Jango—a clown for kings

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 5

Jango—a clown for kings

By

KAY FORRESTER

They warned me. he’s outrageous, they said. A human explosion of laughs. Jango Edwards, king of the fools and clown for kings, is certainly master of the unexpected. “Hullo.” A large hand enveloped mine. He licked it.

"Sorry about that. Used to work in a post office,” he said. So much for the introduction.

Jango, perched on the edge of a red-and-black trampoline at the Arts Centre, is happy to talk about clowning. Usually he insists that people read his book first. “I do a lot of interviews, you know. I usually give them my book a few hours ahead ... but go ahead, talk to me.” This funny man is deadly serious about his profession. “I’m a clown, but not in the prostituted sense. I’m a traditional clown — in the regilious and pure sense. It is the greatest thing there is.” He swings forward, intent on making a point.. "A clown is all about taking people to the edge, making them look over, and then pulling back.” He does not 1 aim to offend, although that is occasionally the result. “Really, I set out to entertain, because toentertain is to communicate. “I won’t do something if I know it will offend. I won’t appear naked to children but I do to an adult audience.” Not always, he is quick to point out and on] y in a context that makes it funny. Before Saturday evenaudience atie? the (Seat Hall he .stepped

down to a G-string during his act.

"It was hilarious. They loved it. They told me afterwards I could have done anything and it would have been okay.” He brings to life on stage a series of zany characters — the latest, to narrate his new show, is Stinky Stankovich, a garage attendant who is put on trial for cruelty to his clothing, which he never changes or washes.

The characters are crazy, unbelievable, funny. They are, Jango insists, a part of himself. On stage "there’s them and then there’s myself.”

It is not a case of switching on and off to perform. What you get on stage is the real Jango Edwards, a lot larger than life.

If you have trouble telling which is the real Jango, that is part of the act.

“I am performing all the time. I am performing now.”

He shoves a baseball cap further back atop his ponytail and stalks menacingly towards two small children scrambling to use the trampoline, growling as he goes.

“Can I use it?” the little boy asks. His face changes instantly. “Sure, go ahead.”

The children giggle delightedly. They knew all along. “Kids — they always do.”

Nothing is sacrosanct for this man who has performed for heads of State and has become something of a guru for other fringe performers. But, for all that, he will make fun of anything and everything, anyone „and everyone. You sense j an innate respect In the ®an.

A respect for other people and for life. He became a clown because he wanted a happy life. For a while he thought his decision to give up selling artificial grass (no kidding) in Michigan, and his landscape business, was the wrong one. “It was hard.” Now he would not change it.

“When I look at people’s faces, it is hard to explain. But when you come to my performance look at the people’s faces. When they look like this ... “ — his eyes snap open, his mouth drops in a look of wonder — “then it’s a wonderful feeling. I have given them something. I am not proud of that but I am grateful for it.”

It does not worry him when people do not laugh out loud.

“They are laughing all right. I know that.”

The audience at the Festival of Fringe Theatre on Saturday evening was the first English-speaking audience that Jango has performed to in 16 months. Based in Amsterdam — because that city gave him the inspiration to find “a new path down which clowns could escape” — he performs throughout Europe and next year will return to his native country where his humour will have to survive American commercialism.

“They try to make me commercial. That doesn’t kill the humour or anything, but last time I performed there I had a manager to organise things, to sell me. Partway through the tour he took off with $BO,OOO of my money and I had to cancel the tour.” Her shrugs.

“Here, in New Zealand, it’s nice. I don’t have to be commercial.”

While in Christchurch, Jango will perform a show at the Arts Centre as part of the festival on Thursday evening, a show at the Christchurch Town Hall on February 20, and one at the University of Canterbury. And the name, Jango? “It comes from my time as a capitalist. When I was still working in America I used to visit Europe once a year with

a certain amount of money. That was it I had to survive on that.

"One year I ran out of money in Morocco and performed in the streets for money. I did a piece called ‘The Western,’ with a cowboy character. There was a series of spaghetti westerns playing: 'Jango Rides Again,’ ‘The Return of Jango,’ and so on. The children called me Jango and it stuck. “I kept it It’s a good name and besides, it's better than Stanley.” *