Johnny Patterson: The Singing Irish Clown

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Barabbas bring a new energy to their clowning interests with this historical biography of Ireland’s most famous clown, Johnny Patterson. Haven’t heard of him? Well, you might recognise his form from Jack B Yeats’ circus paintings. Don’t know those? Well, Little John Nee’s play might not bring you any closer to the enigma, but the trio of performers will at the very least keep you entertained.

Written in loose verse like a narrative ballad, Johnny Patterson: The Singing Irish Clownplots the life of its eponymous hero from birth to death, as he carouses across countries and continents with the circus. Nee's Patterson is a raffish, playful entertainer, treating us to a repertoire of songs that still exist in the folk tradition, such as The Garden Where the Praties Grow. Patterson is accompanied on his journey by the effervescent Paddy Shoes (Roger Gregg) and his variety of archaic and improvised instruments.

But there is a darker side to Patterson too, embodied by the silent figure of Snowdrop (Bryan Burroughs), who stalks him like the shadow of death from the beginning of the performance to the end. White-faced in a black shroud, Burroughs’ presence is Kabuki-like, invoking the ritual of death that will finally carry Patterson off to the eternal world of memory and legend.

Moving with the grace of a dancer and the corporeal certainty of a mime, Snowdrop’s presence provides an epic, mythic scope to the production that is lacking in the play itself, which never seems to discover why Patterson’s story matters in the broader scheme of things. Ultimately, Nee neglects to frame the story sufficiently, and we never get a sense of Patterson’s influence in circus culture of the time or his influence on these contemporary clowns.

Burroughs’s presence is also key in the performative sense, providing some of the most visually impressive and playful moments in the production, as he transforms himself into both a bar and the forlorn figure who props it up, or, with breathtaking agility, a tiny elephant and, later, her giant adult glory.

The elephant provides a link between Patterson’s story and the wider history of the living world: the cycle of life and death and nature that continues to spin without the songs of the singing clown. But elephants, like human beings, have short memories, as Patterson’s ultimate disappearance from cultural memory proves. Perhaps it is that, rather than the incidents in Patterson’s life story, which is the ultimate message of the play.

Runs until Nov 14th.