I don’t think Hamlet’s given them their full half hour call here. I mean, there’s pretty much only a page before the audience shows up to see this show. So maybe the players are already made-up and dressed. Hopefully, they got whatever warm-up they needed in before their pre-show meeting with the Prince of Denmark.

Maybe making themselves ready at this point is just some grounding, centering, about to hit the stage stuff. Some last minute props checking, etc. Maybe getting ready means PLACES (And squeezing in some clown reprimands.)

So the clown isn’t there when Hamlet gives this speech? He’s laying into bad clowns when there aren’t even clowns in the room?
Where is the clown, then?
The play’s about to start and the clown’s not with the rest of the players?
Is he doing some special clown warm-ups?
(That’s what I’d be doing – rolling on my back, stretching, breathing, etc.) Or is he somehow making mischief already? Drinking? His separation from the rest of the players is curious.
It makes me wonder if the clown was a bit marginal even within the ranks of the players at this time. Is he both a member and NOT a member of the company?
A pariah?
A star?
The clown is often the audience favorite – maybe this particular clown is off getting a nice massage before he dives into his star turn in the Murder of Gonzago or The Mousetrap. Maybe he’s got a star on his door and can’t be bothered with meetings with princes/playwrights.

If there’s one thing taking a lot of clown classes will give you, it’s the opportunity to see a lot of clowns fall into this sort of trap. I’ve seen blabbering of lips, crazy dancing and a non-stop torrent of JOKES JOKES JOKES – all of which fall as flat as a glass of seltzer a week after it came out of the bottle.
When you watch someone in this state, something being done authentically does feel as unlikely as a blind man catching a rabbit with his bare hands. The inevitability of failure is as forceful as a tornado heading straight for you.

I’m curious about the WARM part, though. Hot, I’d understand to be a clown on fire, a clown killing, a clown on a roll. I suppose a warm clown is NOT doing those things? Wouldn’t that be a cold clown?
That’s when I start to think about the humors – which generally operate on the extremes – cold being one thing, hot being another – maybe warm is undesirable because it is neither?
It’s just a curious word – because warmth usually has such positive associations and here it is obviously not desirable to be a warm clown. Maybe it’s like a warm spot in a swimming pool. . .not so desirable when you think about it.

Ways this line might be a punchline:

– after the clown takes a sip of someone’s urine that’s been collected in a cup
– after the villain has stuffed his mouth with a lemon, and the clown finally gets a drink of beer
– the clown is presented at a formal dinner, he sits in his uncomfortable suit, he’s doing his best fitting in, until the wine is poured, and he tries to be helpful
– the clown finally gets to kiss the tavern wench and instead of saying the romantic line that’s expected, delivers this one

Dear Santa Claus,

This is my first letter to you. Well, actually, it’s my first letter ever! I’m writing to you because I can’t seem to make my wishes clear any other way. This year, for Christmas, I want a cullison. I don’t care what kind. I’d take a scout badge or a rescue emblem. But I want one to sew right on my right lapel.

I told the guy who wears me and he seems to understand me but he doesn’t DO anything. Every year, I get more threadbare and I still don’t have my cullison. So I’m writing to you, Santa Clause. I’ve never received a Christmas gift of any kind so maybe you could add up all the gifts I haven’t gotten thus far and bring me a really nice cullison. Or a cruddy one. I’ll take any kind I can get.

Love,
The Clown’s Coat

See also, this blog about the place that diminished my fee a week and a half before the gig. That was about a quarter’s wages.

Scene: The Kitchen. Yorick is at the table, eating porridge. Yorick’s brother, Borick, rushes in.
BORICK: Yorick! Come quickly! The mare’s giving birth!

YORICK: Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?
(laughter)

BORICK: But your wife is with her and she’s fallen, she needs us to carry her to the surgeon.

YORICK: Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?
(more laughter)

BORICK: The stablehand was giving her a look I wouldn’t trust my cat with.

YORICK: Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?
(more laughter)

BORICK: Alright, then, give us a spoon.

I love this image. Gentlemen write down the jokes in their notebooks?! And not AFTER the play, no, no, before. They want to be READY for the jokes. I don’t quite understand that impulse. I feel like knowing the jokes ahead of time can kill them a bit. But, I suppose, it’s like a catch phrase – you like to anticipate its arrival – the way I used to wait for Jon Lovitz’s Master Thespian to shout “Acting!”

Writing them down, though. Why?
Just in case you forget what you’re hoping to see?
So you can shout out requests like at a rock concert?
This line conjures a whole world of the culture of theatre going that feels just out of reach and so so interesting.

This line is so often cut, I feel it’s possible I’ve never heard it spoken. The metaphor of a suit of jokes is a little confusing – but the notion of it being his calling card, his means of recognition makes some sense. It’s remarkable to realize that catch phrases were a thing LONG before Saturday Night Live. As a child of the 70s – I thought SNL had invented the catch phrase.

I imagine that a catch phrase could start to become something you wear, like a coat. When people saw Dana Carvey on the street, they said, ”Isn’t that special” – not what he wore. Steven Martin’s probably resembled “Well, excuse me” for quite some time.
And what’s remarkable about most catch phrases is that they are to do with tone, more than text.
Reading ahead, these catch phrases Hamlet mentions are just as banal.

It is definitely irritating when a clown disrupts your work with his audience pandering, no doubt. But villainous? I don’t know. A fool is just doing what a fool does best. We don’t berate the sun for its villainy when it beats down on us in the dead of summer. We can resent it, sure, complain – but it doesn’t make the sun a villain. It just makes it a particularly sunny sun.

With clowns and an audience, it’s the same. You can resent them, complain but rather than calling them names, it seems to me that it becomes necessary to build some structures to defend against excess clowning, in the same way we build shelter to protect us from the excess sun.