Hello, it’s Mariah. I always have a difficult time deciding what to write about for the blog posts, so I’ll just ramble a bit until I start to talk about some sort of central theme. And then! If I am able to recognize it in time, I’ll aim the rest of my post more and more in that direction. Where shall I begin? Well, from where I am sitting at the moment, I can see that one of my mustaches is still stuck to the bottom of our sound table.
I wore a mustache as the Sand Man in Dream Cycle this spring, and I would often need to replace it throughout the show. Usually because it would just sweat off, but sometimes it got stuck to my nightcap, or even (on one occasion) to the straps during aerial struggle. Whenever I replaced a mustache, I would stick the used one to whatever was convenient (the wall, the sound table, the tight wire, someone’s water bottle), and then put on a new one. It’s nice to know at least one of them is still hanging around. I loved my mustache!
I really enjoyed Dream Cycle, and my role as the Sand Man was a very new kind of clowning for me. I think I took a bit longer to find a true version of myself within that character than I have in other shows. I got there eventually! I had never really played “the straight man” before, but it was a wonderful learning opportunity in which I think I grew a lot, and the experience was also very humbling. As a clown, it can often seem like my only and most important job is to get laughs. And although people certainly laughed at me in Dream Cycle, it was also fun for me to be the set up of some jokes as opposed to always being the butt of others.
The best example of this that I can think of at the moment is the part of the show where I “sheared” Doug the sheep. I think the reveal of Doug without his wool suit on was perhaps the biggest laugh of the show every time, and all I did to contribute was pull out some scissors and duck behind a mat beforehand. But I always looked forward to that part of the show, because hearing an audience laugh like that is so rewarding, and I was proud to have a hand in it. I hope that makes sense.
Actually, how convenient, this brings me to Cirque Us Stories!!! Stories is the only Cirque Us show I’ve done in which I don’t do something that resembles a solo act. Although the show has a couple of group clown acts and transitions that (I hope!) people will find funny, there is no point in which I am alone on stage with the intent of making people laugh. In this show in particular, I more so feel like my role as a clown is primarily to move the story forward. It is an important story to tell, and thus it is a noble job to tell it.
Come see Mariah in Cirque Us Stories coming to a city near you! Tickets at http://www.TheCirqueUs.com
Photos by TNA photos and @ZeketheCircusFreak
