Times Argus arts editor Jim Lowe previews Chris' brand spankin' new -first-time-ever-performed original solo show.

Clown magic for adults: Christopher Scheer

By Jim Lowe
October 13, 2016

article reprinted with permission

Christopher Scheer, who has been appearing with Montpelier’s Lost Nation Theater since 2009’s “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare — Abridged,” has enjoyed a career not only as a stage actor, but as a professional clown.

“As I’ve had to grow up and decide what being an adult means to me, my job has primarily been to behave foolishly and childishly in public — but also honestly and authentically,” Scheer says. “So it’s affected who I am on a really deep level.”

Scheer shares his experiences in his one-man show, “In Defense of Pleasure: A Clown Play for Adult Audiences,” which will be premiered by Lost Nation Theater as part of its On Dark Nights series, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 18 and 19, at City Hall Arts Center.

“It’s a story about me, growing up, becoming an adult, and how that’s been shaped by my career as a clown,” Scheer said.

Scheer, who lives in New York City, describes himself as a person on a one-man millennial mission to save the clown from extinction. He does this by creating and performing “subversive and celebratory” new works for adult audiences with his interdisciplinary theater company, Doppelskope.

Scheer considers himself a neo-vaudevillian, but has been called a “hipster clown.” His style of contemporary theatrical clown emphasizes the interactive, chaotic and spontaneous soul of clown performance without necessarily going in for the big shoes, bizarre wigs and all of that.

Past original Doppelskope shows, which have been performed in New York comedy theaters, in the mountains of New Mexico, on college campuses, in Brooklyn circus warehouses and in the basements of bars, include “An Existential Sing-Along,” “Shrink: Puppet Therapy,” “The Existential Variety Hour” and “The Apocalypse Show.”

“In Defense of Pleasure,” however, is Scheer’s first solo show, and the first time he is speaking as himself.

“My other original work has been silent routines or, when I’m not silent, it involves a lot of puppetry; speaking through puppets,” Scheer said. “So my signature elements are still there, and the (new) show has kind of an alternating structure between silent mask routines and clown routines, and these wild stories that almost have a standup comedy element to them — like telling the audience these unbelievable things that happened to me around New York City as a clown.”

Scheer has been a professional clown pretty much all of his adult life.

“It’s affected who I am on a deep level, and in some ways, the honesty and authenticity helps me to grow and understand my connections to others,” he said. “It also gives me this Peter Pan element, of these things I get away with that I might never grow up out of if I stay in this career path.”

This show came about because of Scheer’s simultaneous careers in two very different theater worlds.

“I’ve had a pretty self-sustaining career as a stage actor and this parallel career as a clown,” he said. “And again, in the world of clown, I’ve got one foot in the theatrical tradition of clown, and I also work these day-to-day gigs as a birthday clown, and a hospital clown when I have the time and I need the money.”

So, in each of these roles, Scheer feels like an outsider looking in.

“That was all sort of background to say that, over the last few years, I’ve had this growing conviction that, because I stand in this unique position of an outsider looking in these artistic realms, I realized I have a story worth telling — and, of course, worth making,” he said.

And, more to the point, Scheer said, “As someone who performs sometimes for children’s audiences, and sometimes for adult audiences, I’ve come to a strong belief that adults need magic in their lives more than kids do.”

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Lost Nation Theater

Lost Nation Theater presents Christopher Scheer in the world premiere of his one-man show, “In Defense of Pleasure: A Clown Play for Adult Audiences,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 18 and 19, at City Hall Arts Center, 39 Main St. in Montpelier. Tickets are $15, $10 in advance; call 802-229-0492, or CLICK HERE