On Clowning

As a very young boy, even by six years old, I idolized Charlie Chaplin. He used his body in charming ways to express joy, fear and love. Words were irrelevant, even superfluous to his eloquent expression. He rarely even tried to speak; as Roger Ebert wrote of Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character, "he exists somehow on a different plane than the other characters; he stands outside their lives and realities."  And yet WE were "in" with him. We were his friends who understood him.

Loaded with admiration for this talent from my earliest days, I always wanted to be a clown. Not particularly the white-face, big red nose type of clown; but a silent 'real person' clown from the Chaplin school who uses his body to communicate with outsiders as friends who will understand me; outsider friends whom I will understand.  As I grew up I continued to admire all the great comedians: Laurel & Hardy; Lucille Ball and even the old Warner Brothers cartoon characters (their comic timing and physical schtick were impeccable). In my 20s I seriously considered running off to the Ringling Brothers Clown College in Florida.

A side-story now, that will become relevant shortly.  In about 1995 a friend's son was two years old and needed surgery on a malformed lung (he couldn't breathe-in sufficient oxygen).  After the surgery, I went to the hospital to visit the parents as their boy recovered. In the pediatric ward I saw children with all kinds of illness: some bald from chemotherapy, another pushing his own IV bottle on a stand as he cried his way to receiving yet another procedure, a girl with a cast on her arm (from lord knows what injury), and so on.  I had two impulses:  to run out of there and never think of these unfortunate children again, or to approach each of them and do what I could to cheer them up.

When I moved to Boston in 1997 I heard about a local troupe of clowns that are trained specifically to entertain children in hospitals.  Perfect!  With this one group I could achieve two heartfelt goals:  to be a clown, and to help ease the pain of all those kids who are lonely, frightened and possibly depressed in hospitals.  I contacted the troupe founder and expressed my desire to join.

This group is now known as the Hearts and Noses Hospital Clown Troupe.

(another clown; not me)

The troupe was founded just the year before and I was in the second annual class, learning from their founder Jeannie Lindheim.  She was an acting teacher who had gone on a trip to hospitals in Russia with Dr Patch Adams, who later personally endorsed Jeannie's troupe.  Clowns in this troupe are not white-face circus clowns, they are more 'real life' clowns, like Chaplin, and simply wear bright colors and each has his own personality. Without going further into the unusual techniques of hospital clowning, let me share a few of my clowning experiences.

It was with the clown troupe that I fell in love with the Special Olympics.  At a competition held on the fields of MIT (yes, MIT has sporting fields!), as I clowned with the athletes in their world (and not paying much attention to adults), I could feel their mood of exultation and sense of value earned by participating in the games. Enjoying this empathetic feeling of their joy, I clowned all the happier and more energetically, and they joined in my play. I was now the Chaplin clown with outsider friends who mutually understood each other and made each other happy.

At a Catholic Charities event, one boy about 8 years old seemed so starved for love that he took to me, eventually hugging me and even telling me, "I love you." I gently redirected his focus back onto the people who know him. But what sticks with me to this day is that this boy must have been through so much pain, and given the circumstances of this charity, perhaps abandonment and so on, yet still had love to give if only someone would offer it back.  Lesson learned: wanting to love is stronger than never having received it.

At a hospital where the most injured children live, essentially year round, troupe founder Jeannie and I were on our way out of a room after having tangled ourselves up with jump ropes and whatnot.  As we exited, a boy of about 14 laying back in what looked like a dentist's chair on wheels put his arm out to stop us and said in a soft pleading voice, "talk to me."  Instantly, Jeannie and I stopped and glanced at each other, both of us clearly shaken and a bit emotional. This one was gonna be tough. While we never ask about a child's illness, we later learned that he apparently had been a strong and energetic boy who liked to play sports until a drunk driver hit a car he was in. The boy is now blind, brain damaged, partly paralyzed and talks with slurred speech. Jeannie handed him a rubber 'kush' ball. He asked, "what color is it?"  We told him, "blue," and then just sat with him for awhile, talking.  It was very difficult to finally leave him.  People who drink and drive: I hate hate hate you.

At the same hospital we went into another room where a very tiny-for-her-age girl lay in an open-top cage; a bed on wheels with caged sides. She had more IV tubes and monitor wires in her than I had ever seen in any human being.  After trying a number of false starts with this girl, I tried a technique with a nearby girl-clown. I laughed.  Per the technique, the girl-clown laughed back. I laughed again. Now the IV-tube girl began to chuckle. So I laughed more. And my girl-clown partner laughed back. The IV-girl laughed harder. Now I began to laugh genuinely, not falsely. The girl-clown still laughed back falsely. And now the IV-girl began to laugh hysterically. I am now genuinely laughing hard. And now I see my girl-clown partner's face has somehow changed; she is now laughing genuinely too. The IV-girl continues to laugh uncontrollably.  Soon, all three of us are in fits of genuine laughter that none of us can stop.  Even in your worst of times, you can have the best of times.  You just need to open yourself to it.

There is much value in being an outsider who exists on another plane. You will find your audience. I thank Jeannie Lindheim and my fellow clowns for enabling me to be that outsider who found some of my greatest friends in their time of need. And Charlie Chaplin who planted the seed.