Psssstttttt, hey there… yah, you… apparently there’s a secret universe unbeknownst to the rest of us – some sort of underground clown culture that is truly a world of its own.

I had the dorky pleasure of experiencing this at The New York Downtown Clown Revue on April 16th. I am NOT a clown, so I decided that the next best thing was to watch the show WITH a clown, so I spent the evening hanging with my clown friend Funny Honey and watching her reactions.

I was greeted at the door by a creepy, drooling zombie-like clown that started following me, and after a brief moment of almost frantically running for my life in the opposite direction, I decided that I must be in the right place.

Christopher Lueck, host and producer of the show, explained that this was a Clown Playground of sorts where the goal is to present the broadest range of clowning styles, sort of like a workshop where clowns can explore their craft. So, the revue is different every time with new performers. Amanda Pekoe, another producer watched the show with the audience. Most of the audience consisted of members of the clown community (and then there was me!).First up was DZIECI. Picture an entire chorus full of bucktoothed, burlap-swaddled odd- looking characters singing in 4 part harmony. WHAT REALITY DID I FALL INTO?? They were acting out an innocent sacrificial lamb sacrifice (puppet lamb of course). Funny Honey squeals, “Hahaha- I love puppets!” in her adorable sing-songy voice. I smile.

Suddenly the lamb talks them into an innocent HUMAN sacrifice instead, followed by the group chasing the poor biggest dumb guy through & on top of the audience (quite literally). The audience clowns were laughing and I was giggling in spite of myself.

I honestly felt quite guilty watching and laughing at them because they kinda seemed like a group of retarded children. A friendly clown audience member explained to me that that was indeed the point- this Grotowski inspired style of clowning intentionally breaks all the rules to take you to a deeper realm of gutteral, more primal performance, where uncomfortable reactions from the audience are a good thing. Apparently this form of performance is rare and seeing DZIECI perform was actually a unique privilege.

Brent McCoy was a more traditional type of clown in big pants and suspenders and it was fun to watch him juggle 3 orange traffic cones while balancing 2 on his head. Dottie Lux performed a hot little burlesque number in clown face- she can really work a crowd and a pair of fishnets and pasties.

Ariane Anthony (pictured above) gave a quirky-fun performance/lecture on the earth’s animals and environmental concerns while intentionally sharing the most unsexy cabaret number ever known in the history of cabaret numbers, complete with briefcase, librarian glasses and clown nose. (Go Ariane for bringing awareness to earth/animal issues in a creative way- as a tree/bunny hugger- I was quite impressed!)

My absolute favorite clown act of the evening was Mark Gindick. This extremely physical performance started with air guitar and transitioned into body guitar when dance partner Kathryn Fraggos joined him on stage. Soon they were awing us with lifts and twirls in true ice-skater fashion to a crazy version of “Roxanne”. Kudos to choreographer, Wendy Seyb.

Overall: A few of the performances went on a tad too long, but they were all pretty cool and creative. For clowns it’s clownarific! For general public its dorky fun. For boring, stupid or high-falutin’ people it would be something to avoid at all costs. So, if all the world’s a stage & everyone’s a clown, go dust off that silly old red clown nose & make somebody smile. The New York Downtown Clown Revue happens on the 3rd Monday of every month.