[2015065] Everything Is Under Control
Angela Yeoh @ Gluttony – Pigtails
5:20pm, Sun 22 Feb 2015
After my previous show started late, I was left with a tight fifteen minutes to get from the Channel 9 Studios in North Adelaide to Gluttony. I must admit that I thought about grabbing a taxi, but I eventually decided on performing the only reasonable option on a forty degree day: I ran between venues.
So… I made it on time, and the extreme heat of the day meant that everyone else in the barely-double-digits crowd were sweating like pigs, too, so I didn’t look too out-of-place.
Angela Yeoh left her career in (serious) journalism to train with Philippe Gaulier… and, in the opening moments of Everything Is Under Control, I was really wondering whether she’d done the right thing. Yeoh’s clown – a black top & mouse ears, red-with-white-dots skirt, and red clown nose – seemed completely lost onstage, with faltering speech and a wandering focus. Everything seemed half-thought-out, half arsed…
…until she started bringing people up onstage. And it wasn’t for anything elaborate – the audience involvement was actually really tame and limited. Safe, even.
But there was something in the way that she handled those interactions that totally got me onboard.
Thereafter, I delighted in every awkward moment of the show… whether it was a joke that fell flat, or a stumble onstage, or an over-elaborate setup that suggested that Yeoh suffered from OCD… I just assumed it was all intentional, and I laughed my arse off. Yeoh’s clown is less a physical mischief-maker than an awkward tragic… and she plays with that awkwardness, presenting it to the audience to deal with (or not, as was the case with much of the crowd).
I hung around and had a really lovely chat with Yeoh after the show… mainly about being able to ditch your “safe” career and chase your dreams. I am so madly, deeply envious that she had the courage to do that for herself; but, on the back of my experience with Everything Is Under Control, I am also thankful she did.
(65) Everything Is Under Control: Deliciously awkward clowning around audience frailties. Onboard once the penny dropped. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 22, 2015