>>PREVIEW
TOMÁS KUBÍNEK
Opens May 22
Calgary International Children’s Festival
Max Bell Theatre (Epcor Centre_
As he gets set to make his fourth appearance at the Calgary International Children’s Festival, Tomás Kubínek offers a reflection on a career spent playing the fool. "It’s a good scam," he says.
It isn’t surprising that Kubínek looks back fondly on a career that essentially pays him to play – he began as exactly the kind of kid who decided to run away and join the circus. At 13, he began his performing career as a magician, receiving his first big break as the rear-half of a two-person horse. The gig inexorably launched him toward fooldom. For the last 25 years, theatre has been his ticket across Canada and the world.
A manic scarecrow of wild hair, exuberant physical performances and absurd clown theatre, Kubínek provides a stage presence that is as affecting onstage as it is off. "Every animal has its characteristics that show what you’re dealing with," he says. "Like an ostrich has those big, long legs and loping walk, and a lion has its big mane, so I have my crazy hair and my buzzed-out eyes and skinny legs."
These characteristics alone are enough to strike a distinctive figure on stage. Kubinek, however, is also a man with his eye on the past – whether spiralling over the stage on a pair of Icarus wings and vintage flight goggles or wearing a tuxedo with oversized coattails while placing a wine glass on his head using only his knees. Embracing the dark and whimsical world of fairy tales that he says modern society often waters down, Kubinek aims to find magic in the intertwining of beauty and innocence, all with old-school panache.
While he acknowledges there is something intangible about the obsession, something naturally exaggerated about taking the aspects of the old world into the new, he also notes that the notion of a fool is also grounded very certainly in a centuries-old tradition. "Vaudeville and cabaret are on the kind of history line of where this kind of art has been practiced, but it also goes back to commedia del arte street theatre and the fools at medieval court and the Egyptian pharaohs who had funny people who performed," he says. "It’s part of the big buffet table of all that history. It’s the same role in different clothes."
While his own clothes and striking appearance are distinctive visual cues, Kubinek also compares himself to the proverbial child who exposes the naked emperor, bringing an innocent playfulness that often involves audience participation. A recent engagement in Talladega, Tennessee, for example, included an impromptu sermon comparison between a Baptist and Pentecostal minister. All part of playing the fool, says Kubinek.
"Because my character’s a clown or a fool, I say stuff that people might have on the top of their mind but might be worried about having other people offended. Because it’s my profession, I know how to do it just right to not offend. It’s not easy to do well, to humorously turn something on its head without getting blood on everybody."
With figurative blood carefully avoided, Kubinek’s performances engage adult and young audiences alike, with both tapping into the absurdity of clown theatre. Still, he says, the sense of wonder that continues to make theatre magical is always that much easier to access when your audience is pint-sized. "Kids particularly (have) all learned a lot from experimenting and playing, so play is important," says Kubinek. "When they see that spirit of playfulness and anarchy and irreverence on stage, they totally connect with it, because it’s something they learn through and enjoy. As we get older as adults, we get set in our ways and we forget how important it is to play and goof around and not be so serious about everything."
Though his reputation has been built on absurd, physical theatre, Kubinek has also created and directed theatre productions with actors across the world, including both a one-woman show (Not Yet, Not at All) and feature film (Tucked Into Bedlam) with another Canadian clown, Edith Tankus. Although his resumé includes circus, theatre and other performance work, he is still cognizant that performance springs more from its joy than from its technical execution. Flying above the heads of his audience or contorting his body into impossible shapes, he is driven by the joy of play. Childish enthusiasm brought this fool here, and as a self-made clown phenomenon, he hopes he isn’t the only one who will take the step.
"Just like with other things, like spirituality or religion or music, (art) gets relegated to people who are practitioners, so they carry the torch," he says. "But maybe, sometimes (that’s) at the cost of people just having that part of their lives – playing music at home with their kids or putting on a stupid little puppet play." |
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