Clown Night! at Fallout Theater

Clown­ing is hav­ing a moment, and after expe­ri­enc­ing a Sep­tem­ber evening curat­ed by host Marce­line Amaris, I under­stand why. For those unfa­mil­iar with the form, it’s sketch with­out nar­ra­tive plot goals — a space where char­ac­ters and sce­nar­ios exist sim­ply to be what they are. About thir­ty eager enthu­si­asts gath­ered to watch a hand­ful of per­form­ers explore this refresh­ing, any­thing-goes approach to comedy.

The night opened with Sam Peirce (and Com­e­dy Wham con­trib­u­tor) as a joke­ster robot whose bat­tery was rapid­ly deplet­ing. What could have been a straight­for­ward gag instead became a care­ful study in phys­i­cal com­e­dy and defla­tion (lit­er­al­ly). Watch­ing this robot exhaust itself through an ener­getic recharge dance was odd­ly touch­ing. The robot man­aged to deliv­er only one joke before com­plete pow­er loss. There’s some­thing beau­ti­ful about a bit that cuts itself short.

Syd and Han­nah arrived as self-absorbed British char­ac­ters (let’s be real, they were full on divas!) who clear­ly adore each oth­er. Their char­ac­ter work extend­ed beyond the stage by pulling in audi­ence mem­bers. It even extend­ed beyond Clown Night itself. I’ve spot­ted Syd Goin con­tin­u­ing her British alter ego on Insta­gram, which speaks to how ful­ly real­ized these per­sonas become and hints at their life beyond one night. Standup com­ic Heather Kei­th’s por­tray­al of the Lil Bat King, a 14-year-old blind boy eager to answer audi­ence ques­tions, brought a dif­fer­ent ener­gy entire­ly — one of gen­uine curios­i­ty meet­ing the­atri­cal earnest­ness. As a fan of standup, it was great see­ing one of the Austin standup com­e­dy crush­ers explore clowning.

The evening’s tex­tures shift­ed beau­ti­ful­ly with an explo­ration of musi­cal clown­ing. With a sweet vaude­ville expe­ri­ence via piano for one act and a dra­mat­ic shift in mood with a vol­un­teer-dri­ven Air Gui­tar com­pe­ti­tion for anoth­er act, the audi­ence ener­gy shift­ed yet again. It speaks vol­umes that the audi­ence was will­ing to step up and embrace the absur­di­ty of clown­ing fully.

The night con­clud­ed with a bridge troll char­ac­ter — kind-heart­ed, flir­ta­tious, and appar­ent­ly per­pet­u­al­ly under HR scruti­ny (even trolls, it seems, must answer to some­one). Watch­ing this char­ac­ter nav­i­gate the del­i­cate dance of pur­su­ing audi­ence mem­bers while vis­i­bly respect­ing work­place bound­aries was both hilar­i­ous and odd­ly wholesome.

What struck me most was the gen­eros­i­ty of the room. Clown­ing, as prac­ticed here, isn’t about prov­ing you’re the fun­ni­est per­son on stage. It’s about com­mit­ting to a char­ac­ter or sce­nario and allow­ing the audi­ence to sit with it. There’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in that, and every­one who per­formed embraced it. Marce­line Amaris is large­ly respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing this envi­ron­ment at Fall­out, but with­out the robots, bridge trolls, bat kids, air gui­tar his­to­ri­ans, and oth­ers, there would­n’t be a future filled with new char­ac­ters and surprises.

This show is doing impor­tant work: giv­ing voice — and space — to peo­ple who want to try some­thing that isn’t sketch, standup, or improv. It’s its own thing, and it’s worth your time.