Day 15: Hey, looky looky!

The summer that my family and I left Berkeley to move back to Salinas, I went to a month-long theater intensive, which is where I rediscovered my love of acting and being onstage in general. At first, I was very skeptical of the people there, and was very self-conscious about stepping up and acting in front of people, whether it was reciting lines, doing improv, whatever. I was afraid to volunteer myself the first couple days. After maybe the first week, I started to get very comfortable around my group and instructors, and was starting to have a lot of fun meeting new people and furthering my acting capabilities. Then came the first Friday of camp, and everything changed. Every Friday for the four weeks we were there, we had a special two hour elective, different from the one we had chosen before signing up for camp. We chose this one on maybe Tuesday/Wednesday. Looking through the list of my options, it was either On Camera Acting or Clowning. I went with my gut, and marked an 'X' next to the Clowning option. Friday rolled around, and even though there was one person from my group in the class, and my Play Creation teacher was also teaching the Clowning class, I still didn't feel completely safe in the mindset that it was OK to make a fool of myself. We played a few games to warm up our muscles and get into a creative and goofy atmosphere, and then Ben (the instructor) really showed us what clowning was. He had the ability to completely transform into a different person like he was just hitting a switch in his brain, and we were all awestruck. We did a few juggling excersizes, and to close the class we watched some footage of Bill Irwin, one of the greatest clowns of all time.

The other member of my group (which from now on will be known as 'Green Group', because that's what we were/are) that was in the class and I had a conversation afterwords, and we were both very impressed with what we saw, and very excited for what was to come.

The next weeks flew by so quickly it was almost unbelievable, Green Group had successfully written a 25 minute play about what one guy will do for the love of his life by the end of the third week, and we were/are all extremely proud of what we had accomplished. The third Friday's Clowning class was a huge relief when it rolled around, because the stress of getting the show written was finally over, and we had the weekend to relax a little before we had to start rehearsing and blocking. Charlotte, Alex and I all walked in ready to goof off and let go, but we were nowhere near prepared for what was coming. The class circled up around the white board in the room, where Ben had written the list of things we were doing in class that day. It was pretty normal stuff. Warm-ups, games (a few of which we didn't recognize), closing comments on the class. We finished up with the warm-ups and were ready to start the stuff that we knew was going to be more fun. Eugenia, another girl in the class, was curious about a thing he had written on the board, a game, called 'Hey, looky looky!'. A Cheshire-cat esque smile came across Ben's face, and he began to explain the game.

'I want you to imagine your brain for a minute. Inside your brain, in the deepest, darkest corner, there is a door. Inside that door, is a little tiny version of you, but a different version then the one you display either here, or in public, or at your grandmothers house. This version of you does very inappropriate and strange things, so you have to lock it away. So today, I want you to crack open that door, just a tiny bit, and see where it takes you. See what happens when that little version of you gets to take a little bit of control. In the game, I want you to start upstairs, all the way up there, so the rest of us can't see you. Take as much time up there as you need to compose yourself, and then open that door. Now, this version of you has been locked away for a very long time, since Kindergarten let's say, and it has something that it REALLY wants to show the rest of us. So once you can see the rest of us, the only two words you are allowed to say are 'hey' and 'looky', you can use them in any order you like, change your voice however you like, whatever. Use emotions, mime the object you want to show us, show us what it does, but all you're allowed to say is 'hey' and 'looky'.

Needless to say, we wanted a demonstration, so Ben did his little brainswitch, and was instantly transformed into the little form of him. For literally ten minutes, none of us could stop laughing. All of our stomachs were sore by the end of class, and we couldn't wait to tell every single person at camp what had happened in Clown class. After that, Benjamin Boyd Johnson was my hero, and I wanted nothing more then to be a clown.

-Bobby