“I can make anyone feel anything,” or so states a mysterious character early on in Four Clowns’ production of Lunatics & Actors, now in a very short run at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. I was hooked immediately, as was my 20-year-old companion. When volunteers from the audience, each claiming to have acting experience, sat on three chairs placed a foot apart on a stage reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, none of us in the audience knew where we were headed.

The character making the bold claim is Dr. Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne de Boulogne. Duchenne is based on a real 19^thcentury doctor who, by some, is credited with being the father of neurology, and whose life’s work with electroshock therapy, involved inducing emotional response in mental patients. “Inspiration is unreliable,” Duchenne says at another point, which I took to mean he needed to shock his patients into feeling emotion, or at least displaying what a given emotion looks like. And this is what gets us to the “actors” in the title. Actors train to develop techniques for generating emotions that a character—Hamlet, for example—might be feeling. But which set of emotions is “real”?

Lunatics & Actors is the brainchild of David Bridel, Dean of USC’s MFA program in Acting and directed by Jeremy Aluma. Bridel approached Aluma, four years ago with Duchenne’s story. “I have an idea that would serve your company,” Bridel remembers saying, “ But it will take you down a darker and more mysterious path than you’re used to.” Aluma was all in, as was his skilled company, Four Clowns, which is based in LA. A seven-year-old troupe of clowns, most members met while training at Bridel’s Clown School. The group developed the material, which grew into a workshop. This production, four years later at the Shakespeare Center, is the show’s World Premiere. Prior to this production, Bridel and Aluma have enjoyed great success with the award-winning shows, Abraham & Isaac, Noah & Jonah and Sublimity, all of which have been performed throughout the United States and internationally.

Creating the show was a three-phase process. The first consisted of a series of games and exercises based on prompts and works of Shakespeare, going bigger and smaller with the emotional range. Because everyone trained with Bridel, the team spoke a common language. The second phase was Bridel going off on his own and committing some of what had occurred in the “game” phase to text. The third phase, Aluma says, “came straight from David’s brain.” Once they had a text to work from, Four Clowns, along with Bridel and Aluma, as co-directors, spent another five weeks honing and shaping the work. During this period, questions were asked of the entire team—designers, board members, etc.–Where were you interested? Where did you drop out? Aluma says the opinions at this stage were vital. After the initial workshop, the writing changed about 10%, the design and production changed about 75%, and the acting and directing changed about 50%; getting Four Clowns to what’s now on stage at the Shakespeare Center.

Aluma is among a growing group of younger white male theatre creatives, both aware and doing something about the lack of gender and ethnic parity in theatre. Though Lunatics… is based on true events, involving a male doctor and mostly male subjects, a female actor and original Four Clowns member, Alexis Jones, plays the only female character, Fifi. Other members of the cast are Tyler Bremer (Bon-Bon), Andrew Eldredge (Pepe) and Thaddeus Shafer (Dr. Duchenne). The behind the scenes team is predominantly female, and racially diverse as well. Production Stage manager is Ashley Jo Navarro; Set Designer Fred Kinney; Lighting Designer Azra King­Abadi; Costume Designer Elena Flores; Sound Designer Kate Fechtig; Propsmaster Niki Mercs; and Technical Director Matt MacCready.

After Lunatics & Actors, Four Clowns, may be on brief hiatus as Aluma heads off to DePaul for his MFA. “A temporary swansong,” Bridel suggests, as the two practitioners look ahead to new and divergent possibilities in the coming months. Aluma also feels they will work together again. “You go through so many ideas together, you bond with each other, and that connection will remain,”

There are only three more performance left of this incredible piece of theatre—May 26, 27, 28—and I recommend you get there.

Lunatics & Actors is a fascinating—and ultimately moving—consideration of what it is to be human—what we feel, how we feel, and what emotions look like when we’re feeling them. In 2016, when so many self-medicate to stop feeling anything, this show reminds us how much we need to.

– Anna Nicholas

Step into a 19th Century Parisian clinic where famed neurologist and father of electrotherapy, Duchenne de Boulogne, is pleased to share his electric shock experiments with you in a quest for emotional authenticity.

Thaddeus Shafer is a wonderfully charming and compelling (not to mention creepy) Dr. Duchenne  in Lunatics & Actors,  the “temporary swan song” of Four Clowns collaborators David Bridel and Jeremy Aluma. After four years of partnership, the writer and director will be – for the foreseeable future, at least – parting ways to pursue other opportunities. At least they’re leaving us (for now) with something great to remember their alliance by.

This thought-provoking, odd, and interactive script could have been a disaster in the wrong hands. However, it came together beautifully not only because of the tight collaboration between writer and director, but also because of the phenomenal cast. At once hilarious and discomfiting, everyone’s performance was flawless.

Tyler Bremer, Andrew Eldredge, and Alexis Jones portray Bon-Bon, Pepe, and Fifi, respectively. With few lines, they are captivating. These three are the doctor’s test subjects, ’emotional husks’ on whom Duchenne is able to demonstrate the power of his latest discovery: with the use of electricity, he can elicit a genuine emotional response…more genuine, he believes, than that of a trained actor. The show takes a dark turn as the answer to the posed question is explored: Who is really mad after all – the lunatic or the actor?

Azra King-Abadi’s lighting design is used to great effect on Fred Kinney’s stark maze of a set. Costumes by Elena Flores really added to the feeling of disquiet.

– Beth Fisher

We try hard to hide it, but people have been noticing for centuries that actors and mentally ill folks have a lot in common.

Currently, Four Clowns is tossing that notion in the air, juggling it, and seeing where it lands, in Lunatics & Actors. The piece, by David Bridel (the group’s Associate Director), looks playfully into an area we usually think of as fraught with suffering and seriousness.

To free our minds, the troupe flips us backward a century and a half to a time when Europe’s scientists were first eagerly learning about the human nervous system. In an empty utilitarian space, we meet the urbane Dr. Duchenne. We’re here, he explains, to watch him demonstrate his scientific discoveries.

(The real Duchenne is now generally regarded as the father of neuroscience. His protegé, Jean-Martin Charcot, ran a world-famous “science theatre” in the Salpetrière, the Parisian insane asylum, using his patients to demonstrate. Among Charcot’s most famous students were Freud and Jung.)

Our Dr. Duchenne is a witty performer, confident in his work and comfortable onstage. He’s most eager to share his findings about portraying human emotions. He claims he can stimulate his patients to produce them perfectly — better than actors can. He challenges any actors in the audience to come onstage and join the test.

Much clowning ensues — not with clowns, but with remarkable and fearless physicality, and comical deflation of our ego balloons.

Duchenne’s increasingly manic trials may not persuade us of his discovery, but we are utterly (and uncomfortably) convinced that a thin membrane guards us all — not just the actors among us — from the loss of self we call madness.

As is usual with Four Clowns, all the performers deliver full energy every moment. Dr. Duchenne (Thaddeus Shafer), for all his self- assurance, never stops scanning the horizon for … something. A rival, come to dispute him? The patients, meanwhile (Tyler Bremer, Andrew Eldridge, and Alexis Jones) never just watch one another perform a test; each is also engaged in advancing an agenda, sometimes secret, sometimes obvious. Director Jeremy Aluma shows what a master juggler can do with a stageful of actors.

Four Clowns has won an enviable reputation for taking the skills of clowning and building new kinds of storytelling from the oldest of theatricks. Lunatics and Actors  extends this work with a lively amusement that entertains the mind as well. It also takes us where the best clowning goes — to places where we hide things.

– Mark Hein

One fateful night in downtown Los Angeles, an unsuspecting live theater audience of eighty is about to meet their wit’s end. Regardless of background, each member leaves the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles a changed person.

It’s show time. The lights dim and the cheerful chatter of the audience subsides; the spectators do not know it yet, but there is nothing they can do to prepare themselves for the hidden menace backstage. The actors are already at places…or shall we say, the Lunatics and the actors.

Written by David Bridel and put on by the nationally touring clown troupe Four Clowns, the play Lunatics and Actors is set in a 19th century Parisian clinic, where an unsettling field of scientific study is being pioneered. Based on the historical experiments of French neurologist, Duchenne de Boulogne, Lunatics offers a peek at one of Dr. Duchenne’s scientific demonstrations involving electrophysiology, in which he seeks to substantiate the chilling declaration, “I can make anyone feel anything.”

Dr. Duchenne (Tad Shafer) infuses emotion by means of electric shock into three of his unfeeling test subjects or lunatics, Bon-Bon (Tyler Bremer), Pepe (Andrew Eldredge), and Fifi (Alexis Jones).

Lunatics involve extensive audience participation, inviting members onstage at one point to be prospective test subjects.

While Lunatics thrills the audience, its underlying message goes much deeper. “[Lunatics] was very exciting, frightful, and yet deeply meaningful,” said audience member Madison Dunn. “I learned that you couldn’t force emotion out of people. That even though inspiration doesn’t come automatically, the beauty of it is that’s how we are and that’s how we’re made.”

This was certainly the intent of the director, Jeremy Aluma, who wanted to explore what it means to be “authentic” as an actor. Noticing prominent film stars who took their roles very far – like Heath Ledger as the Joker – Aluma wanted to answer the questions, “How far is okay? When does it stop becoming acting and start becoming a psychosis? When you live very truthfully are you still acting or are you tapping into a different part of your brain and becoming something?”

The charismatic director Aluma noted that he’ll be heading to Chicago shortly to pursue an MFA, and will therefore have to discontinue his work with Four Clowns.

After the April 29 world premiere of the production, actor Alexis Jones and Tyler Bremer offered their perspective on the production.

Jones stated that she quit graduate school at Long Beach State to become a clown at The Clown School, because she felt it offered a rewarding type of “struggle.” On her role in Lunatics, Jones commented how her character is “nervous and luckily, so am I. People always say, ‘the more you act, it get’s easier.’ It doesn’t for me.”

For Jones, being in character is a lot about acting to her fullest “within the confines of [her] character.” Bremer also felt the same way, jesting how he works “with the frame of mind of a guy who’s been fried one too many times.”

About his artistic process, Bremer added that performing in Lunatics involved a lot of “stripping away.” Or in other words, simplifying his acting technique to adopt a more sluggish demeanor, which his role in the play demanded.

“It’s like a record-skipping. So if I heard a sound [my] attention would go there, and then lapse there,” Bremer said. “I look at Duchenne, I would lapse there, and then come back not knowing where I was.”

In the end, the main goal of Lunatics and Actors was to spur discussion about the emotional authenticity of an actor and what “authenticity” even means. The Four Clowns company certainly accomplished their mission.

“Yeah, I have my own opinions, but I’m more interested in what other people think about what is real and what is okay,” director Aluma said.

What is the line between acting and lunacy?

– Anthony Karambelas

TOP TEN & RECOMMENDED

Lunatics & Actors, the latest world premiere by Jeremy Aluma’s clowning troupe Four Clowns, is less a fixed narrative than a series of funny, unpredictable, and menacing vignettes that excavate the distinction between creative performance and insanity. Playwright David Bridel, dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, has crafted a meta-theatrical meditation that perhaps inevitably turns toHamlet as it considers the origin of human emotion and its authentic portrayal onstage.

Our guide in this line of inquiry is Dr. Duchenne de Boulogne (Thaddeus Shafer), a real-life mid-nineteenth century doctor who used electroshock therapy to map the facial expressions of his subjects (children, vagrants, and actors), then documented his efforts in a collection of ghoulish photographs. His theatrical counterpart gloats to the audience that he can “make anybody feel anything,” before introducing his brain-fried research subjects, Bon-Bon (Tyler Bremer), Fifi (Alexis Jones), and Pepe (Andrew Eldredge), who trot in when Duchenne beckons trussed up like Christmas hams.

What unfolds next is best experienced with as limited preparation as possible, but suffice to say that Four Clowns engages in its typical tactic of breaking the fourth wall, albeit with a decidedly darker end game in mind. Shafer, who stepped into the role a couple weeks before opening, proves himself an adept comic improviser, delivering deflating barbs to audience volunteers in a courteous French-Germanic accent. The triumvirate of slack-jawed “clowns,” meanwhile, turn both transgressive and aggressive, human lab rats in an experiment that becomes progressively more disturbing.

Staged in a half-finished industrial labyrinth designed by Fred Kinney with stark, disorienting lighting by Azra King-Abadi, the play forces us to examine theater itself as a kind of willful, collective lunacy. Under Aluma’s fluid direction, the play overcomes early unevenness to deepen into a powerful exploration of its essential themes. Shafer has distinguished himself portraying characters whose failings threaten to break through the veil of control. Though that capacity receives more limited range here, his Duchenne locates the heart of darkness in Bridel’s imagination. Among the clowns, Jones in particular conveys meaningful pathos as Fifi. The production climaxes with an unconventional, evocative staging of Hamlet, an artistic impression whose impact would be even stronger undissipated by the brief denouement that follows.

– Jenny Lower

Directed by Jeremy Aluma and written by David Bridel, this is a wry and deceptive horror comedy that sucks you in almost as soon as it starts. Think of a streamlined version of Marat Sade performed on Nitrous Oxide, and you get a rough idea of what is unleashed upon you as the fourth wall crumbles. Based loosely on actual experiments by French Neurologist Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne) in the 1800’s ( Thaddeus Shaffer).

The Dr. proceeds with a public demonstration of how electricity stimulates genuine feeling depending on where the connective rods are applied. He seems benign if not a tad condescending. I’d describe his portrayal as a mash-up of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove and Gene Wilder’s turn as Dr. Fronk-en-steen. Since this type of venue attracts thespians and critics, volunteers from the audience are asked questions about themselves in regards to acting until a few are invited to stay on stage and help in the experiment. This part of the play incorporates some improv from the physician, who, in a snide but still endearing fashion, toys with them for about fifteen minutes.

The last man standing represents the modern stance of classic method acting and has to stand the test of matching wits and emotions with three of the Dr.’s test subjects — control Dr. will let them. Thus starts the funniest and most normal portion of the theatrics, but even that morphs into something else as a steampunk variant of electro-shock stimulates and elicits feelings of surprise, anger, joy, etc.

To reveal anything else would be criminal, as we begin to wonder if we are voyeurs, participants or are being unwittingly, and perhaps not too passively, forced to feel certain things as well. The first 60 minutes are screamingly funny before we veer sharply left and into a dark part of the mind’s back roads.

The pacing is dead on point and the costumes and props are nicely done. Set designer Fred Kinney makes good use of the deep and wide chasms of the stage that consist of open spaces and partial to full walls hanging from the ceiling. This booby trapped pastry comes in advantageously at the start of the L.A. Fringe festival and pairs nicely with the devilry and delights for the next few weeks.

“Lunatics and Actors” runs on Fridays and Saturdays through May 28 and you would be a crazy person to miss this ninety minute roller coaster/fun house in the flesh. Be forewarned that if someone rings a bell in the following few days you might start salivating.

– Dukey Flyswatter

The lunatics and actors of this play are presided over by Dr. Duchenne, inspired by a real-life Victorian doctor who researched correlations between facial expressions and human emotions. DR. Duchenne believes he has found a way to systematically elicit real emotions in his subjects, better than any actors could, who might call up representations of emotions, not the real thing. He demonstrates his findings by zapping his subjects with an archaic medical device that would look handsome in a sitting room if decontextualized from its sinister purpose.

Dr. Duchenne’s faithful subjects are larger-than-life in their physical acting, innocent, primal, and always hilarious. Tyler Bremer as Bon-Bon is as lovable as a family pet; Alexis Jones as Fifi evokes pathos; and Andrew Eldredge as Pepe is delightfully twitchy and lascivious. Thaddeus Shafer as Dr. Duchenne presides over his subjects and the audience alike with a quick wit and eloquent charm.

There’s a dimension of madness underlying Lunatics & Actors throughout, from Dr. Duchenne’s subjects, which give the play its name, to the authoritative rationality of Dr. Duchenne himself, which takes him into mad scientist territory as the emotions of his subjects intensify. No matter their emotional states, these characters possess a relatable humanity.

Lunatics & Actors performs alchemy on human emotion, resulting in humor with a lot to say. By uniting visceral responses to emotion with cerebral questions about emotion, the audience can find themselves somewhere in the middle. Maybe Dr. Duchenne’s demonstration should be creepy, as he prods and zaps his subjects to demonstrate his ability to elicit pure emotional states at will. But what exactly is creepy—is it Dr. Duchenne’s willingness to put his subjects through emotional or physical pain for the sake of scientific knowledge, or is it the aesthetic needs of the audience themselves, who cannot help but respond, often with laughter, to the intense emotions of the Doctor’s subjects? Lunatic and scientist, actor and audience might not be so different after all.

– Lauren Kinney

Honestly, I’ve never seen a single show from Four Clowns I did not enjoy immensely, this one certainly not an exception.  More, no two of shows presented have resembled each other in the least, yet remained clearly the result of a similar point of view — an exploration of the human condition eyes open to the pettiness and horror one may find therein, yet willing to laugh, to find hope, to ask questions rather than present answers, and forever to entertain while sharing all of the above.

With luck, this comes across as the praise it is intended to be!

Stepping into the theatre to see this performance, one has a vivid yet not-easily-identified sense of place and time.  That odd disconnect nine times out of ten emerges from imprecision.  Here, one of those tenth times, it proves the exact opposite.  But even now I cannot tell precisely where we were, except itself.  Very much itself! Perhaps a dream, or an ersatz laboratory from another age, a steampunk asylum found in some alternate timeline.  All of the above and neither?

Almost immediately we meet a Dr. Duchene (Thaddeus Shafer) who purports to have learned the mechanism of the human mind and emotion. Smiling in his antique garb and somehow fiercely precise way, the good (?) Doctor promises a demonstration.

Very soon we meet his assistants for the evening: Bon Bon (Tyler Bremer), Fifi (Alexis Jones) and Pepe (Andrew Aldredge). Assistants they prove, since they do in fact assist him, but one might well presume the three might also deserve the title “patients.”

Might. Probably do. Then again I’m not completely sure Dr. Duchene is really a doctor.

Of his passion for this, his work, however we can have no doubt. Just as the truth of the emotions explored in the demonstration likewise leave little room for doubt. Ironic that–since every person on stage is an actor, which brings up the title. What after all is a Lunatic, really? What for that matter is an Actor? Is there a difference? Should there be? Who decides?

Again, I don’t want to spoil the performance, but I can promise a intriguing odyssey on many levels — some emotional, others artistic (along with one of the most interesting performances of Hamlet you’re ever likely to see) and many philosophical. Philosophy such as metaphysics, as well as epistemology, and yes, ethics. All of it startling, sometimes chilling, very often funny, frequently disturbing and for nearly every single second compelling.

– David MacDowell Blue

Reminiscent of Marat/Sade back in the Sixties, Lunatics and Actors exposes us to the bizarre world of 19th century lunatic asylums where interested by-standers reveled in the novelty, while so-called “dangerous” or deranged inmates roamed free of constraints. That the audience is cast as those by-standers, voyeuristically savoring this strange environment, comes home when volunteers undergo a menacing interrogation at the hands of the decidedly unhinged Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne (Thaddeus Shafer). A volunteer from the audience becomes the guinea pig who will be subjected to the good doctor’s ministrations.

Dead-pan, total commitment on the part of inmates Bon-Bon (Tyler Bremer), Pepe (Andrew Aldredge) and Fifi (Alexis Jones) makes this strange mix of improvisation, clown characterizations and macabre instruments of torture a la 1800 completely compelling, while the volunteer’s “Gee Whiz” approach to acting draws the amusement, and perhaps the ire, of knowledgeable twenty-something onlookers.

Under the direction of Master Clown Jeremy Aluma, his trio of internees and their frightening doctor deepen the menace of the mysterious unfinished playing space and bare-bones lighting. Is this a set, we wonder, or soon to be a series of locked cells?

David Bridel, currently Dean of USC’s School of Theatre, founding artistic director the The Clown School and the playwright of this loosely conceived contrivance, knows how to build on a mixture of comic clowning and horrifying suspense.  It is an E-ticket, as we used to say; a thrilling ride with tongue firmly set in cheek, and filled with the exuberance and vitality of our current theatrical climate (despite capitulation to AEA’s revamped “membership company” rules).

– Leigh Kennicott

Grab the speedometer and move it, the car does not speed up. Mock up an airport, planes will not come. We are conditioned to causality and that the mere appearance or measure of a thing is not (usually) a handle into the thing itself. We smile when happy, cry when sad, and believe that we can tell when emotions are genuine or contrived. It comes as some surprise that this may not be entirely true. There is evidence that outward expressions, real or fake, may drive physiological processes instead of merely being driven by them. This two-way street is at once interesting and lucrative. Demagogues and marketeers profit by inventing stimuli to induce specific responses. A big part of culture and its preservation is in the transmitting feelings and emotions through performance.  Authenticity – whatever its definition – is considered essential.

Playwright David Bridel takes on the latter in ‘Lunatics and Actors’ mounted through the end of May by The Four Clowns at Shakespeare Center LA. Scientist Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne (Thaddeus Shafer) asserts that he can evoke performances from his trio of patient/inmates (Tyler Bremer, Andrew Eldredge, and Alexis Jones) that surpass in intensity and authenticity those by conventionally trained actors. His electrochemical method will find gleeful interest from results-oriented directors tired of having Stanislavski flung back at them. The intriguing premise draws from nineteenth century events. The historical Duchenne performed early research in connecting human physiological and physiognomical reactions to electrical stimuli. He applied shocks to patients, photographed their faces, and in time could evoke specific expressions from them at will. Much of this work would be frowned upon today for ethical reasons but it came with other results in different areas that persist. Duchenne laid the foundations for modern neuroscience. The bidirectionality of emotion has since been intensively and controversially studied by Ekman, Zajonc, and others.

There are inside jokes aplenty within the world of the play. Theatre in Los Angeles is considered the domain of the insane.  Are the three inmates victims of an unscrupulous workshop-monger?  Bridel is the incoming Dean of Theatre at USC. Does this foreshadow his plans for the school?  Perhaps only artists can or will get the full scope of it. But, the promise and threat of machines has been a staple of storytelling from ‘Frankenstein’ to ‘Blade Runner’ and beyond. Can we controlled by electrodes? Yes but we’re attached enough to our screens to make such a physical connection unnecessary. A more unnerving question is what form the next evolutionary step will take once we or our algorithms figure out what makes us tick. The reductionist approach claims that once we find the root of the structure that everything will follow. Others argue for multiple processes that compete with and against one another in a sort-of roshambo. Either way, the tacit assumption is that machines would then emulate us, only much much faster. Why stop there? The Melancholy Dane may have been overly optimistic about the Godlikedness of man – we are most likely just another step along the path. That’s what make these clowns the ones of nightmares. Go see them but leave the kids at home.The setup requires actors in the audience to volunteer for light onstage duty. This being Los Angeles, it isn’t a problem. Duchenne runs through an interview followed by exercises and a compare/contrast. Meisner, Linklater, and Alexander may help the aspiring actor but a healthy zap from the glowing Volta pileinvokes a style of its own. The inmate trio, all experienced clowns, win the intensity fight in a walk.

Director Jeremy Aluma has to take his time churning the cream and the laughs hide a somewhat lengthy introduction. It snaps into butter when the contest shifts to ‘Hamlet’ and its endless opportunities to test authenticity (or anything else of interest to artists). Convention holds its own for subtlety but not for pain, fear, or terror. A change from funny to harrowing occurs in a tight, disturbing vignette to rival ‘Clockwork Orange’ or ‘1984’. A final distillation of ‘Hamlet’ to a delicate touch of ‘Pagliacci’ is a marvel. Focussing on the terrifying, it is entirely different from the troupe’s recent reimagining. Give substantial credit to the large design team. Their coherent efforts drive a fanciful story which might fall flat in less skilled hands. The Clowns don’t skimp on production and one wonders how they balance the books against a batguano-crazy $15 ticket price.
– Ravi Narasimhan

Four Clowns presents one of the most wildly funny and original pieces of a dark comedy that – as an audience member – you’ll soon never forget because it’s original, funny and just a little bit dark. It’s called “Lunatics & Actors” and is presented at The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles in downtown LA and it is basically a roller coaster of comedy and creepiness with a ending you won’t see coming. L & A is a comedy with an eerie twist that its cast alone will have you laughing out loud from beginning to end!

Smartly and somewhat darkly written by David Bridel, this story is set in the 19th century with a very uncharacteristically sharp and witty doctor, (loosely based on the real life research of ‘emotional authenticity’ which was an obsession of Doctor Duchenne du Boulogne), this play uses a few actual audience members as assistants, electro therapy treatment techniques and excerpts of the play ‘Hamlet’ as the tools to show you how acting is not the only way to ‘stimulate’ – ‘real emotions’.

Absolutely cleverly directed by Jeremy Aluma, who used a wonderful old-world 19th century stylized laboratory set to encase the audience, the inmates, the volunteers and the Doctor in this world of self examination of human emotions – to transfer you as an audience into this very creepy – but very funny world. Jeremy did a wonderful thing by allowing volunteer audience members, who represent the acting experience, to be challenged by the doctor’s test in order to be chosen for his actor/electro stimulus experiment. What does that mean? Well real emotions can be stimulated on ‘demand’.

The performances are amazingly wonderful and unique. Their energy and enthusiasm is infectious with humor. The environment created by the doctor is actually a little scary, real in tension – but overall – very, very, very, and unsuspectingly funny. Why?

Dr. Duchenne is played by Thaddeus Shafer and I must say this man gave an all out energetic and exciting performance that by then end – he will absolutely thrill you. Thaddeus, who is playing this 19th century character does the perfect French accent, that is until he attempts to imitate the audience volunteers and perfectly imitates them in tone, draw or dialect as well. He is so funny and so intuitive with his audience and cast members that his eyes and looks alone along with his sharp improvisation skills will have you laughing out loud at his stylistic humor.

The character of ‘Bon-Bon’ is excitingly performed by Tyler Bremer who gives a wildly crazy interpretation of an inmate in this insane asylum that they all clearly seem to be the either products or results of the doctor’s emotional electro experiments. Tyler is dynamic with his looks and actions – and it’s his timing and what I call performance art – acting and reacting to everything around him that makes him hysterical to watch. Even when you hear him say his name, you’ll be smiling from cheek to cheek.

The character ‘Pepe’ is excitingly performed by Andrew Eldredge who is also so full of energy and movement and it’s his comic timing and reactions to all things around him are so hysterical and fun to watch. As a ‘failed’ or rather ‘enhanced’ result of the doctor’s experiments, Andrew has some hysterical reactions with the volunteers from the audience making it a pure comic joy to watch him. Even his mimicking from time to time will have you laughing out loud too!

‘Fifi’ is wonderfully performed by Alexis Jones and she is the only female with just as much, if not more energy and comic performance styling’s as she perfectly reacts to everything around her. Her character gains much more sympathetic responses from the audience and well as some very intensely funny reactions to her fellow inmates. Alexis is funny because she is the only female of the three ‘inmates’ and as a result of that has so many wildly entertaining eye, tongue and visible desire movements to the volunteers from the audience that you can’t help but laugh at her passions.

Now, unfortunately I cannot comment of the audience members who volunteered during the performance I saw, but that’s another amazing point about this show, no two shows will ever be the same – because the audience will always be different too! I’ll just say my groups of volunteers were so very funny as Thaddeus is wonderful at the art of improvisation and knew exactly how to interact with each ‘unrehearsed’ response the volunteers that he chose format he audience. So the show that you see – could actually be even funnier! It truly was so much fun to watch!

Fred Kinney is the creative set designer who was responsible for making this very old turn-of-the-century laboratory set so life-like. Elena Flores did a marvelous and detail design in all the costumes (except of course the audience members who volunteered) and it just added to the mood and ambiance of the play overall so well. As true ‘Geek’ seeing the electro-shock machine itself as a prop designed by Niki Mercs – was an exciting ‘tool’ that mixed with lights and probes and coupled with the authentic sound design of Kate Fechtig – made for a real theatrical thrill to see on stage.

The Four Clowns always does something that you will always remember after watching their productions and “Lunatics & Actors” is no exception. Authentically designed, cleverly written, audience friendly (complete with improvisation) and filled will so much humor and suspense like you’ve never seen before. “Lunatics & Actors” is truly one of those wonderful live theatrical experiences you’ll remember for a long time after you see it.

– Lorenzo Marchessi

If you thought this clown troupe was about red noses and bright makeup, put away your assumptions. Writer David Bridel, director and company leader Jeremy Aluma, permanent and guest cast members – all want to make mayhem. They wish to disturb your comfortable, passive audience experience and force you to create your own meaning, author your own opinion, as they break the fourth wall and make you squirm with questions of emotional validity. They want to make dangerous art, and with this latest production, Bridel & Aluma’s latest over a ten-year collaboration and the last before both take new posts, they succeed.

Walking into the theater space at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles on First Street, past its corner view of downtown from the wrong side of the tracks, surprises with its feeling of broad space – a stage wider and deeper than the simple audience risers. Fred Kinney’s spare design of wooden frames gives the impression of a rat maze, and the company makes good use of it throughout the performance, sometimes to escape their oppression and others to play.

We meet the first of four characters, Dr. Duchenne, based on an actual 19th century scientist, as he asserts his successful experiment: he can make anyone feel anything he wishes. More than that, he can make you believe that their expression of that emotion is more authentic than that of a trained actor. He pits his three “lunatics” – the other three cast members, all dressed in Victorian garb and strait jackets – against three volunteers chosen from the audience. He requests trained actors, and this being LA, there were plenty to choose from. Their answers to the casting questionnaire create the first genuine laughs of the show. Thaddeus Shafer’s portrayal brings a warm sense of irony and humor to the oddball, steampunk doc, sidling up suggestively to the ladies and rolling his eyes at the actors’ explanations of their “technique.”

After whittling down the three to one volunteer, Duchenne requests him to perform nine different emotions. After the actor makes a stab at each, the good doctor shocks one of the patients, who then performs that emotion as well. We as the audience are encouraged to applaud and cheer on the best performance. Of course it’s all artifice. We know no one is really being shocked, and at first, the over-the-top quality of the cast performances give rise to loud chuckles. Gradually however the lightness of mood darkens along with Azra King-Abadi’s effective use of stark spots and a grim plot spoiler I won’t reveal here. Tonally, this is never an easy shift, but the excellent cast, especially long-time trouper Alexis Jones and newcomer Andrew Eldridge, manage it well.

They’re heading for big questions that warrant the mood: what is the value, if any, of a manipulated emotional experience? Can we ever afford to sit back and be passive consumers of technologically-shaped art? The show’s electric shock panels and mad scientist combine to control the patients, to make them crave approval from the bully behind the manufactured experience – a timely media warning during election season.

In fact, it doesn’t seem a coincidence that ‘Reflection’ and ‘Attention’ are two emotions the Doctor asks for. The performers debate. Are those actually emotions? The point seems to be: are we reflecting enough, paying enough attention, to ourselves, to our real emotional lives? Or are we allowing others to dictate them to us? The traditional value of a narrative experience lies in the empathy we feel for struggling characters, our own reflections on what we might do in their shoes. Lunatics & Actors seems intent on putting our feet to the fire and asking us if we’re really doing so, or are we, as an audience, as a modern people, phoning it in? Are we content to binge watch Netflix or yell at a Facebook political video while ignoring the highs and lows of our own, potentially rich, lives? This could be reaching further than the writers and performers intend to go, but any production that provokes such rich questions is worth thinking about deeply.

– Melanie Hooks

Who is more capable of expressing authentic emotion: a trained actor or a lunatic? Some might argue it’s a trick question because there’s no difference between the two. And though there may be ample evidence to support that position, playwright David Bridel and Four Clowns theater company explore a more sinister hypothesis in “Lunatics & Actors” at the downtown Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.

Developed in collaboration with Bridel, the recently appointed dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, this latest production is an adventurous — and distinctly creepy — departure from Four Clowns’ stylistic signature. For one thing, the piece doesn’t entail clowning per se, although its focus on the depiction of emotional states ingeniously leverages the troupe’s highly physical performance skills.

The company’s name notwithstanding, Lunatics and Actors has five principal performers. Tyler Bremer, Andrew Eldredge and Alexis Jones appear as test subjects under the control of the 19th century Parisian neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne (Thaddeus Shafer), who pioneered the use of electrical stimulation to trigger targeted emotional reflexes.

“I can make anyone feel anything!” boasts Duchenne, serving as our theatrical ringmaster in a surreal scenario drawn from the doctor’s famous experiments. To demonstrate his point, he applies electrodes (from designer Fred Kinney’s steampunk re-creation of Duchenne’s electroshock apparatus) to the heads of his asylum patients. He compares and contrasts their grotesquely intense displays of specific emotions on command with the craft-based efforts of an actor he recruits from audience volunteers, in a “feel-off” to determine whose renditions are the most authentic.

What begins as an amusing quasi-scientific inquiry skirts dangerously close to acting class exercises in the early going, albeit in the service of an overarching theme about the tension between feeling and artifice.

Under Jeremy Aluma’s finely tuned direction, however, the play soon darkens and deepens as the performers launch into a meta-theatrical deconstruction of “Hamlet” — that archetypal showcase for emotive thespianship. Neither the doctor nor his test subjects can lay definitive claim to emotional authenticity, let alone sanity, as we’re left to ponder whether our feelings truly originate in ourselves or in manipulation by others.

– Philip Brandes

Fourth wall, meet Four Clowns. Four Clowns, meet sledgehammer. Boom. The fourth wall is smashed into a million gritty bits of metaphorical plaster and debris in this Los Angeles-based clown troupe’s most recent production, Lunatics and Actors.

The brainchild of founder and California State University, Long Beach graduate (2006) Jeremy Aluma, Four Clowns is known for pushing the boundaries of live performance, marrying clowning techniques with raw acting on stage.

In theatre, the fourth wall is an imaginary wall just as much crucial to the set as the other three physical walls making up the set. The fourth wall is the “front” one, separating the play and actors from the audience and reality.

The concept of a fourth wall was created by dramatist and critic Denis Diderot and later coined by French playwright and actor Molière. In the 19th century, the idea of a fourth wall was embraced in the naturalist theatre. By the 20th century, playwrights and actors were challenging the conventionality of performance, creating a transparent fourth wall (or completely breaking it down), interacting with the audience.

So, what happens when the wall is shattered and a troupe of clowns crunches through the rubble?
Four Clowns’ unique approach to live performance has garnered it many awards in just a short time, including several at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2011 for its rendition of Romeo and Juliet and in 2015 for The Halfwits’ Last Hurrah.

“We do our best to make light of what is painful,” said Alexis Jones, who plays Fifi in Lunatics and Actors, regarding the company’s style. “So we can attack important issues, but with a smile.”

And attack they did. What started as an idea from Aluma’s mentor, a former CSULB theatre professor and writer of this production, David Bridel, quickly morphed into a dark comedy that pushes the definition of actor to extremes that only clowns in Aluma’s pack could seemingly pull off.

“I’m thinking we can make the third act darker,” Aluma told Bridel when working on Lunatics and Actors. “It can be played for laughs easily enough, but there’s something going on underneath the humor, and I want to bring that out in the performance.”

Bridel agreed, saying that the clowns should “put the audience on edge.”

This has been the trademark for Four Clowns since the beginning. Dedicated to entertaining and interacting with the audience, while shining the light on humanity, Four Clowns constantly shatters the fourth wall in every production, pushing both the audience’s and the actors’ understanding of acting and theatre.

“You don’t really have a show without an audience,” Jones, another CSULB graduate (2007), said. “It wouldn’t really behoove us to pretend that they are not there.”

Sans fourth wall, Four Clowns pushes the boundaries, questioning and often poking fun at (as clowns do) what it means to act and perform. Lunatics and Actors directly centers around what it means to be an actor. Are actors really different than anyone else? Is it a matter of training? Or does it come from a deeper, darker well of emotions?

Breaking the fourth wall is typically used to create comedic tension, something Four Clowns uses to its advantage. This technique allows the marriage of sinister and lightheartedness to take place on stage, keeping the audience squirming from entertainment and uneasiness.

“Are we laughing because it makes us uncomfortable, or because it reminds us of what it means to be human?” asked Tyler Bremer, who plays Bon-Bon in Lunatics and Actors and is another CSULB graduate (2014).

– Amy Patton

Four Clowns presentation of David Bridel’s new play Lunatics & Actors now playing at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles is one of those performances you experience. I can’t tell you too much or I will spoil it so this will have to be more of an impressionistic review. I’ll start with WOW.

Thaddeus Shafer plays Dr. Duchenne and we the audience are there to witness his demonst rations on how he can control emotion. He asks for volunteers from the audience, specifically actors. He then interviews them and the comedy begins. (Kudos to the volun teers who definitely added to the show). He then chooses one of the actors to participate in a game of matching emotions.

Three “Lunatics” are then brought on stage and introduced. Tyler Bremer as Bon-Bon, Alexis Jones as Fifi, an Andrew Eldredge as Pepe are there to interpret emotions in a match against the volunteer actor. The result is hysterically funny. The actors are spot on.

We the audience have our own emotions played with as we get sucked into the “demonstration.” I was totally drawn into the story. There are moments that are very disturbing especially when you realize that Lunatics & Actors is based on the real life obsessions of famed doctor, Duchenne du Boulogne who once engaged in this experimentation.

All parts of the production contribute to a brilliant whole. The set & properties designer Fred Kinney provided an intriguing backdrop. Even the audience sitting in comfortable chairs with ample leg room was necessary to the performance because action overflowed into the audience. In addition, the “machine” was terrifyingly real. The Costumes designed by Elena Flores were wonderfully period and complete with period strait jackets. The lighting designed by Azra King-Abadi provided an overall eeriness to the stage. Kate Fechtig provided a sound design that set the stage from the moment the we walked into the theatre.

Lunatics & Actors is a performance to be experienced. A titillating story cleverly directed with unforgettable performances. Do not miss this one.

– Suzanne Birrell

What an odd — if entertaining — show Four Clowns Productions have given us in their latest insanity: Lunatics & Actors. Combining fact-based information on the ground-breaking work of 19th Century French neurologist, Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (1806-1875), and today’s acting techniques, writer David Bridel and director Jeremy Aluma have concocted a silly but fun show.

Taking three of Dr. Duchenne’s mentally ill patients to illustrate how “science” (in this case electric shock to the body and face) can out-best contemporary acting styles (especially The Method), during a lecture. He has “volunteers” from the audience discuss their acting abilities, with one of them demonstrating his Shakespearian skills by showcasing his Hamlet opposite Fifi (Alexis Jones ) as Ophelia and as Gertrude, Bon-Bon (Tyler Bremer) and Pepe (Andrew Eldredge) as Claudius and Laertes. Then, at the end, they do a dumbshow of “Hamlet” to drum music.

It’s not quite as bizarre as it sounds, and, of course, makes no logical sense mixing 19th and 20th Century acting styles, with the crazies coming off, supposedly, as sincere and meaningful; more involved than this volunteer. But since it is “theatrical,” we can forgive what rubbish it is intellectually, and just have fun at the actors’ antics.

Thaddeus Shafer is Dr. Duchenne, in a weird French/German accent (Duchenne was not from the Alsace-Lorraine province), so who knows what Shafer was attempting? Nevertheless, it’s all part of the fun in this under-90-minutes show. The actors seem to be having a blast with it, which then allows us to be entertained, too.

The theatre space, rented at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, is huge, so designer Fred Kinny’s painted large flats to look like concrete panels, which allowed the actors plenty of running space, keeping the action fluid. Aluma has performed a yeoman’s job in allowing his actors creative movements and keeping their brand of insanity to a quiet roar. Jones, Bremer and Eldredge haven’t caricatured madness, but do keep it on a level that is bound to upset the Mental Health PC-police. And Shafer keeps their interactions somewhat realistic.

Now, clearly, this show isn’t for everybody, but watching trained comic/actor/clowns having their way with the material, works. See it and laugh out loud, but try not to be too puzzled at what you’re seeing.

– Dale Reynolds

How do we know our perception of the world is what we believe it to be?

This deep question is ultimately at the heart of the new production from Four Clowns at The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, Lunatics and Actors, written by David Bridel and directed by Jeremy Aluma. Lunatics & Actors explores the question of emotional authenticity, through a descent into the real-life obsessions of Dr. Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne du Loulogne. du Loulogne was a French neurologist who greatly advanced the science of electrophysiology. Duchenne’s monograph, Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine – also illustrated prominently by his photographs – was the first study on the physiology of emotion and was seminal to Darwin’s later work. Duchenne also wanted to determine how the muscles in the human face produce facial expressions that Duchenne believed to be directly linked to the soul of man. Duchenne is known, in particular, for the way he triggered muscular contractions with electrical probes, recording the resulting distorted and often grotesque expressions with the recently invented camera. The images that Four Clowns used in their poster for the program are literally of Duchenne performing facial electro-stimulation.

In Lunatics & Actors, Duchenne (Thaddeus Shafer (FB; FB (page))) is presenting the audience with a simple question: what is authentic emotion? Can a highly skilled trained actor produce authentic emotion? Can the skills of the actor surpass the real emotion induced through electrostimulation? In asking these questions, the production induces a different set of question in the audience. Namely, it raises the question of whether any of the emotions that we might see on stage or screen are real, or even realistic portrayal. Is the entire history of theatrical entertainment just an artifice, a facade of fake emotion? If it is, are we better off going out and experiencing real emotion?

The way that Duchenne does that is to create a challenge: knowing that he is in Los Angeles and the audience is filled with actors, he selects three actors from the audience to test against three lunatics from his asylum. The question: between the actor and the lunatic, who can portray the most authentic emotion. He begins by interviewing the actors to find the most skilled amongst them, based on training, technique, experience, and recognition. At our performance we had three actors, whose names I cannot currently remember. There were various levels of technique and experience, ranging from students to one who had won a few local awards and had toured with a Shakespeare troupe.  The doctor selected the most experienced candidate, and we were off.

The doctor then introduced us to his three lunatics: Bon-Bon (Tyler Bremer), Fifi (Alexis Jones), and Pepe (Andrew Eldredge). Not being an expert in neuropsychology, I can’t quite described their maladies. Externally, Bon-Bon seemed to be driven for treats, but otherwise pliant and withdrawn. Fifi seemed shell-shocked; she wanted treats but never got them. Pepe was energetic and strange, almost prone to violence. All were in straightjackets.

The doctor then proceeded to request the selected actor to portray a series of emotions, which in many cases seemed to confuse or befuddle him based on his experience. He then used electroshock on his selected lunatic, and induced the requested emotion. The audience was then asked which was the most authentic emotion. In most cases, it appeared to this audience member that the lunatics gave the better performance. It seemed that way to our selected actor as well, as he got more and more incensed.

Things, well, things degenerated from there.

To describe more of the story might give away some of the twists and turns, so I’ll defer doing so. But the experience, as noted above, explored electroshock therapy, and its ability to make its subjects do whatever the authority figure asks them to do, and to believe whatever the authority figure wants them to believe. One review I encountered writing this up referred to this as gaslighting on stage. Reviewing the definition of the term, I would say that is accurate. As such, I would note that this performance could potentially be triggery (i.e., TRIGGER WARNING)  to those troubled by gaslighting simulations or situations, or those who have undergone electroshock therapy. But I think the ultimate question the gaslighting results asked is a real one — and a significant one — are the emotions and beliefs we see something that we should believe, and who is really responsible for those emotions. Is the fear induced by electroshock (for example) the same as real fear for a situation? Is what is perceived as real by the lunatic or actor the same as a real-life experience? For actors, what is a realistic performance?

I don’t think these questions are easy one, but I think the discussion of them can be an interesting discussion. However, the path to get to the questions can be a dark and disturbing one; perhaps one that is not for everyone.

But this is a Four Clowns production, you say. Where are the clowns? Wikipedia says the following about clowns: “The comedy that clowns perform is usually in the role of a fool whose everyday actions and tasks become extraordinary—and for whom the ridiculous, for a short while, becomes ordinary.”  That is certainly true in this production. The style of questioning of the actors by Duchenne is clearly ridiculous, and the answers (and his reactions) to the questions becomes hilarious. The performances of the lunatics: they are certainly foolish and become extraordinary in the transformation of their madness. So while this is not your traditional clowning — and certainly not the style of clowning we saw in Four Clowns’ recent Hamlet — it is one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a while.

Other reviewers I’ve read have been seemingly insulted by the premise of the show. The aforementioned “gaslighting” review said ” In essence it is an experiment in acting versus physical forced mind control, the gas lighting of an artist to a mere puppet or shadow of the real.” and it went on to state “What the play is lacking is the realization that the physical manifestation of an expression could be separate from the actual feeling. If anything this play can be the center piece of a lively discourse for actors of the conflicting acting schools of thought…”. Now, I’m not an actor. I’ve never claimed to be an actor, and I’m envious of those that can inhabit other characters. I’m a cybersecurity specialist — an engineer — who loves watching theatre. To me, it raised the interesting question of the artifice of what we see, and whether our senses can really tell us anything authentic about the world. It emphasized the importance of experience over detached observation. As such, the play remains a centerpiece for lively discussion, but perhaps not the discussion that an actor might have (who would feel their craft had been insulted by the question).

I should note that the play does not appear to be an accurate representation of the works of Dr. Duchenne. Then again, it doesn’t claim to do so: it is a fictional play, not an autobiography.

It somehow seems inauthentic to say this (at this point), but what makes this play works so well is the performance of the actors, and the qualities and emotions that the director draws out of them. Whether they were real or not, they were transmitted to the audience and they felt real. All of the actors were excellent, but I’ll particularly call out Thaddeus Shafer (FB; FB (page))’s Duchenne. He was hilarious in his questioning of the actors and his responses to their responses. How much of this was scripted vs. improvised is unknown to me. It was funny to watch. He also handled the dark side and the descent of Duchenne quite well.

The portrayal of the three lunatics, Bon-Bon (Tyler Bremer), Fifi (Alexis Jones), and Pepe (Andrew Eldredge), was also quite strong. The transition between lunatic and sane emotion was quite startling, and seemingly believable. As such, it was a remarkable performance.

Lastly, there was the actor that was selected at our show. For an unprepared actor drawn from the audience, he was great. In particular, he was remarkable as the show descended into madness and gaslighting. He’s lucky he remembered his lines from his past shows.

Turning now to the production aspects: One of the remarkable things about Four Clowns productions is their set design. Fred Kinney, who designed the set here, did a great job of creating the industrial madhouse feel. There was sheetrock hung by galvanized steel plumbers tape. There was open 2×4 woodwork. There were industrial power boxes, seemingly wired to control the industrial style lighting. A remarkably creepy feel, augmented by the lighting from Azra King-Abadi and the well-timed sound effects from Kate Fechtig, who did the sound design. The combination was…. realistic and creepy. Kinney also did the properties (under the control of Nicole Mercs, propmistress). The electroshock apparatus had a wonderful steampunk-ish feel to them with loads of exposed brass, cords, and old-style incandescent lighting. That, combined with the chairs and other props, increased the uneasiness feeling substantially. I was also intrigued by Duchenne’s glasses. Elena Flores provided the costume design, which was equivalently creepy with blood-splattered straight-jackets and Victorian dresses and suit-pants. Rounding out the production credits were: Matt MacCready [Technical Director]; Amaka Izuchi [Assistant Director]; Ashley Jo Navarro [Stage Manager], and David Anis [Producer].

The publicity material for the show notes that this is the last collaboration between David Bridel and Jeremy Aluma for a while. Bridel continues in his academic positions as USC, where he directs the MFA in Acting and is Interim Dean of the School of Dramatic Arts. Aluma is off to Chi-town for grad school for an MFA in Directing. Having met Jeremy a few times through Four Clowns, I know he will be great and I wish him well in his new city. Hopefully, he’ll direct some theatre there that he can move to Los Angeles.

– Daniel Faigin

Dr. Guillaume-Amant Duchenne de Boulogne, hereafter referred to as Dr. Duchenne, a 19th Century neurologist and widely considered the founder of the discipline, was the first to use electric shock (he called it “électropuncture”) as a therapy to stimulate muscles. He was a serious scientist and is credited with the discovery of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Around the time of the American Civil War, he experimented with the use of electrodes to induce facial expression in mimicry of true emotion, recording the results with photographs.

Dr. Guillaume-Amant Duchenne de Boulogne inducing facial expression with electrodes, circa 1862.

Playwright David Bridel’s Lunatics &Actors, given a remarkable premiere by Four Clowns at The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, puts Dr. Duchenne (the indefatigable Thaddeus Shafer) on stage giving a lecture/demonstration of his research to a time-warped, Twenty-first Century audience. He speaks of having seen Edwin Booth’s Hamlet. Is he here or are we there? Doesn’t matter. Clowns!

In an improvisational style, Duchenne calls for volunteers from the audience to participate. He wants three actors, of which, this being Los Angeles, there is always an abundance, to come on down. After quizzing each of the volunteers, he selects one to demonstrate various emotions such as an actor might be called on to perform. The volunteer I saw was a good sport, going along with the often-ridiculous demands of Dr. Duchenne. It reminded me of a time I saw a Cirque du Soleil clown pull a modestly willing audience member from the front row.

The trio of performers – Bremer, Jones and Eldredge – pull out the stops. They are improvisational in interacting with audience. They are in-your-face lively and heart breaking. They are at once hilarious and creepy. Understand these “patients” are the grand-guignol, over-the-top, straight-jacketed, Marat/Sade type lunatics. In no way should this be construed as demeaning or belittling the plight of the mentally ill. This is comedy created by clowns.

The capstone of the evening is a stunning précis of Hamlet, essentially the whole play, given a blisteringly fast, frenetically choreographed, mime version that is just stunning to witness, followed by a surprisingly touching dénoument.

Lunatics & Actors, under the astute direction of Jeremy Aluma, is innovative theatre at its very best, entertaining and thought provoking.

Four Clowns’ world premiere of playwright David Bridel’s Lunatics & Actors wonderfully succeeds as a loving spoof of the acting process. It’s to the credit of all involved that what could have been a five-minute Saturday Night Live skit has evolved into 70 minutes of enthralling wit and engaging artistry. Bad acting’s truly an art; and to make the bad acting funny, genius!

Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne has invented an electrical zapping device that, when activated on specific spots of a person will make that said person emote whichever emotion Dr. Duchene du Boulogne programs. Of course, Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne has had the opportune time to perfect this acting invention on his patients… at the asylum he runs. Jeremy Aluma smoothly directs this fun romp through a night at the nut house for actors (or is this being redundant?).

The audience’s entry into the theatre’s met with set designer Fred Kinney’s stark, sterile innards of a sanitarium, torture chamber, and awaiting stage for Shakespeare thespians. Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne enters and asks for volunteers (with some acting experience) from the audience to help in his demonstration/experiment. The charismatic Thaddeus Shafer commands the stage as Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne as he alternately charms the audience and controls his three straitjacketed Lunatics — Tyler Bremer as Bon-Bon, Andrew Eldredge as Pepe and Alexis Jones as Fifi.

Quick on his feet, Shafer seamlessly handles the volunteers’ answers turning them into underplayed laughs. Using one volunteer to illustrate the truthful acting process, Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne brings up each of his patients to demonstrate how his zapping induced emotions stack up. Unbelievably, the patients’ ‘acting’ various emotions register with more truthfulness than the volunteer’s. With the zap of the doctor’s device prods, the patients transformed from slow, emotionally stunted zombies into feeling actors. Bremer’s Bon-Bon does wonders with the emotions ‘attention,’ ‘whimpering,’ and ‘joy.’ Eldredge’s Pepe’s spot-on with ‘surprise,’ ‘terror,’ and ‘fury.’ Jones’ Fifi’s very convincing with ‘reflection,’ ‘sadness,’ and ‘pain.’ These three actors continuously steal focus with their underplayed insane antics counterpointing Shafer’s authoritative ‘sanity.’ Very brilliant! Ultimately, the Lunatics and the volunteer reenact scenes from Hamlet (with nice sword fighting choreography by Matt Franta).

Kudos to props master Niki Mercs for her handsome, intriguing emotion-zapping contraction complemented by sound designer Kate Fechtig’s appropriate sound effects. Lighting designer Azra King-Abadi fittingly lights the various moods of a crazy clinic’s insides.

Maybe some Saturday Night Live peeps should confer with Four Clowns for their new sketches???

– Gil Kaan