High Quality International And Local Clowning for Fringe

Show Pony Brings High Quality International And Local Clowning to Fringe

LAYMAN - Created and performed by Patrick Carroll (NZ - PREMIERE)

Directed by Anya Tate-Manning
Produced by Show Pony
Ivy Bar and James Smith Basement
26-28 February, 8pm

PERHAPS, PERHAPS…QUIZAS – Created and performed by Gabriela Munõz (MEXICO)

Presented by Thomas Monckton and Show Pony BATS Theatre 1-5 March, 8.30pm

LAYMAN: “It's like watching a birth: elemental and grotesque. The whole audience recoils and laughs at the same time” – Theatreview

QUIZAS: "This is an incredibly heartbreaking work of art. Bravo!” - Jennifer Stokes, NY Clown Theatre Festival 2012.

---
From the company that brought the smash hit “The Pianist” and “Caterpillars” to New Zealand audiences, Wellington’s acclaimed theatre producer Show Pony brings two more outstanding clowning productions to the New Zealand Fringe Festival 2016. One, the premiere of a New Zealand work that gets seriously messy in clay, the other an international hit clown show from Mexico about one woman’s search for “the one”.

Show Pony will collaborate with recent Toi Whakaari graduate Patrick Carroll to develop his solo piece Layman into a full-length work, premiering in the New Zealand Fringe Festival. In the depths of the underground Ivy Bar, we encounter the darkly hilarious Layman. Join our bestial hero as he takes his first stuttering, garbled steps into the world. Discovering companionship, carnality and loneliness - all within a cocoon of clay.

Layman was originally a 20 minute solo piece created by Patrick as part of his Bachelor of Performing Arts degree at Toi Whakaari in 2014. Using no text, but instead communicating through Carroll’s physicality (with his body completely enveloped in clay) Layman is an exploration of being born, being lonely, seeking company, seeking relationship, destroying relationship, discovering sexuality, discovering shame.

Since graduating from Toi Whakaari Patrick has gone on to perform in Silo Theatre’s The Book of Everything at the Auckland Arts Festival, and is about to perform in Indian Ink’s new work The Elephant Thief, due to premiere at the end of 2015.

As heart-wrenching as it is hilarious Gabriela Munõz brings her hit solo show from Mexico to make her NZ debut at BATS Theatre. Perhaps, Perhaps... Quizas is a clown piece playing with the idea of loneliness, wait and hope for the right man. In an era where nothing seems to impress one another anymore and longing for “real love” seems to be the burden of our time. Greta, our protagonist, is a lonely woman who rehearses once a week the arrival of the so called “one”. Will she get lucky tonight? Perhaps, perhaps, quizas...

. …Quizas premiered in New York in 2010 and since then it has been performed around the world to various clown and theatre festivals in New York, Brasil, Colombia, Georgia, France, Spain, UK, India and Sweden.

Described as “at once beautifully poignant as it is hilarious” Munõz moves her audience through pathos to humour, keeping her audience on the edge of their seats as they move between her reality and her imagination (Café des Artistes).

Munõz arrives in New Zealand with the support of kiwi clowning artist Thomas Monckton (Moving Stationery, The Pianist). Thomas’ passion lies in continuing to develop the standard of clowning in New Zealand. He brings Munoz’s critically acclaimed show as well has her high profile to the New Zealand Fringe to expose kiwis to more outstanding clowning works, and showing local artists what can be achieved: “we need small scale quality productions from overseas so that local practitioners can see what other people are doing to have a successful low budget internationally touring show.”.

© Scoop Media