by Greg “Cactus Patch” Chalmers

I recently had the most Clowny type experience. It could have been a scene right out of a Looney Toons cartoon. I was working in the clown prop room. I was bent overlooking for something when I bumped a set of shelves and a heavy tote filled with clown books fell off the shelf and landed directly on top of my head. It was such a clowny moment.

Somehow, I caught the tote before it fell on the floor. I just stood there for a moment, completely stunned by what had happened. I wasn’t sure if I was still alive or not. I was waiting for the pain and a headache to show up. When it turned out I wasn’t dead, I made my way to find someone who would notice if I passed out and could get help. I never blacked out, saw stars, had blurry vision, or anything like that. While my head felt a little pain, it never turned into a real headache. I never got a bump on my head and there was no blood. But I found I had trouble focusing if two people were talking at the same time or if the radio was playing and someone was talking at the same time.

I found I had to slow down and concentrate and only focus on one thing at a time. I have always been one of those people who could quickly jump from one idea to the next fairly quickly. I always had three or four ideas floating around in my mind at a time. I could switch from one to the other in the blink of an eye. In High school Geography class, I listened to the teacher lecture, take notes and read a book (like David Copperfield) at the same time. But because of the incident, everything changed. I had to slow down, and it took extra effort to concentrate. The experience gave me a couple of insights I would like to share with you today about the value of slowing down.

It is popular to express Auguste clowns and hobo clowns as slow thinkers. Having had a couple of days of experience with this kind of thinking, I notice there are some benefits to expressing our clown character with this type of thinking. When I was having trouble thinking, I talked slower than I usually did. I added pauses between my ideas when talking, instead of just jumping from one idea to the next. It gave my listeners a chance to process what I had said. I also did not rush my words when I was talking. The result was that even though I was having trouble processing what I was saying and what those around me were saying, my audiences understood me better and what I was communicating was clearer to my audience.

I have noticed many times during performances as clowns we talk too fast. As clowns, we often try to make our performance more exciting and energetic by talking a little faster.

Unfortunately, our nervous energy from the adrenaline also has a tendency to increase the rate of our speech. The two together can be a dangerous combination and pretty soon we are talking so fast you would swear those words were racing in a race car. When the words are flying fast, it is easy to miss hearing a word. The other problem with talking fast is our enunciation suffers. The audience miss hears the words you are saying, and this is especially dangerous for a family entertainer.

There are certain combinations of words that, if not enunciated correctly and clearly, could sound like profanity. Which can devastate a family entertainer’s career. Slowing down can protect you from being misunderstood. It can even make you funnier because if you slow down, it gives the audience a chance to hear and understand the punch line. I have seen so many jokes fail because the speaker spoke so fast that the audience did not realize what was being said.

How do we slow down and pause more but still generate energy filled performances? I found the answer for me hidden in Looney Toon cartoons. Bugs Bunny and his friends rarely spoke fast, yet these cartoons are filled with fun and energy. I noticed these characters will speak and then follow their words with a look or an action that emphasises what they have said in some manner. These are also often laugh points within the show.
Sometimes the looks and actions are funny in themselves, but often they act as punctuation that allows the audience to reflect on what they have heard, giving them time to realize the humor being expressed.

Some techniques used in these situations are, takes, double takes, slow burns and in some situations, it may even be appropriate to do a look, react, respond sequence. These work especially well at laugh points.

I recommend you watch Bugs bunny and friends and other cartoons paying close attention to the looks and actions the cartoons do at the pause points in the shows for ideas you could borrow.

Tension can add energy to a performance piece. When pausing, energy might vanish, or the audience might talk. In order to give a pause and keep the tension, inhale as soon as you finish speaking. A noticeable inhalation is a nonverbal cue that you have more to say and so your audience is less likely to say something themselves, as they will expect that you are about to say something. It also creates tension because they will expect something else. If you use this technique, you will need to say something to break the tension. You need to let your audience breathe. And if you are holding your breath, your audience will hold theirs as well.

You can use the opposite technique and your expressed thoughts. Exhaling when you finish speaking is a nonverbal cue that lets the audience know they can relax. This is the preferred method if you want the audience to think about what you said. It also is an instinct to exhale when we finish a thought. You do not want to add one of these techniques to the end of every sentence you speak. But used strategically, they will keep the energy level up even though you have slowed down what you are saying.

I encourage all of you to try slowing down a little in your performances, even if you are not portraying a slow thinking character. Adding more pauses between expressed ideas will give you an opportunity to emphasize what you have said using physical and nonverbal elements that will make punchlines more funny and your performance to come across more clearly and make it easier for your audience to understand you. If you do it right, you can slow down a little and still have a high energy performance.

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