Clowning may be silly, but it is seldom, these days, insubstantial. Paulina Lenoir is performing Puella Eterna as part of the London Clown festival, and seeks to capture “the whole of life!” within its 50-minute span. She’s not the first to do so: Doctor Brown’s recent Soho theatre show likewise ranged from infancy to old age. Conjuring with birth, life and death gives you a hotline to the audience’s hearts – and that’s handy for a clown. If I didn’t find Lenoir’s take especially novel – and sometimes (again, not unusually in the clown field) she’s getting by on charm alone – this remains a lovely, fun show about the existential comedy of our trip from cradle to grave.
Lenoir has the audience on side before even embarking on that journey, introducing herself in the costume and self-serious manner of a flamenco diva. Her project, she announces, will be profound. But the side-eyes and flashes of mischievous smile tell a different story. She tries to begin, but every time she removes her evening glove, there’s another underneath. She transforms into a puppet baby, delighted with herself – until she can’t reach the microphone with her tiny dolly arms.
No problem: this is a performer whose slightest look has the audience doing her bidding – or moving a mic stand. There are sections when Lenoir coasts on that crowd-work flair – like the nightclub bit that’s not much more than a communal bop on stage, or the chapter that mainly involves chucking roses to the crowd. Elsewhere, there’s a winning skit about adolescence – both inexplicable and weirdly on-the-button – and an old-age scene that bothers heartstrings and funny bones in equal measure. If in life, as clown fan Samuel Beckett had it, “the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more” – well, at least in Lenoir’s hands, the gleam is a particularly eye-catching one.
At Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, 31 July-25 August
