>>PREVIEW
GUSTAVO THE IMPOSSIBILIST
Opens May 24
Dean Bareham, Physical Theatre
Calgary International Children’s Festival
Max Bell Theatre (Epcor Centre)
If he plans to fail and he succeeds, then his name must be Gustavo the Impossibilist! Gustavo the Impossibilist plans to fail, and he succeeds every time. In street theatre, the mood of the audience determines whether a show succeeds or flops, so the clownish Gustavo splits the odds by banking on both outcomes. Recognizing the delight inherent in watching an adult flounder, Dean Bareham of Green Fools Theatre hones his character to appeal to children’s humour and encourages his audience to laugh when he stumbles.
"It’s like the counter-character that kids love to see fail," Bareham explains. "I have this great rapport with the kids – I call them ‘nasty children,’ I make them laugh, and then I scold them for laughing with me. I’ve had kids almost pee themselves in the middle of the show."
Based on the caricature of the grotesque clown found in European theatre, Gustavo started as a dark, deformed jester and evolved into a nerdy superhero who wears balloons stuffed in the shoulders of his suit, bottle cap glasses and leopard skin Lycra suits, complete with flowing capes. Bareham plays up the duality of nerd versus hero, villain versus cohort, to create a love-to-hate-him persona for his audience. He works without a fourth wall and invites volunteers onstage to create a new experience each time he performs.
"The ultimate goal is to make every show feel like it’s never happened before. The reality is, that’s really the case when you start dealing with volunteers. I never know what’s going to happen, and all I ever want the volunteers to do is just be themselves," says Bareham. "The show can totally change its course if I have to acknowledge a moment."
Bareham insists that even though he is the sole performer, he is not the star of the show. With the help of his volunteers, he puts Gustavo on stilts, ties himself up, lights himself on fire and then escapes in a grand finale he calls The Flaming Stilt Escape of Death. But it’s the antics leading up to this stunt that make the show, and their hilarity depends on the volunteer he chooses.
Bareham tries to select kids based on their flair for the theatrical, which he can only judge from a quick survey of the crowd. After he’s got them onstage, some kids freak out and want to go sit down, forcing Bareham to begin again with a new volunteer. Smart-alecks occasionally sneak past his radar, and he finds himself stuck with a kid determined to ruin every punchline and derail the fun. As a master of improvisation, however, Bareham turns every setback into an opportunity, cunningly playing the audience so they always end up laughing. His favourite scenario, though, is to find a kid who will do anything to help, to choose someone who loves being in the spotlight.
"It’s like the gift from the clown gods when they give you the most beautiful kid in the world who’s small, cute, really well-spoken and has a lot to say," Bareham smiles. "It’ll just totally make the show go through the roof. People lose it because all of a sudden, the kid’s even funnier than I am."
Unable to rely on this outcome every time, Bareham prepares for errors and misfortune, not only as a result of audience interaction, but as part of his rehearsed work. Gustavo consistently trips over his own feet and tangles himself in his own rope, but in each show, he depends less on his physical jesting and more on his audience’s reaction to the volunteers. While he once used a case of gizmos and a list of skills, he now pares it down to the essentials, realizing that people don’t care about the tricks, but just want to laugh. "Gustavo sets the kid up to fail," Bareham explains, "and then the kid succeeds. That’s how the dynamic works." |
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