L'Odyssée de Schmoo (Odyssey Schmodyssey)

Durée: 45 minutes

Adélaïde, AUSTRALIE

*Langue de la prestation : le clown

“Pas un clown pour enfants, mais quelque chose de vraiment spécial pour les adultes... très très très ridicule!”: The Advertiser

Directement d'Australie: Hew Parham est Schmoo. Schmoo est un clown énergique et naïf, né d'un éternuement immaculé de sa mère et exilé pour le protéger du mystérieux Oog. Il se retrouve sur une île déserte accompagné de quelques objets comme une plume nommée Petal, un disque de Nana Mouskouri et son imagination pour lui tenir compagnie. Mais parfois, ce n'est tout simplement pas assez... Quand une quête devient clair pour Schmoo, il doit affronter les démons réels ou métaphoriques de sa vie et son odyssée commence. Acclamé au Fringe d'Adélaïde cette année, Parham utilise ses abondantes acrobaties vocales et fluctuations physiques dans ce qui a été étiqueté: "Un voyage de clown Jungien explorant la dissociation entre les dieux, les démons, la vie, la mort, la peur et l'amour."

Hew Parham est un artiste multi-disciplinaire formé comme acteur, ayant travaillé 3 ans dans un cabaret et se spécialise maintenant en art clownesque.

Hew a remporté le 2004 Melbourne Fringe Award pour son spectacle "Pounding Nails into the floor with my Forehead" (trad.: Clouer dans le plancher avec mon Front) et a beaucoup travaillé en tant qu'interprète avec des compagnies professionnelles telles que Windmill et Pierre / Castro. En 2007 et 2009, Hew est venu au Canada pour entreprendre un mentorat avec John Turner (de Mump and Smoot fame) dans Canadian Clowning. Depuis son retour en Australie, Hew a largement enseigné et joué le Clown. Il s'agit de sa troisième interprétation de Schmoo et International Premiere.

Genre et influences:
Clown, théâtre physique, comédie Mump and Smoot, Slava Pololin, Mr Bean, Lano et Woodley.

Hew Parham - Auteur et interprète
Rashmi Baird - Gérant de production

“Not clowning for kids but something special for adults… very, very, very silly”: The Advertiser

Fresh from a critically acclaimed season at the 2011 Adelaide Fringe and Cabaret Fringe Festivals, South Australian clown Schmoo will have the international premiere of his show “Odyssey Schmodyssey” at the Saguenay Fringe Festival.

Schmoo’s creator, Adelaide performer Hew Parham, is well known in Adelaide cabaret and theatre audiences for many comedic creations including the hapless Rudi with Adelaide institution Berlin Cabaret. Hew trained as an actor for four years and worked extensively in that field until he had a break down on stage when he realized in the conventional theatre he couldn’t look at the audience.

Hew began his journey with Schmoo three years ago when he won the $10, 000 Neil Curnow Award to travel to Canada to study clown and physical theatre. While he was there he undertook a Clown intensive workshop with John Turner one of the foremost experts in Canadian Clowning and one half of the infamous clowns of horror Mump and Smoot. Inspired by this unique style of training, in 2009 Hew received an Arts SA grant to undertake a mentorship to study with John on his world famous Clown Farm located on Manitoulin Island in rural Ontario: ‘I moved onto a farm for three months. We lived in tents, trained in a barn, created clowns inspired by nature and improvisation. It sounds unusual but training in the middle of Canada away from the daily distractions meant I was reliant entirely on my imagination, it opened up the floodgates to a wealth of possibilities.’ John and Hew formed a strong bond which continues and John is helping Hew put some finishing touches on the work while in Canada.

‘One of the best descriptions I have heard is that a clown is an emotional gymnast,’ says Hew. ‘The red nose is a representation of the clown’s heart which he doesn’t just wear on his sleeve: he wears it on his face.’

“Odyssey Schmodyssey” is Hew’s third incarnation of Schmoo, and continues on Parham’s exploration of clown as a tool to investigate our emotional world through the conduit of clown.

Schmoo is a naïve energetic clown, born from the immaculate sneeze of his mother and sent away for his own protection from the mysterious Oog. He finds himself on an island with only a few objects such as a feather named Petal, a Nana Mouskouri record and his imagination to keep him company.

A quest becomes clear to Schmoo and he has to confront the demons whether literal or metaphoric in his life and his odyssey begins. “It in many ways it is about facing your fears and doing it anyway, or swimming with the large inflatable demons.” Schmoo speaks in his own bizarre language to Petal – which means that the show is accessible to different language backgrounds, and the show while inspired by Parham’s own childhood fears of the water and the ocean has universal themes in overcoming the obstacles that get in our way from where we really want to go.

“Theatrical Clown is not very visible as an art form in Australia. So it will be a joy to perform in front of a more clown literate audience… whatever that is. Schmoo is very, very silly, but I also want the audience to have a full emotional experience in the show, heartfelt as well as totally absurd.’

Odyssey Schmodyssey