Clown School | Nuar Alsadir | Granta Magazine
<img src="https://litbreaker.nui.media/pipeline/517985/0/vc?z=litbreaker&dim=514838,514839&kw=&click=" width="" height="" alt="" border="0"> Political resistance, poetry, self-revelation all spring from that provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints. After my first day of clown school I tried to drop out. The instructor was provoking us in a way that made me uncomfortable – to the nervous smiley woman, ‘Don’t lead with your teeth;’ to the young hipster, ‘Go back to the meth clinic,’ and to me, ‘I don’t want to hear your witty repartee about Oscar Wilde.’ I was the only non-actor in the program and had made the mistake, as we went around the circle on the first day, of telling everyone that I was a psychoanalyst writing a book about laughter. As part of my research, I explained, I’d frequented comedy clubs and noticed how each performance, had it been delivered in a different tone of voice and context, could have been the text of a therapy session.
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