on the cover / By Bob Doran

Rekindling Magic

SoHum’s Feet First Dancers return to Clowntown

(July 3, 2008) The Feet First Dancers of Southern Humboldt present the world premier of the original musical Beyond the Paille: Further Adventures in Clowntown, July 3-6 at the Mateel Community Center in Redway. Performances begin at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday; Sunday’s final show is a matinee beginning at 2 p.m.

Bleacher and balcony seats are $15-$20, floor seats are $10. Tickets are available through Back In a Flash in Garberville (923-2441). Advance tickets are recommended as Feet First shows typically sell out.

GALLERY >

Things were chaotic at the Garberville Veteran’s Hall. It was almost 4 o’clock on a Wednesday, a little more than two weeks before the premiere of a new show by Southern Humboldt’s homegrown dance troupe, the Feet First Dancers, and a couple of dozen cast members were assembling for the first full run-though. A few had arrived early to work with Joan Becker, co-writer, co-director and co-ringmaster of the musical dance piece, Beyond the Paille: Further Adventures in Clowntown.

Joan, sporting a clownish red bowler with a single silk flower attached, was working with the early birds crafting the lead-in to a key scene in the action. When one of the actor/dancers asked for his lines, Joan admitted most weren’t written yet. In fact she was hoping those in the scene would improvise their own lines. The setting: an imaginary courtroom (this is a bit ironic since the rehearsal is in a large room in the Vet’s Hall that doubles as Garberville’s actual court). Robed figures representing warring factions in a community dispute stand before a judge, played by Carl Hansen,a longtime Feet First backstage technician making his first onstage appearance.

“Karl, you will do your own funny Judge-your-Highness judge,” Joan instructed, as she gave him one line: “Court is now in session. Let the games begin!”

Karl improvised a bit of dialogue about “a no-class class-action suit.” The clown litigants in the scene hollered at each other. This was all prelude to a scene described by Joan in which the robes come off to reveal basketball uniforms. When the piece eventually plays out, one of the dueling sides will be clad in red uniforms that say “Us” on the front and “Them” on the back; the other side’s uniforms blue with “Them” on the front and “Us” on the back. A dance battle ensues with each side pointing fingers at the other as they sing, “Who Put the Coals Out?” (to the tune of “Who Put the Dogs Out?”).

This bit comes at the end of Act 1, and it’s preceded by enough plot development so that it makes some sense — at least as much as is required in a clown show — but it’s likely that the imagery and metaphors in play may be lost on those unfamiliar with recent events in Southern Humboldt.

Clowntown itself (whose residents are refugees of the urban Clowntropolis) serves as a stand-in for SoHum as a whole. Those who were around 19 years ago for the first Feet First clown show, Clowntown: The Search of the Holey Pail, may recognize the Coals as symbolic of the hippie magic that holds Clowntown together. And if you’ve been following the legal action swirling around the Mateel Community Center and the producers of the annual Reggae on the River/Reggae Rising music festivals, you will understand the origins of the Us v. Them finger-pointing.

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