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Clowns: In Conversation with Modern Masters. By Ezra LeBank and David Bridel. New York: Routledge, 2015; pp. 216.
Clowns: In Conversation with Modern Masters, by Ezra LeBank and David Bridel, provides interviews with twenty-one contemporary clowns from a wide variety of training backgrounds. Structured as nineteen conversations and bookended by a preface, introduction, and conclusion, the two authors interview a "who's who" of contemporary clown practitioners, from Russian Circus clown Oleg Popov to American actor/clown Bill Irwin. Each interview starts with a brief bio and picture and is then divided into four sections: the origins of the clown, their inspirations, their techniques, and finally their philosophy. In some interviews the authors' questions are reprinted, while others are presented in a more monologic form. While not a manual of any sort, the authors emphasize their role as teachers and hope that by presenting a variety of voices, they may help their students answer a fundamental question: "How do clowns pay homage and do justice to their lineage while remaining true to themselves and their own idiosyncratic vision-their own inner clown?" (9).
At the same time, they often ask questions that situate clowning historically and philosophically, supplemented by the authors' own brief narrative of clown history in the introduction. While the authors are right to point out a lack of academic attention to contemporary clowning (exceptions like Joel Schechter and John Towsen aside), their book adds to a growing conversation about clown history (for example, Jon Davison's Clown, reviewed in Theatre...