Clown Through Mask: The Pioneering Work of Richard Pochinko as Practised

Chapter 1

Richard Pochinko

Clown Through Mask, originally named The Canadian Clowning Technique and sometimes referred to as Pochinko Clown, was devised by Richard Pochinko, 1946–1989. Pochinko, from rural Manitoba, had a fascination with the circus and performance from the time he was a young boy. There was nothing in Pochinko’s background to give birth to or encourage an interest in the arts. His parents were farmers, they did not share his passion, but neither did they stop their only son from following his heart. In 1960, at the age of 14, he left home to enter a theatre programme lasting four years in the Manitoba Theatre School in Winnipeg. This was to be the first step in Pochinko’s lifelong journey in search of a new type of Canadian theatre, a theatre for our time.

Having graduated, at the age of 18, the young Pochinko indulged an innate curiosity by enrolling in various workshops and programmes while he embarked on a career in the theatre. He studied dance at the Bianca Rogge School of Modern and Interpretive Dance in Toronto, music/piano in Montréal and film production under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada. He moved to Halifax in 1967, aged 21, and as he forged a career at The Neptune Theatre as a stage manager he began to direct his own work. It was also in Halifax that Richard Pochinko first met Ian Wallace. Ian Wallace would go on to become Pochinko’s most important collaborator. He was with him to witness the birth of ideas, he worked alongside Pochinko as he developed the form to house those ideas, and together, with Pochinko directing and Wallace performing as Nion, they created performances that exploded existing perceptions of clown theatre. Pochinko was always gracious in acknowledging others’ achievements. Every generation creates artists who are just a little ahead of their time, to lead us to new forms of celebration. Nion is one of these artists (Heffernan 1988: p. 13).

It is generally agreed that it was during his time in Halifax that Pochinko began to feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the state of theatre in Canada. He was known to speak of a desire for a new sort of Canadian theatre, theatre that was connected, essential, theatre that would represent and reflect the Canadian experience.

In 1971 Richard Pochinko applied for and was awarded a most remarkable grant from the Canada Council, a research grant that allowed him to travel to Europe to broaden his knowledge of theatre. What a gift, the means to indulge and feed a burning curiosity. Pochinko, with his then partner Ian Wallace, embarked on a journey of discovery that brought him to England, Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Scandanavia and France where he encountered some of the greatest theatre minds of our modern age. Imagine this barrel-chested Polack; that is how Sue Morrison remembers him:

He was barrel-chested with thinning hair and a perpetual grin on his face, he looked like a football player and he had the most bright blue eyes, everybody loved him, everybody wanted to be with him.

Imagine this curious and charismatic Canadian standing at the site of the ancient Theatre of Epidaurus envisioning the long-dead clowns standing in their comic socks, masks made from stiffened linen and human hair in their hands, ready to perform in a ribald Satyr play in honour of Dionysus. Imagine him encountering the groundbreaking theories of Jerzi Grotowski in his Teatr Laboratorium in Wroclaw, theories that declared the purpose of theatre to be the discovery of truth in that space between actor and spectator eschewing all else, including script, if unnecessary.

It [theatre] cannot exist without the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, direct, ‘live’ communion. […]

Theatre […] provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in a disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the responsibilities it involves. Here we can see the theatre’s therapeutic function for people in our present day civilization. It is true that the actor accomplishes this act, but he can only do so through an encounter with the spectator – intimately, visibly, not hiding behind a cameraman, wardrobe mistress, stage designer or make-up girl – in direct confrontation with him, and somehow ‘instead of’ him. The actor’s act – discarding half measures, revealing, opening up, emerging from himself as opposed to closing up – is an invitation to the spectator. (Grotowski 1986: pp. 19, 211 & 212.)

Imagine the young Richard Pochinko, hungry for a new Canadian theatre, discussing Grotowski’s ideas with Peter Brook in London and Eugenio Barba in Scandinavia, both Brook and Barba also studied with Grotowski. And then imagine Pochinko arriving in Paris, full of ideas born of his experiences, full of passion to create a theatre for his time, imagine him arriving in Paris to enrol at École Jacques Lecoq. École Lecoq, the groundbreaking theatre school that taught and continues to teach theatre from a corporeal perspective; a curriculum designed to develop theatre makers rather than actors, a curriculum designed to ignite passion and initiate pathways rather than complete a journey, a curriculum designed to provoke curiosity rather than provide answers.

Pochinko enrolled at École Jacques Lecoq in October 1971 and studied there until June 1972. It is unclear why Pochinko did not spend longer studying there; the curriculum spans two years. Perhaps he did not have the financial resources to complete the second year. Perhaps he was asked to leave. The school is known for dispensing with some of its students between the first and second years of study. If he was asked to leave, the reasons are not clear. No matter, there is a story that is told of his leaving and it is this. That Lecoq, seeing great potential in his student, instructed Pochinko to return to his own country and take the work in a new direction. Canada, a new country, with its mix of Native and European people. Celtic Newfoundlanders, First Nation Inuit of the Arctic, the Gallic Quebecois, the people of the Haida First Nation of the Northwest Coast, the Polish – Richard Pochinko was of Polish descent – all Canadians with much in common and much to set them apart. And it was in this melting pot of experience, drawing on all influences, that Richard Pochinko found fertile ground for his work.

Pochinko returned to Canada in June 1972, and enrolled in a mask workshop taught by Lecoq graduate Bari Rolfe, in the University of Washington in Seattle. And it was in Seattle whilst he studied with Rolfe that he met a man, Jonsmith, an expert in Native mask and clown, a territory that Pochinko was becoming increasingly interested in. Jonsmith would become Pochinko’s lifetime teacher and mentor. It was through Jonsmith that the young Polish Canadian learnt about Native ways. It was through Jonsmith that Pochinko learnt about the Native delight makers, the heyoka, the blue jays, the banana ripeners, the koshare and the kwirana. Jonsmith taught Pochinko about the purpose of Native clown and it was Jonsmith who invited his protégé to sit on the edge of a pier in Seattle and stare at the horizon until he could see himself on the horizon. It was surely from this experience that Pochinko divined the central tenet of his teaching.

If we ever faced all directions of ourselves at once we could only laugh at the beauty of our own ridiculousness.

By the time Pochinko encountered Jonsmith he had nurtured a particular interest in the idea of clown for quite some time. Clowns intrigued him. He traced the beginnings of this fascination to his time in Paris. He and Ian Wallace were staying in an apartment opposite the Cirque d’Hiver and Pochinko would watch the clowns coming and going. He became intrigued by them and, in particular, their ability to laugh at themselves. This compulsion was no doubt compounded by his time at École Jacques Lecoq where the teaching of clown is part of the curriculum.

In 1972 Richard Pochinko persuaded the then Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre, Jean Roberts, to sponsor a centre of research to look at the theatrical territories of mask, clowning, circus, movement and Greek chorus. Pochinko advertised nationally for interested participants. He received 600 applications from across Canada and from those he chose 28 people to go on this exploratory journey with him. The journey lasted three years and it was undoubtedly during this time that Pochinko began to articulate his original ideas on clown, drawing on his European experience, Lecoq, Rolfe, Grotowski, and his knowledge of Native clown and mask.

A central point in the evolution of Pochinko’s thought on clown during the NAC research years was a tour of the Maritimes that the entire research group participated in with the American Royal Brothers Circus in 1974. The class toured and performed, as clowns, with the professional circus for a month. This followed a three-month long intensive focus on red nose. This experience was of such significance because it was this that led Pochinko to become disenchanted with the circus clown.

In the American circus the clown is not important. What’s important is the gag. That’s why you never remember individual clowns (with the possible exception of Emmett Kelly). It’s the gag that’s handed down from one generation of clowns to the next and the audience laughs, not at the clown, but at the gag. (Thalenberg 1981: p. 54.)

Pochinko’s disaffection with the circus marked the beginning of his exploration of the possibilities of the clown in the theatre. As Canadians we are wonderful imitators, and Canadian audiences accepted the classical tradition of Europe and the Barnum and Bailey circus type of clowning without thinking of the potential alternatives we could offer (Thalenberg 1981: p. 34). In 1975 Richard Pochinko founded the Ottawa Theatre Resource Centre (TRC), with voice coach Anne Skinner. Richard was credited as Artistic Director and Anne Skinner joined Jan Miller, Ellen Pierce, Linda Rabin and Jan Henderson on the Board of Directors. The TRC closed its doors in Ottawa after a year in operation and re-opened in Toronto in 1978 under the dual Artistic Directorship of Richard Pochinko and Ian Wallace. The legal company never ceased trading; the hiatus was geographical and somewhat philosophical. By the time the TRC re-opened its doors in Toronto its purpose and form had clarified. Its mission statement: To provide a distinctly North American approach to mask and clown, and to facilitate the growth of new theatrical forms.

It was during the TRC years that Richard Pochinko refined his ideology through practice and fully articulated his Canadian alternative, The Canadian Clowning Technique, a unique pedagogy for theatre of clown, a synthesis of all available experience resulting in a creative process suitable for his and our time.

There’s a European style of clowning which is where the character, the personality of the clown is more important than the situation, and that’s what makes people laugh. There’s the American way, which we’ll be working with in the circus where the gag is important, and the punctuation in the gag, to make people laugh. And there’s the Indian philosophy, the North American Indian philosophy, which is a way of living. The North American Indians consider the clown to be a holy man; he is the ‘messenger of the Gods’ – and the Gods have an incredible sense of humour. All that is clowning and I think what we’re going to do, what we’re trying to do, is see, put all that together and see if there’s, if all those different realities and different worlds can mix and work for us today, a new generation. For our generation. (Saltzman 1974.)¹

The Canadian Clowning Technique, Clown Through Mask, draws on both Native and European approaches to clown. It reinvigorates the European theatre clown by adopting the idea found in Native society that a clown serves an essential function. In giving the modern theatre clown the responsibility of purpose their delight is underpinned by relevance and the work gains the possibility of meaning. The art form then has the potential to be elevated to the level of the profound.

This highlights a quality that sets Pochinko Clown apart from most, if not all, other modern ideologies on red nose performance and that is the absence of the belief that a clown must be funny. Do not misunderstand. Pochinko clowns are funny. Pochinko clowns love to make us laugh. That is why the central tenet encourages us to face all directions of ourselves at once so that we can laugh at the beauty of our own ridiculousness. But, taking inspiration from the Native concept of wholeness, a Pochinko clown is encouraged to embrace all that they are and following the idea that a clown has a story that must be told, like the heyoka who must perform his/her shameful secret, then the function of any individual clown is to understand the value of their story to the group. And if their story asks difficult questions then their function might be to make us think. If their story is full of terrible sadness then their function might be to make us weep. If in the execution of their duty they elicit laughter as well then that is wonderful. If not then that is also wonderful providing they are doing what is necessary. Pochinko clowns share the responsibility of having to do what is required with Native clowns.

In terms of the detail of Pochinko’s curriculum, he devised a system of exercises inspired by the Native vision quest to equip his students in fulfilling their red nose obligations. A quest is an epic journey that has at its heart a search for something that must be attained. The journey ends where it begins but the destination differs from the start because of the acquisition of this vital ingredient. The function of the journey is to lead the traveller where they need to go so that they encounter the thing they require. Transformation is the purpose of a Native vision quest, from boy to man, from girl to woman, from man to medicine man, from woman to shaman, from man/woman to clown. In Clown Through Mask the transformation is from ignorance to wisdom. The centre of the quest is a question. Who am I? With mask the tool, with mask as catalyst, with mask as entry to the sacred space.

This structure is unique and it is what makes Pochinko’s methodology different to any other pedagogic approach to clown. All approaches to clown demand that the performer work from themselves but no other methodology provides a structure for the student to achieve knowledge of self.

The European approach to clown, its teaching methodology, is often described as a via negativa. All learning is achieved in performance; clown on the floor with class as spectator, the teacher as auteur manipulating the student towards success with offers and provocation. The student, on the floor, knows that s/he is succeeding if they avoid a negative response. That is shit. The teaching of clown is notoriously brutal, admittedly, it is brutal for the purposes of provocation but it is brutal nonetheless. The student works to avoid failure that arrives in the form of being asked to sit down. The power of knowledge in this scenario is weighted towards the teacher. The student, even one who has succeeded in a particular exercise, can come off the floor as they went up, empty handed, no knowledge, just success or failure. No tool. No reference point. Only memory. And relief.

Sue Morrison is an auteur, the centre point of her room, any good teacher of clown is, and although she can be harsh, firm, she can be truly provocative, her guiding light is positive. If the European approach is known as a via negativa then hers is a via positiva. If in the European approach students try to avoid the instruction to sit down then in Clown Through Mask Morrison’s students strive to hear her mantra:

Beautiful. That’s beautiful.

And before her students ever get to a point where they are guided by that beacon of beauty they are provided with a non-performance structure, the making and wearing of six masks, which gives them the opportunity to get to know themselves. Therefore, when they step onto the floor to begin their journey towards clown performance, they are equipped with knowledge and they have a tool. In fact, they have six tools in the six masks that they wore for their vision quests. Not only are the masks the catalyst for the students’ epic journeys into self but they also function as tools to be used in performance. Like any mask they are there to be expressed. Truthfully. Emotionally. Corporeally.

Richard Pochinko, in the creation of his pedagogy, used all of the knowledge that he had encountered in his quest for a new Canadian theatre: Grotowski’s insistence that the relationship between actor and spectator is key; mask as encountered at École Jacques Lecoq, in workshop with Bari Rolfe and in Native ritual and ceremony; clown which he found in both circus, theatre and Native society; the Native Amerindian concepts of wholeness and transformation; and the form of the Native Amerindian vision quest. Pochinko took all these inspirations and devised a structure that facilitated the acquisition of knowledge of self. A vision quest that sends the student out in ignorance and sees them return with understanding, understanding of themselves in a palatable and safe form, a mythic form. A fictional story imbued with their truth. And because we humans are complex creatures, we are not one thing, because we are stubborn creatures capable of tripping ourselves up with our ego and our intellect and our reasoning, Pochinko insists that his students of clown go on this journey not once, not twice but six times to face themselves in all directions. The six directions derived from Native ideology – North, South, East, West, Below Below and Above Above.

The Greek word for mask is persona and so it is fitting that the mask is the catalyst for Pochinko’s mythic vision quests, beyond ego, into self. Pochinko’s six vision masks are full-face and the masters of those masks are our personas. And in the journey from encounter to performance, from acquiring knowledge to using that knowledge, the masks become a tool, something that must be expressed, to support the difficult transition from the personal to the public, the singular to the universal. And, most importantly, in the process distance is achieved between the intensely personal nature of the first encounter and the use of that knowledge in public performance to provide the space required for play.

The red nose was earlier referred to as the shaman’s mask. Shamans were and still are to be found in most tribal societies. They exist in close relationship to the natural world. Shamanism, the acknowledgement of a spirit world, the maintenance of that other world, and the use of the powers of that unseen world through the conduit of the priest, the shaman, for the good of the people on earth predates all other religious thought. A shamanic journey in North Amerindian terms is a journey to realize the self and the self’s potential. The journey to and through the red nose mask has the same function.

The Native clown is held in the same esteem as the shaman and their function, to offer up the self in the form of their truth, their shame, for the good of the group is comparable to the task of the shaman. The shaman is often attributed with powers of healing and surely it is not unreasonable to assign the description of healing to the positive effects of witnessing, sharing and enjoying the clown’s honesty.

The clown enters the stage carrying an immensely tall stack of paper cups. The clown watches the top of the stack as it sways to the left and to the right. The clown has a feeling of inevitable disaster. The clown stops and looks at the audience and they understand what s/he is feeling. The clown has felt this before, disaster waiting to happen. The clown is the disaster waiting to happen. The clown is comfortable in his/her nihilism. The audience laugh at his/her resignation. The clown moves and the cup at the top of the stack falls to the ground. The audience laugh. The clown doesn’t look at the fallen cup. The clown doesn’t need to. The clown knew this would happen. The clown bends to pick up the cup and as s/he picks it up another falls from the top of the stack. The clown stops in his/ her tracks. The clown looks at the audience, the clown smiles. It is a resigned smile. They laugh. The game is on. Actor and spectator engaged in a wonderfully pointless exercise set against a background of the clown’s fragile humanity. There for the Grace of God think the audience. That could be me they think. But it’s not and because the clown is comfortable with his/her self and his/her inadequacies the audience feel comfortable and are given permission to laugh. The audience laugh at the clown. The audience laugh at themselves. The audience laugh at us all.

Historical Photos

Figure 1. Richard Pochinko. Source: Sue Morrison’s Personal Collection.

Figure 2. Sue Morrison and Richard Pochinko. Source: Sue Morrison’s Personal Collection.

Figure 3. Philippe Gaulier and Sue Morrison. Source: Sue Morrison’s Personal Collection.

1.Documentary viewed on YouTube: To Be A Clown 1 – Pochinko Documentary, uploaded by Chrixian, 18th August 2010 uploaded, www.Youtube.com/watch?v=JonrBgWXu9U. Accessed 18th May 2011.

Chapter 2

Sue Morrison

Sue Morrison considers herself a shaman because the work she does, the work entrusted to her by her friend and mentor Richard Pochinko, is transformational and transformation is the work of a shaman. Her tool, the red nose, is the Shaman’s mask.

Sue Morrison became Richard Pochinko’s apprentice in 1985. At the time she was a highly respected clown performer in the TRC world. Her presence and capability in front of an audience were renowned. She was as comfortable performing as one clown amongst many or in juxtaposition to a traditional play. For those directors of traditional plays who were happy to allow Morrison’s anarchic clown loose on their work the result was often a riveting display of theatrical alchemy. Tradition undermined by anarchy. And tradition reinforced by anarchy as the play gained new life in the vibrant clash of form; survival despite the commentary, survival because of the commentary. And because it is a question of survival the experience, the play, is richer, sweeter, more profound.

When Richard asked Sue to apprentice with him, when he asked her to watch him, to listen to him, to work alongside him and absorb the essence of what he was doing so that she could teach it too, he did so in the knowledge that clown had become her life. And if the art of clown had become her life then Pochinko Clown was her world and the teaching of it would become her dedicated task.

Sue Morrison was 24 years of age when she felt the first inexplicable pull towards performance. At the time she was working in a ski resort called Sunshine Village in Banff on the west coast of Canada. She was happy there. She liked life in the cold lane but just as Pochinko on the cusp of his career had felt dissatisfaction at the state of Canadian theatre, just as he felt a desire for something more, something new, so too did Morrison experience a similar feeling in her holiday village called Sunshine atop a snowy mountain in Banff. What she felt was a discontent, a desire for something more, a desire for something else. The feeling was inexplicable, strong and irresistible.

"It was like the migration of the caribou, the impulse to change. The caribou, they know they have to go and they go. I was like a caribou. I packed up my car and I went back to Toronto to work in theatre, to work in comedy. I remember watching The Saturday Show and thinking I could do that. It’s almost like you get to a certain point and you recognize yourself. Anything that has been significant in my life there has been a feeling of arrival. I didn’t know what working in theatre entailed or how to go about it but I knew I had to do it."

Morrison quit her job in the ski resort, packed everything she owned into and onto her red MGB and drove back across the vast expanse that is the continent of Canada in some of the worst weather ever recorded in the week before Christmas 1979. The snow was so heavy that the Trans Canada Highway was closed down. Sue Morrison could only see one other vehicle on the road when they closed it. She was just outside Wahwah at the time, Wahwah – the home of the Great Canada Goose. Two vehicles. A super articulated truck and a red MGB with three sets of skis strapped to the roof. She stayed overnight with the geese in Wahwah. Making like a caribou is one thing but how does a young Torontonian from the wrong side of the tram tracks, who once worked as a trainer for the Seneca Braves, navigate her way into an exploding arts scene? The arts scene in Toronto in 1979 was in a state of divine possibility, it was one of those moments of change, moments like these can last a decade, two, just like the arts scene in Dublin in 1983 when this author wandered out of the education system devoid of a plan or any sign of opportunity. Ireland in 1983 was a grim place. There were no jobs, third level education was not free and young peoples’ expectations of life were increasing to the accompanying sound of the doors of opportunity closing. But this new expectation of life in the 1970s and 1980s was not for riches and wealth. It was for fulfilment.

Our parents, my parents, Sue Morrison’s parents, lived their lives content if they secured a good job, one that they would keep until retirement, so that they could fulfil their obligations, to God, to family, to living a good life. The changing social climate of the 1970s and 1980s, no doubt the hairy lovechild of the 1960s, ate away at our parents’ steady lifestyle. For those of us born in the 1950s and 1960s we weren’t to have what our parents had had. And many of us didn’t want what our parents had had. This author remembers being told in school that the future was in leisure, that in the future people would have more time, through advantage and disadvantage, and that the growth industries would all be concerned with how to fill that time. Privileged time for the haves and empty time for those who have