Tag: Thailand
I’m not in Thailand for physical comedy, but I do keep my eyes open. I like to believe that clowning is universal, as natural as human error, but that doesn’t mean every place you visit is a hotbed of variety theatre, much less of inspired foolishness. Here in Chiang Mai, “cultural capital of northern Thailand,” physical comedy has proven to be an elusive commodity.
We live in an age of heat-seeking missiles and biometric surveillance, so when Thai rebel leader Arisman Pongruangrong pulled a Douglas Fairbanks and escaped from a hotel surrounded by Bangkok police by climbing a rope down the side of the building, we had one of our more retro physical comedy moments in recent years. Better yet, the deputy prime minister had just gone on national television to announce that they had their man! Pongruangrong, who’s also a pop singer, was hugged by his adoring supporters before being spirited out of there in a get-away car. Zorro, anyone?
TRANSLATE THIS PAGE
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