77 - Big & Little and El Magnifico

Big & Little and El Magnifico
The Brick Theatre
09 September 2008, 1900

Send in the clowns!

The NY Clown Theatre Festival is being held at The Brick Theatre in Williamsburg from September 5th until September 28th. Put your reservations aside because this isn't your red-nosed, big wig wearing, giant red shoe sporting, pie in the face sort of clowning. I'm not saying that the festival won't include some of the aforementioned shenanigans, but the skits I saw were far from it.

Big & Little, played by Noah Bremer (Big) and Galen Treuer (Little) both with Live Action Set based out of Minnesota, was absolutely adorable. According to the program, Big & Little is "a study in simplicity." The skit had no speaking parts but was a choreographed set of scenes about a stolen shoe and the friendship that unfolds during the search for it. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, imagine portraying basic emotions and intentions without speaking. It isn't as easy as it sounds. A skit without words must use music, facial expressions, choreography and gestures to get the point and the story across. Big & Little have it down.

El Magnifico - The World's Worst Magician - was the second part of this clown doubleheader. El Magnifico, played by David Engel, and his wife, played by Hilary Chaplain, had me giggling the evening away. These two have found the perfect balance between subtle comedy and big theatrics. This skit also did not have a lot of speaking parts. Whenever a one-liner was thrown in to emphasize or make a point though, Engel and Chaplain both had the perfect tones and expressions to make it work and get the laughs. Other parts were not so subtle. For instance, the scene involving the stuffed animal attacking the duo was definitely not subtle, but was just the right amount of theatrics to get everybody laughing without being over the top.

I absolutely enjoyed watching both of these performances and was even hoping that the skits would go on a bit longer then they did.

100 in 6 budget: $979