The Flop
Meaghan Robichaud talks clowning and starring in The Greatest Show on Earth
Meaghan Robichaud: Is this Josh?
Josh Feye: Yes, hi Meaghan.
MR: Hi Josh, how are you?
JF: I’m doing well. I mean, as well as I can with how this weather has been.
MR: Are you sick? You sound a little ill.
JF: I was just out walking in the cold for a long time, so I’m adjusting to being indoors again. How are you doing?
MR: I’m good. I’m at work, but I snuck out, so I’m in the Upper West Side. And I’m outside now, and it’s kind of beautiful.
JF: I don’t know if you know this, but I saw your clown as the opener to Mikey Maus in Fantasmich.
MR: Shut the fuck up, you did?
JF: Yes. You put a balloon in my mouth and tossed it across to the audience, and I loved every second of it.
MR: Oh, thank God. Oh, I’m so glad.
JF: You’re such a fun clown and performer to watch, really, really interesting, and I wanted to ask you, what was the thing that unlocked your clown?
MR: Oh. That’s a great question. I mean, I feel like when I first started performing, I started acting in plays, as one does, and I was really into being high dramatic characters. I was really serious. I was very like, I am going to be the most serious capital A Actor there ever was. I was in acting school, and my senior year I was like, when I was a kid, I used to do all these characters. I used to make up characters all the time and play them and pretend to have a kind of talk show as these different characters. But anyway, as a kid, I loved doing that kind of stuff, but in acting school, I was serious. I’m gonna be Hedda Gabler, bitch. And then, of course, I still am. But in my senior year, they were offering a clown class, a physical comedy clown class, and I was kind of like, this is kind of fun. Let me try it. I always thought it was funny. So I went into the clown class, and they were like, OK, you need to make a piece. The only thing you need to do is make a mess and clean it. And I was like, OK. So I come on stage, and I’m like, you know what would be so fucking hilarious? If I pissed on stage. I didn’t actually pee, but it was just this prompt to make a mess and clean it. So I came out. I had to pee really badly, and there was a tiny little cup. I pick up the cup and go behind a flat, and I take a water bottle and just pour it on the ground, but from the audience it looks like I’m peeing on the floor, and then I have to clean it up.
JF: Oh, I love that!
MR: There was something that was just so unhinged about it to me that was so exciting. I’ve done sketch comedy before, and something about that wasn’t vibing with me because I needed to write something down on a piece of paper, and I was like, I don’t have any ideas. I would always take the sketches too far. So I was like, you know what? Something with a clown. That’s just a weird anecdote that maybe doesn’t answer the question, but I think what unlocks it for me is the connection with the audience, the immediacy of it all. In clown, there is this very palpable need and relationship. They call it your rapport with the audience, your complicity. Being able to play games with the audience, being able to connect. I think that’s something I’ve found for me, even in my acting. Even when I’ve been acting in something that’s just a Chekhov play, the energy I’m receiving from the audience really feeds me as a performer. So I feel like that’s what unlocks it for me, what I am getting from the people I’m connecting with in that very moment. I’m trying things, and they are either being incredibly successful or failing incredibly hard. It’s funny that you say you saw Mikey Maus because me opening for that, I felt like I was bombing. I was like, oh my God, what do I do? What the fuck do I do? I remember I sat down in the audience and was like, the show’s about to start. Congratulations, you get to be rid of me.
JF: I think that failure is what makes the clown really fascinating for us in the audience. That recognition of failure is really powerful.
MR: If you don’t recognize that you’re failing, I don’t trust you. I think that’s how you build the complicity with the audience, being able to know when it’s failing. They call it the flop in clown, and clowns are obsessed with the flop. Everyone is always chasing the flop, because the thing about the flop that’s so magical and that you’re always trying to get as a clown, which is this huge elusive thing, is how you save it. In pure failure, because the clown fails all the time, how do you come out from that and get a bigger laugh than you would have otherwise? The flop is when you’re in your most honest state, I suppose, or that’s the desire. You’re most vulnerable, you’re most honest. Which is hard, and a lot of theater doesn’t do that. Theater is meant to be repeatable every night. It’s meant to be the same every show. You’re going to get the show if you see the matinee on Saturday versus the showing at night. Whereas with clowns, it is repeatable, but not always in the same way. I think for me what’s different as I’m making a longer piece, that I’m starting to discover and have to come to terms with because it’s scary, is that I actually don’t want to make a show that is repeatable every time. I want to make a show, and I am making a show, like the show I’m doing at the Brick. It’s going to be different every night. Every show will change based on who is in the room.
JF: So, your new show is called Meaghan Robichaud Is the Greatest Show on Earth.
MR: Yes!
JF: And it’s like a circus.
MR: It is a perverted circus starring a male clown named Spunky, who is probably an amalgamation of all the male clowns and male comedians I despise. I think, unfortunately, and this is true in a lot of forms of comedy, people would agree that it can really feel like a boys club. A lot of great clowns are men. Most of the great clowns that people reference, like Philippe Gaulier, Emmett Kelly,and John Wayne Gacy. I’m just throwing out names of men who are famous for being clowns. And there are very few female clowns. I think I’m trying to explore what it is about the male clown that upsets me so much. Is it that they’re hypersexual? Is it that I think they’re weird and I don’t trust them? Is it like that time in 2016 when all the clowns were found everywhere with knives?
JF: Yes!
MR: I’m thinking about that. I never perform with clown makeup. I did a show, Meow, that someone could pull up the receipts and be like, bitch, really? You’re in clown makeup. But it was a little different. I was dressed as a raccoon.
JF: Well, I wanted to ask, because in Meow, you did a little stand-up routine, Cigarette the kid. Was that the dry run for Meaghan Robichaud Is the Greatest Show on Earth?
MR: I think it was a spark of something. What I loved about Meow is that there were a lot of moments that were improvised, and I really fed off that. Cigarette the Kid was a moment where Matthew and I were like, this is going to be the most loose part of the show. I have a song and three lines that I always say to cue certain things, but outside of that, I have free rein to do whatever I want. What was really exciting for me was to prove to myself that I could carry something like that. There was one show, it was insane, a matinee at 12 p.m., and there were about 20 people there. I went on this big rant and got this guy in the audience to get all up in my face, and I was like, are you going to eat my ass? Eat my ass right now. It just went to another planet in a really exciting way. I think that’s when I realized I was a deranged, mentally ill clown. I’ve done stuff before, but that was the thing where I was like, wait a minute, this is also theater. This works in the theatre space. This isn’t just an exercise at a clown workshop.
JF: Well, yeah, and that scene where you are Cigarette the Kid really honed in for me the eulogy aspect you were trying to do for downtown theater. It felt like a swan song to something that was falling apart before our eyes. It was very scary.
MR: I talk about clown a lot, but I’m also very into bouffon, which is a subset under the umbrella. To me, bouffon is really fueled by anger, and that character was fueled by anger. That was me trying to tap into parts of myself that are angry about certain things or certain encounters with people who are like, it’s over, it’s dead, why even bother? And it’s like, am I too late? I guess I’m too late. I guess everything’s dead. That’s kind of where Cigarette the Kid was, but on crack, times 1000, very unashamedly an asshole about it and confrontational with people. A good portion of the people who came to see the show were those people that Cigarette the Kid is talking about.
JF: Did they catch on?
MR: I think yes and no. I have a bit with millennials, and there were a bunch of millennials who like me, and maybe I was mean to them. But no one confronted me after and was like, fuck you. I wish. I would love to get into it. I wish David Greenspan was there, and I could get into a fistfight with him after.
JF: Oh my God, I would love to see that. That’s a play.
MR: Yeah, David Greenspan, if you’re reading this, you can come to the Brick from March 25th to 28th and fucking fight me.
JF: Oh yes. Well, why do you think clowns are so misunderstood, yet so powerful?
MR: I hate to identify as a clown personally. I don’t know. Everyone says clown is having a moment in New York, and I try to reject that. I try not to be a part of the moment. I think they’re misunderstood because of John Wayne Gacy. People think we’re going to kill them. I never wear clown makeup when I perform. I usually wear some kind of makeup or wig or costume, but I don’t wear clown makeup when I do clown. This show is different. I’ll be wearing clown makeup all the time because that’s part of the character and the world. It’s a circus. It’s leaning into that. It’s leaning into how cringe I find it, leaning into the things I don’t want to do, which is wear clown makeup. I think a clown means a different thing to every person. If you were to ask, every person would have a different definition of what a clown is, and people love to think they’re right. So if everyone has a different definition, and the major cultural touchstones we have for clowns are for someone who has no idea about clowns, they’re probably going to think of a circus clown, a birthday clown, John Wayne Gacy, or the clowns in 2016 running around with knives, which are all clowns in their own right. I don’t know. It’s a good question. I wish I were smart enough.
JF: No, that was a great answer. In the synopsis for your show, you say, “climb up the high wire and dive deep into the memory of a better time, a time when whiskey flowed from the teet of heaven, and everybody loved clowns.” So is there going to be a nostalgic aspect to this play?
MR: I think it’s nostalgia for Spunky. It’s nostalgia for this male clown. He is reliving his glory days in a space that is not glorified. It’s a space that’s actually completely decrepit, and he’s creating this spectacle with nothing. So there’s a gesture toward nostalgia. And it ends in a fart.
JF: Okay, well, that’s so interesting because that feels so much like what we’ve been grappling with for the past six years. It’s almost Chekhovian or like Tennessee Williams, this idea that I’m losing everything and I’m trying to hold on to what I know and put on a performance to keep it going, but it’s not working. Is that a fair assessment of what a lot of your work is trying to deal with?
MR: It’s funny that you say that because this whole project originally started out as an adaptation of Three Sisters.
JF: My God. I love it.
MR: For me, I don’t know if it’s all my work. I think it’s what I’m interested in right now. What lengths do we go to as performers to be loved by an audience? I think I’m grappling with that in this piece. Whereas Meow was born out of my relationship with Matthew Antoci, this is more about my personal relationship with performance, with clowns, with male clowns, with male comedians. I could extend it to male performers in general. And my own capacity for going too far on stage, and what that means for my relationship with an audience. I think it’s really me trying to explore that thing you asked earlier, what unlocked my clown. I think it’s me exploring what the thing was that unlocked it. It was the audience, and what does that mean? What does it mean for me if I fucking need an audience at the end of the day to live? To perform? That’s what I think I’m exploring. I think that’s why the title is Meaghan Robichaud Is the Greatest Show on Earth rather than Spunky T Clown Is the Greatest Show on Earth, because at a certain point Spunky falls away. Spunky is me. Spunky is probably just some fucked up part of my psyche that unfortunately exists.
JF: When you mentioned going too far and extremity in the theater, I don’t know, it’s very decadent, which totally excites me. So I can’t wait to see this show.
MR: Oh my gosh, I can’t wait for you to see it. It’s actually going to be so fun. All the openers are also circus acts, so we have a strong man, a contortionist, and live animals.
JF: I now want to ask you some Dionysian dream questions. Is there a theater artist, living or dead, you’d love to have a night on the town with?
MR: Yeah. I would love to have Philippe Gaulier and go out for drinks, get absolutely blasted, and have a little cheeky hookup in the bathroom. He just died. I just want to know what it would be like. From what I’ve heard, he was a total asshole, in a good way, but also amazing. I don’t know. Mad respect. But I would love to have a little moment, maybe to Basement. I’d take him to Basement.
JF: Do you have a favorite film about the theatre?
MR: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.
JF: Yes, perfect answer. Lindsay Lohan had a dream, and she went for it.
MR: Christ, oh, that girl.
JF: Yeah, I love that movie. Is there anything recently that you’ve seen that you would recommend or that you’re still spinning with after you saw it?
MR: That’s a great question. I saw the Grand Canyon recently, and I would recommend that to everyone.
JF: Oh shit. What is nature doing for you in your work?
MR: I feel like with nature, I need to find some peace. So I went to the Grand Canyon and tried to find a little peace, and there was this amazing view with benches. It almost looked like a little amphitheater with the background being the Grand Canyon. If I could do this show anywhere else, it would be there, and I would continuously threaten to jump. That’s what my head is really spinning over. I can’t get it out of my brain. I haven’t seen a lot of theater recently, just because of life, and that was pretty awesome, I will say.
JF: It’s good to check out for a little bit to remind you of what reality is.
MR: Totally.
JF: What do you love most about New York City theater?
MR: What do I love? That’s a great question. I feel like what I love is how game people are. This is a totally sappy answer, but there are so many people who just do this shit because they love it. I love people who are always down to try new things, to create community in unexpected places. I love people who are like, I’m going to do a show in my basement, or I’m doing a show in my backyard, come. I love stuff like that. I love those little gems of community that exist outside of large arts organizations. I think those are freaking sweet, and you don’t find them in a lot of places. I’m from Boston, and I feel like we didn’t have a lot of that in that community.
JF: For my final question, what are your dreams for the future of the American theater?
MR: Death to Broadway.
Meaghan Robichaud is The Greatest Show on Earth runs March 25th- 28th at The Brick.
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