Rontin Foreman’s play Pigeon Show: A play of fools, is a contemporary commentary on personal dilemma. He tells Utpal K Banerjee that the comedy is achieved by his characters that play off-balance — awkwardly and desperately
Rabindranath Tagore once wrote: lest you easily fathom me, Elaborate pretenses I do try,/Then outwardly I have mirth, Tears inside swell in eye… Pigeon Show: A Play of Fools, presented recently by the dramatist and director Rontin Foreman from California, fully vindicated what Tagore had so memorably imagined. Constantly remonstrating that he is neither a clown , nor a mime, nor a mimic, nor even an actor, Foreman proceeds to clown around, and mime, and mimic, and consistently play-act his role of a buffoon and laughs at his personal predilections, hiding his inward agony and sorrow. He keeps playing the paradoxical provocation of the fool: to examine an individual’s struggle for finding identity and significance on this planet of ours.
In creating his tour-de-force, Freeman used a few widely-known role-models. The most easily recognisable is that of Buster Keaton: the American stunt performer of the silent-film era, whose trade-mark was physical comedy and endearingly consistently stoic, dead-pan expression that had earned him the nickname ‘The Great Stone Face’. The second is the universal model of Chaplinesque slapstick comedy. The third is miming the “invisible wall” a la Marcel Marceau; and the final one is modern dance: nearest to the style of Merce Cunningham. The other two role-models are institutional. One is the West’s 19th century “Music Hall” legacy and its stylised dance-movements. The other is — as conceded by Foreman — the “Commedia dell’arte” from Italy and its robust humour. All other role-models are left unmentioned by him.
What Foreman achieves, however, remains phenomenal. Pigeon Show can best be described as the mother of all scoops, for it turns each of its role-models on its head and aims at a scoop of every scoop. He does a yoga-posture of Shrishasana in all seriousness. But when he plays with dinner-etiquette of the English with their stiff-upper-lip, or, tinkers with his many objects as well as varied costumes, or, involves his unwary audience-members in many of his funny exchanges, it’s playfulness of the highest order.
But the cutting edge of all his lampooning acts retains a veneer of failure, as though he is just missing the point. There is always a veil of sadness, a tinge of regret. At the end, when his whole world comes crumbling down, the audience is almost prepared for the denouement.
Excerpts from the note by the director:
What do you really aim atIJ
Mine is a contemporary commentary on, not of political or social struggle, but of personal dilemma. I’m driven by metaphysical hungers, into relation with time, space and objects. Mine is a comedy of juxtapositions and dichotomy. Pushed to the wall, this sometimes becomes anguish.
Could you please explain your motivationIJ
In Pigeon Show, one of the characters declares, “I came to go”. It’s a great dilemma. It’s what we struggle with today. To be significant in the hoary past, one’s plight was clear. It was a matter fate: even if it was to suffer and then to die. Suffering was something. Suffering was transformed into glory. Today, we’re not allowed to suffer; in fact, suffering is counted as failure. Yet today, there’s much suffering. So the best we can do is to ridicule suffering.
How do you achieve your laughterIJ
The laughter’s not achieved by hitting a punch-line. Comedy’s achieved by my characters that play off-balance, awkwardly, desperately.