Photo by Nina Kaye Eric Amaral and Julie Vanderlip in #1 Clown Comedy With Victor and Priscilla | Photo by Nina Kaye
Presented by #1 Toronto Fringe Clown Comedy
#1 Clown Comedy With Victor & Priscilla has, I suspect, named itself strategically to be at the top of the Toronto Fringe show listings. Bravo, fine ladies and gentlemen, I tip my hat to you… even while I squint my eyes suspiciously. Sneaky. I like it.
This clown show is set in a fanciful, abstracted Victorian world where ambitious, hyperactive Priscilla (Eric Amaral) and haughty brother, Victor (Julie Vanderlip), are torn between the passionate yet destitute vaudevillian life their mother Sophy (Michelle Gram) has raised them into and the genteel society they aspire towards.
There is plenty of sexual innuendo as, for example, Victor convinces Priscilla that menfolk can be very sensitive about the size of their “tracts of land” (a bit that has surprising milage!). Director and movement coach, Kyra Keith, ensure that the pair are constantly whirling and scrambling and as they scold, shriek and cajole.
The two are delightfully overwrought even before a series of relations barge onto the scene to instruct them in various modes of conduct. Parker-Elizabeth Rodenburg intensifies the wild dynamic as a trio of Burnburys—Beau (the dandy), Basher (the pugilist), and Aunt Nell (a devoted thespian). The joke that they all have the same physiognomy is one of many meta-theatrical gags.
In their script, Aaliya Alibhai, Natalie Kaye and Nina Kaye, incorporate some historical language that serves as both a world-building device and a sort of linguistic metaphor of identity and expression. As the siblings negotiate the conventions of vaudevillian and aristocratic life, they switch between Victorian slang, Pugilist vocabulary and the Polari lexicon (used by wide variety of performer, criminal and the Queer communities within British society). This grounds the whole screwball affair with a certain whimsical authenticity.
Nina Kaye’s costumes offer a yassified Victorian aesthetic. They’re an attractive frame for fancy and frantic energy. I found each performer enthralling, though I’m partial to Amaral’s unhinged eyes (see above). His rendition of “On Top of Spagetti” is, well, an experience.
It gets a little poignant towards the end too, which surprised and delighted me. I always appreciate people sneaking some human truth into even the most ridiculous, slapstick nonsense.
