Improvisation technique and emotional theatre

Professional training for speakers

To enter the professional league as a speaker, one first takes acting lessons. However, the actors play with each other as if the audience were not there. In acting, the auditorium is also called the fourth wall, the one you don't pay attention to. The clown is different. He always plays with the audience. Even in dialogue with the other clown colleagues, he always directs his voice into the auditorium. Only when he turns his gaze from the audience back to his partner does the latter know: now it's his turn. The improvised action changes seamlessly between the actors.

In clown theatre, people do speak. But the essential thing is emotion. Here, joy and fun are just as important as anger and sadness. The final work of my twelve-day clown training with the professionals Manfred Unterluggauer and Helga Jud alias Herbert and Mimi was a half-hour performance. As a professional speaker, it is important for me to keep getting new impulses and to leave my comfort zone.

The clown as a metaphor for transformation

In clown theatre there is the red clown and the white clown. In the circus, the white clown is easy to recognise - by his white mask and cone-shaped hat. He makes the game, he sets the tasks, he defines the rules. And that's where he fails in the end. With Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, it's Ollie who always knows exactly how to do it. He makes the rules. Stan is the little brother. In clown theatre they call him August. He is just happy to be there. He participates enthusiastically - without knowing what is actually going on. He fails with enthusiasm.

In clown theatre, comedy comes from failure. For me, this is a wonderful metaphor for digitalisation. It, too, thrives on failure. Failure is the normal case when you experiment. If the risk of failure is not overwhelming for a startup, then it's not a startup at all. Or as Elon Musk says, "If you're not failing, you're not innovating enough." After 10,000 failed experiments, Thomas Edison thought he had now found 10,000 ways not to make an electric lamp. It certainly wasn't cheap. The difference in the immaterial world of cyberspace: the cost-benefit ratio of mistakes is much cheaper. General Motors, the carmaker, is losing millions right now over the Chevrolet Bolt EV recall. With software, such problems are often fixed automatically with a so-called patch.

The Red & the White Clown

For me, the white clown represents the established society. He lays down the rules and is surprised that everything doesn't stay the way it is. The red clown is us nerds, the representatives of change. We throw ourselves enthusiastically into the new. If something goes wrong, so be it. We try things out. We want to play. We are not aware of our own power. And without awareness of power there is no responsibility. The public makes fun of our failure - when Mark Zuckerberg embarrasses himself in the US Congress or Elon Musk's Autopilot makes a mistake. We're like Stan - we trust Ollie. He'll know how to do it. He's confident and morally sound. That's why Stan watches motionless when Ollie opens the door. That is, the door on which the bucket of water is standing, which is about to fall on his head. He watches, because Ollie must know. That's the way it's supposed to be. I'm sure it's going according to plan. Stan doesn't notice that Ollie is failing because of his own rules, expectations and morals.