Good Grief!

While everyone else was digging out of the snow and watching the Eagles, Scott* and I caught the Sunday matinee of All Wear Bowlers, produced by 1812 and performed at Mum Puppettheatre. From Phillyfunguide.com:

Two silent film clowns take a wrong turn and find themselves in a haunted theatre, where hard-boiled eggs play tricks on them and gravity refuses to behave. The desolation of Samuel Beckett and the pathos of Laurel & Hardy collide to create a surreal world of venomous ventriloquists and belligerent bowlers.

The show was a lot of fun, despite the dark, funny-entertainers-are-sad-on-the-inside undercurrent. The clowns’ transitions from the silent film into the theater (where they were surprised to find an audience of real, live people) was clever as hell and flawlessly executed.**

I spent much of the show trying to decide if the numerous egg gags were some kind of metaphor. The eggs show up when the clowns least expect them, and they contain roadmaps and theatre tickets, items that force the performers to acknowledge a world outside of their movie. In fact, right before the silent film collapses, it shows one of the clowns hatching from an egg. So maybe the shell represents the fourth wall between performers and their audiences; when the shell breaks, the performers are naked and exposed? And is it significant that an egg causes the demise of a clown?

But then Scott suggested that the eggs were merely an homage to Laurel & Hardy, who often used them as a humor device. Oh.

Anyway, I’d recommend All Wear Bowlers, which runs until February 6th. Get your tickets soon–many performances are already sold out.

*Scott’s write-up, in which he liberally misquotes me, is here.

**Ha! I’ve always wanted an excuse to say that something is flawlessly executed.