Tag: Donald O’Connor
Here’s a Winter Solstice-Chanukah-Christmas-Kwanza-New Year’s present for you, a compilation of Santa’s favorite physical comedy acts. This year you’re being gifted self-contained acts, not physical comedy that’s part of a narrative, which is why there are no movie clips from Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and the rest of the gang in your stocking. Sure, some of these 13 acts are from movies, but they were just snuck in there like whiskey in the eggnog to punch things up.
Way back in the day, 1980 to be precise, when I was working with Joe Killian and Michael Zerphy, whenever we saw other performers do a bit we really liked, we’d say “consider it stolen!” I think the phrase originated with Joe, but he may have stolen it.
I am pleased to be able to introduce a new contributor to this blog who, like my other guest writers, knows a lot of stuff that I don’t. Ashley Griffin is a writer, actor, singer, and dancer whose expertise is in the area of musical theatre, the history of which she has taught at New York University. She has performed on- and off-Broadway as well as in Los Angeles, Chicago, and London. Her plays have been produced off-Broadway, in L.A, and Chicago, and she is most well known as the creator of the pop-culture phenomenon Twilight: The Unauthorized Musical Parody. Ashley has a long-time interest in circus, clowning, and physical comedy, and one of her current projects is a collaboration with Joel Jeske on a physical comedy version of Alice in Wonderland. — jt
Here’s a charming piece where comedy-dance greats Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly decide to reprise their greatest hits — sitting down! Fun, especially if you’re familiar with the dance numbers they’re referencing. Thanks to Riley Kellogg for the link!
If you’ve ever played around with slapstick or stage combat, and I’m betting you have, you know that the victim’s reaction is key to selling the effect. As my old friend Joe Martinez put it, what we’re doing is Combat Mime, the illusion of fighting, not the painful reality. It’s not surprising, then, that many a comedian has had the clever idea of eliminating the attacker altogether, of playing victim to an imaginary foe.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin