Within the rich program of the Zagreb Clown Festival, from May 9 to 11, this year was held entirely in the Triko Circus Studio at Vlaska 92, Clémence Caillouel appeared. She is a performer, director, clown and she is descended from the ancient lineage of French farmers in the Normans. Clémence performed her show – The Requiem of Sophie Whitman. In the program we read: “Sophie Whitman loves fame, romance and stories that end tragically. Disappointed with her false reality, she writes her own tragedy that she revives every night on stage. You may think you’re at a jazz concert, but it’s actually a tumultuous melodrama. Warning: bloodshed eventually follows”. And at the beginning: the first fifteen minutes of continuous laughing, and not-believing that someone can so simply enter the scene with the follow-spot lights. While doing so, shaking her shoulders, greets the audience that came there just because of her. Sophie/Clémence is accompanied by a recognizable melody of jazz music; creating the atmosphere of a jazz underground club. As Sophie arrives the audience is on the needles of what will happen when she finally reaches that central microphone. Finally, with the perfect measure of that tense anticipation, she only says: “Thank you!” Yet the audience is absolutely with her from that moment on.
Clémence Caillouel from the first step with incredible ease wins the favor of the audience with Sophie Whitman’s excessive makeup, oversized lashes, coated lipstick that crosses over the edges of the lips like failed jazz stars somewhere out there in the club. Some people don’t know exactly how to find themselves right in that place – to listen to Sophie Whitman. Who the f**k is Sophie Whitman? Or when she sings with the melody of a pathetic piano words like: Forever, Cappuccino or Love. The real text doesn’t matter at all when it becomes clear that she sings about herself, about her fatal loves. From the audience she selects three men, one of whom is The One, and the other two are her helpers in preparing the date. Sophie assigns them seemingly random names, but as we already know that for Sophie nothing is accidental, and the names are Mark, John and Paul.
The Requiem of Sophie Whitman is mostly non-verbal, a black comedy with elements of contemporary clowning and theater, based on audience involvement and close interaction with the viewer. The actress offers an opportunity to break and ridicule the great myths of love. If you’ve ever been in love, you’ll laugh. If you’ve ever met someone who’s tragically in love, you’ll laugh, and if you’ve been tragically in love with someone yourself, then your heart will be trapped, filled and surrounded by everything this great clown, actress, singer, performer does within an hour on stage and with the audience. I learned from a conversation with Clémence that she performs the same show sometimes indoors and sometimes in the open air and it functions in both environments. The very process of research and work on the play lasted about four years, and it was created according the the author’s idea combined with the direction of Gözda Atalay, who herself is a performer and director with a clown background.
We were all lucky to watch such great performances within the Zagreb Clown Festival, which this year also hosted Jef Johnson (USA), an old master and a tireless, slightly rough buffoon, who is the emperor of his heap of found objects, unencumbered in form. Confronting expectations of what a clown is and how the audience should react we also saw; Ricardo Cornelius (Spain) a sensitive, emotional clown with an umbrella who brought an emotional clown story about a little man in the throws of everyday incompetence with others; but also with himself; Joanna Bassi (Germany) who, through her performance lecture, took us into the world of the old clown guard, with violin tunes - on the violin of the partner of the great Swiss clown Grock - and with a handful of video and photo materials which are rarely seen.
The Zagreb Clown Festival, according to its custom, begins with a master workshop, led this year by the legendary Avner Eisenberg. There participants could meet together with the precision of building character, acts, and getting to know his principles of comedy that he discovered through his long career. In the end, the crown of the festival was cabaret in which the performances of Croatian clowns could be seen (Franto, Iva Peter Dragan, Mariana Matokovic, Ana Milić Štrkalj, Ivana Grubišić); and, guest artists of the festival from Slovenia, Spain, friends from the Turin clown festival - IL Festivale delle Pagliacce; plus, the famous American clown Hilary Chaplain; and the already mentioned Avner the Eccentric. The cabaret performers presented themselves with one or two acts each. Between acts was an exciting lottery in which the audience could win fun prizes with Zagreb Clown Festival motifs. The memory of this Festival will last a long time, because it continues to attract to Zagreb the world's most famous names of the clown scene. That means from year to year the number of The Zagreb Clown Festival lovers and followers of the theatrical expression of Clown grows.
© Marijana Matokovic, DANCE SCENE.hr, June 1, 2025.
