in American history – that would be Afghanistan – than to take a page from the master. Commissioned by the Shotgun Players, and working with director Sabrina Klein, Jeff Raz has created a mash-up of Aristophanes' three war comedies, thrown in some Brecht, and added some Raz-amatazz to produce The Road to Hades. This new show is part of Shotgun's annual outdoor weekend performances in Berkeley's John Hinkel Park, running through Sept. 11. Raz is a familiar figure around these parts, with his work as a clown, most memorably in the Pickle Family Circus, and his role in founding and running the Clown Conservatory. He has also toured with Cirque du Soleil, worked with Ringling Bros., and written 15 plays that delve into such personal topics as his father's depression and suicide, and his decision with wife Sherry Sherman to adopt two children. Raz and Sherman also head the Medical Clown Project, which brings comedy into hospitals. Getting laughs in and around dire situations, while not negating their life-or-death seriousness and still yet broadening understanding, is the tricky business that Aristophanes mastered and that Raz is somewhat trepidatiously trying to emulate. "I got some courage from Aristophanes, but there was a TV show called Harry's War with Kathy Bates. In this one three-minute section, the scene went from a sort of flash sideways to a graphic depiction of the mutilation of an albino right back into a very light comic tone where Kathy Bates was making a sex joke about laws against fellatio in New Orleans or something. I took some courage from that because I was thrilled by this rollercoaster between wild comedy and deep tragedy that felt very real." The notion for Hades that Raz has devised is that you keep doing forever whatever it was you were doing when you died, and through some calamity Aristophanes and his actors all died 2,397 years ago. The troupe was acting, so they keep on acting. Aristophanes was thinking about a new play, so he essentially has an eternal writer's block, and the actors just keep doing the same plays over and over, and Aristophanes will call up an appropriate scene whenever it is needed. The three plays that are in perpetual repertory are The Archanians, written early during the Peloponnesian War, which argues that war is putting a crimp in everyone's social life, and let's get back to the orgy. Four years later, Aristophanes presented Peace, which follows a troupe of mortals heading to Mount Olympus, only to find the gods have moved on. They just can't stand the problems on Earth, and they have buried Peace. Aristophanes returned to the subject of the still-raging Peloponnesian War a decade later with Lysistrata, in which the women decide to deny sex to men until they make peace. Raz has added another conceit to the mix, with Aphrodite as a downsized goddess who has lost the "peace" part of her powers because she has been concentrating on the "love" part of her job description. "She had decided she wants her job back," Raz said, "and gloms onto Lysistrata." The show operates on three levels that are quickly established. On one level, it's Jeff Raz and Velina Brown and the rest of the cast in John Hinkel Park on a weekend afternoon. The next level are the characters, with Raz as Aristophanes, Brown as Aphrodite, John Mercer as Ares, Ryan O'Donnell as Hermes, and Johannes Mager, who wrote the music, as the chorus leader. And the third level is when they go into one of Aristophanes' scenes. Shotgun Players has devised an LT-12 rating for the production ("LT" standing for live theater) for "its potty jokes, mild violence, and sex and war language." "Aristophanes was down and dirty," Raz said, "and I wanted to follow his bravery in willing to go from a wild scene about feeding shit to a giant dung beetle to passionate scenes about the realities of war with child rape and slavery, and to puns about sex. I wanted to see if a modern audience would be willing to go there." Despite the LT-12 rating, the director has added a children's chorus that includes kids younger than 12. "There will be some parents who don't want their kids there, and I absolutely respect that," Raz said. "But we also have fire juggling, potty jokes, and the stuff that the kid in all of us adores." In an interview about clowning a few years back, Raz said, "If we are doing our job right, sitting on a whoopee cushion will say something about the world." He still likes the sound of that. "But for this show, just change whoopee cushion to fart joke." The Road to Hades will run in John Hinkel Park in Berkeley through Sept. 11. All performances are at 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Admission is free; donations accepted. Go to www.shotgunplayers.org for more information.
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