Light on your feet - this is the most important thing. Open your mouth. Show your teeth. Find the member of the audience who loves you the most. What are you doing that they like? You don’t have to know why they think it’s funny. Just do it again. This is your duty.
Light on your feet. Look everyone in the eye. Walk into the room and be open. Find the pleasure in yourself. Find the pleasure in the audience. Show them that you want to be there. If the audience is giving you something, you must give back. This is your duty. Follow your impulse faster than you think.
Light on your feet. Flop on stage. Go home dejected. Tell yourself you will do better tomorrow. I want it! It’s not about being funny, it’s about finding the fun. To be a clown is to be positive - tomorrow will be my night!
Light on your feet. Change something, anything, we don’t care, just don’t drop the ball. No one is laughing. Let people see the real you. Generosity of self. Sometimes this is the flop.
Light on your feet. Dress up in your nicest outfit. Step out, walk towards the audience. Stay for as long as you think they like you, then leave. Don’t take it for granted. Just because you’re good today doesn’t mean you’ll be good tomorrow.
Light on your feet. Jump up, as high as you can. If you land with a sound, if you land with a stumble, if you land with one foot before the other, you’re dead. Stop being so heavy on stage. You must be light to hold the clown in your body.
Light on your feet. It’s good to believe in something. The transformation is allowing yourself to do anything, to be anyone. There is no such thing as a character. It is just you on stage. Don’t try to shrink yourself into Romeo. We don’t care about him. We’ve seen what happens a thousand times before. We want to see you. Find the parts of Romeo that fit the parts of your own.
Light on your feet. What a gift it is to have a sad scene. To tell a story never told. To tell a story known a thousand times over. To sing on stage. The pleasure to play in a red dress. To play someone called Romeo.
Light on your feet. Charm the audience. Laugh at those who banish you for being a child of the devil. Come in. Notice the audience. Find the best place to stand. Take a deep breath. Greet the audience. Introduce yourself. Tell us how you feel. Say goodbye. Let people come up to imitate you.
Light on your feet. If we see too much we see nothing. Always be ready to run forwards and catch. Find the game. Honesty between you and your fellow actors, not characters. This is how you make interesting acting.
Light on your feet. A clown is a child. A clown is eternally optimistic. A clown is an idiot who has just so happened to stumble on stage. The clown is not secure - it can be pulled off at any moment by the ringmaster. Make us laugh and we will forgive you. We will let you stay a little longer. A clown can’t do whatever it is he is trying to do, but wants to make the audience believe he can. They never do, but he gets so much pleasure from pretending that they love him anyway. If you pretend well enough we will let you stay.
Light on your feet. Don’t look at the floor, look at us! What are you doing with those hands hidden behind your back? Don’t bend your body. Don’t move down to the floor. Everything you do on stage is important! Don’t scratch your nose unless it is a proposition for the audience. You must hold your body upright.
Light on your feet. Die on stage. The dying is not what matters. Play a game with the audience - die like you have been practicing in front of your mirror for years. Draw focus. Be funny. The clown is never sad. The clown is happy to die, so long as it makes you laugh by dying.
Light on your feet. Stop when the audience laughs at you. Smile in pleasure - this is the greatest day of your life. When people laugh the clown is closest to your body. Never comment on the laughing! It is a secret. The clown cannot exist without an audience. The clown only exists on stage. As soon as you leave, it dies, and the clown knows this, so it wants to stay for as long as possible. Exit the stage, wait two, three, seconds then come back on. Not too fast. But, if you leave it four, five, six seconds, you have killed it and the clown cannot return.
Light on your feet. Put on your mask. Don’t stand too close, we don’t want to see the nose too clearly. You must go home every night and come back tomorrow with something new. Don’t just stand there, do something! Every time I bang the drum you must change the game.
Light on your feet. Don’t push, don’t rush, don’t try to force it. Everything must be light. You are more interesting than the action, but the clown must not be having more fun than the audience. Sometimes you can insist on a joke, even if they don’t laugh. Maybe the second, third time they will not laugh, but maybe by the seventh, you look so stupid repeating yourself, that they will.
Light on your feet. We love to see you confused. The state of not knowing - what a miracle. A problem is always a good thing for a clown. We want to see you sit in the shit. Just sit there. Something is coming, your look must say. This did not work but something is coming soon, and you will love it, just wait. Be open to it. Coming to open is coming to self.
Light on your feet. Clown comes by mistake.