In this episode, we're visiting with our assistant professor of movement for the actor, Lauren Bone Noble, who is here to tell us all about her solo show FURY!, which is an interpretation of the Greek myth of Medea told in the Bouffon clown style. Lauren had so many fascinating things to say about Medea, about clowning, and about her experiences performing this show.
In this episode, we're visiting with our assistant professor of movement for the actor, Lauren Bone Noble, who is here to tell us all about her solo show FURY!, which is an interpretation of the Greek myth of Medea told in the Bouffon clown style. Lauren had so many fascinating things to say about Medea, about clowning, and about her experiences performing this show.
For more information about the show, check out Lauren's website: https://www.furytheshow.com/makingashow
As well as the show's Instagram: www.instagram.com/furytheshow
And here's the site for United Solo, where Lauren will be performing FURY! November 12-13: https://unitedsolo.org/the-13th-annual-united-solo-theatre-festival/
From the Department of Theater and Film at the University of Mississippi. This is Stage & Screen.
Katherine Stewart
Hello, hello and welcome back to Stage & Screen. I'm your host, Katherine Stewart, and today we are visiting with Lauren Bone Noble, our assistant professor of movement for the actor, who is here to tell us all about her solo show Fury, which is an interpretation of the Greek myth of media told in the Bouffon clown style. Lauren had so many fascinating things to say about media, about clowning, and about her experiences performing this show. And by the way, she's got an upcoming one at United Solo in New York next month. More on that later. Anyway, I think you're going to enjoy listening to this conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. So without further ado, here's Lauren. Well, hello Lauren. It is so nice to see you and talk with you today.
Lauren Bone Noble
It's nice to see you and talk with you.
Katherine Stewart
Thank you. I am very excited to talk about this show 'cause I. Have seen it and I loved it. Sam Xu. I'm no, I'm happy to be able to share it with our wider audience. So uhm, yeah, just just to start us off, if you wouldn't mind just give us a a summary of the. Show what is it.
Lauren Bone Noble
Well, I think if I was going. To say to someone who'd never seen. This show before. And I wanted to entice them to come see it. I think I would say this show is a journey into the myth of media. In the delightfully niche and deliciously naughty clown style of bouffon. And then I would hope that people would take away from that would they would remember the words. Delicious, naughty and clown. And then they would be like I think I. Need to see that. I don't know why. But I think I need to and and that's that's kind of the way I feel about the show. I I could totally go into like clown 101 if you want to if you want to go down that road I'll go down it with you. But as far as my show is concerned, I I think it's best left with a little bit of mystery. About it, because it is avant-garde, it is not. There is no couch down center. You know what I mean? It ain't that show. So I think when people walk in the door, I want them to walk in thinking, I don't know what this is going to be, but I think I might like it. And my experience is that for the most part, people seem to have that reaction. That it resonates with them, despite the fact that there's no couch, there's no kitchen sink, even though a kitchen is referred to. It's. It's this. Uh grander? Her story of a woman we think we know. Those we are more like than we may wish to. Best do?
Katherine Stewart
Wow, that's an excellent introduction without giving too much away.
Lauren Bone Noble
Oh, good.
Lauren Bone Noble
Without giving too much away.
Katherine Stewart
So when when did you write this play and how? How did you? Come up with it.
Lauren Bone Noble
I wrote the play in the before times. Pre pandemic it was like 2000. And 17 or so I went and did a clown, a bouffon clown workshop. And when I left it, I thought to myself, I have to write. A bouffon show for myself to do. In fact, I don't even think I said that. I said it aloud, I mean. To my teacher and he is like, oh, the Fonz really are better in groups. And don't you know, people that will want to do this? And I said no, I don't really. Think I do plus. I want to make something myself. I've spent my whole artistic life. As an interpretive artist, as an actor, I really want to be very selfish. And so I kind of said about the work of writing it, but it took me a long time, like 2 years really to get the show. To where it now exists. And then I started performing it and then pandemic happened and it went into. You know the box where we put things during the COVID times, which are not, I guess over but and now, but now I've been able to do it some more and. Get out there with it so. That's cool.
Katherine Stewart
Without generating too many spoilers, can you tell us a little bit about the myth of media and how you were inspired to combine that character with the clown style?
Lauren Bone Noble
Yeah, let me I guess first let me say why I was. Inspired to combine the character with the clown style? Uhm, because when I first started working on the. Show it was. It was nothing. It was just me in a room. In a sort of practice bouffon. Moving around and kind of. Looking at myself and trying to figure out what I was going to do and it was really out of frustration. And that I thought about, well, what have I done before that has felt really satisfying to me. And what I had done before that was really satisfying was taken existing stories and riff on them. And I immediately thought of Medea because her tail is so #1, feminine in nature. Everything about her just. Resonates of the female journey and then it's operatic.
Lauren Bone Noble
Like it's big.
Lauren Bone Noble
It's not like I don't like my hair color. It's it's the big issues of life, right? And so I immediately thought of that story. And that I wanted to. Do my play based my play on her. Her story. But the great thing that happened was then doing the research about her mythology. But there were so many things that I didn't know about her that were rich and funny and crazy and infuriating that it was just a treasure, you know, like all Greek mythology. Is like a. A bowl of spaghetti that's just so many intertwining stories. That you have a connection with, you know, the story of Jason and the Argonauts. You know a little bit about Medea. So dumb. Yeah, that was that was really fun to jump in to that research. You can go in there and never come out of that cave. I mean, it's so rich, but. She, she is thought. To have been from what is now the country of Georgia. In the mythology, it's referred to as colcas. But it's on that side or the far side of the Black Sea, not too far from Ukraine, interestingly. And so she was thought of in that. Myth structure of the Greeks. As a foreigner, she was from the edge of the known world. Who is she? She is. A stranger. And because of that, I think in the Euripides play. She's misused a little bit. She is the other. The strange, powerful sorceress from away. And he kind of he does her a little dirty. In his play of her. So part of my thought was that she is reclaiming her story. But it's been. Appropriated, if I may. Hi, this guy is like, hey, I want to win me a prize at the playwriting contest. And so. Uhm, my thought was that she is and how? Retelling her story herself. With the audience as her scene partner? Since the one person show the audience is, that's who I'm talking to. So she's talking to. So that's kind of how that came into being. It was a lot of writing and going to the rehearsal hall and playing with what I've just written and then fixing it. Just play, play play and get in there and mess around until it became something.
Katherine Stewart
So you mentioned that the audience is your scene partner in this show. So how how do you, as a solo performer decide which members of the audience to try to interact with?
Lauren Bone Noble
Well, I worked for many, many years. As a young actor in Renaissance festivals, at Renaissance festivals. And that's really how I learned how to do interactive theater. One in particular in Western New York. On on the wooded lip of Lake Ontario, it was just like, you know, a young actors. Delightful playground. We spend 10 hours a day in character, interacting with people and. You learned so much by that kind of extended. Improvisational play, you know, there were breaks, of course, and we would go on breaks, but even. If we would. Sit outside on the ground and eat our lunch. You're eating your lunch in character. And dumb. It's just a great training for for interacting improvisationally. With the audience and knowing how to pick people, you want to pick people who are compliant. You don't want to pick somebody who's like me 'cause that person going to take the show away from you. I still have to keep. My show on track. It's not so interactive that we could go anywhere. I mean it's. I've tried to be very thoughtful about how I have crafted the interactive moment so. There are certain answers that people are going to give. For the most part, every once in awhile somebody surprises me, but for the most part, people have done what I thought they. Were going to do. And I have kind of if it's this, I'll go this way, and if it's that, I'll go that way. And if it's not either of those things, then I have. I always have a safety for myself. That was not always the case. I have one moment where nobody said anything close to what I thought, what they had always done. And it was. I was shocked and I got. A little stuck. And fortunately my spouse was in the audience and he he got his back on track. It it it was, uh, early on when I was just starting to perform it and it was a great wake up call to I need to have. These safeties in place for. Every interactive moment, just in case. But for the most part, people. Who are willing and I try. I also try and be very gentle and. In those interactions I never want to shame anybody or embarrass anybody or make somebody feel bad about. Their answer they should always feel good about it so that they want to play more. But if I shame somebody right out of the gate, then they're going to be like, well, I don't want to play. So that's also what I learned in those many, many years of. Rent the Renaissance was that. You want to encourage people to be on your side, to play with you. So kind of taking them metaphorically by the hand. Sometimes literally. Uh is a. Is a way to lead them into the the interaction so they feel good about it and like they want to do it more. And then there's also the time that you want to when do you want to shut it off, 'cause you don't want people just shouting things out Willy nilly? Then you lose control of the play and it's something else, so. Yeah, that's, that's. And so I pick people that look to be. And I also try and interact with them kindly so that they will feel safe to respond.
Katherine Stewart
So uhm, you started writing this in, it sounds like 2017 and I think began performing it in 2019. But since you've been since you've been with the department, you've had the opportunity to tour it around a little bit. So where, where all have you been with it and what was what was that like?
Lauren Bone Noble
Well, uhm. It did it here in Oxford and I specifically did it here because a couple of things I want to do a couple of things. Number one, I wanted to get a video. Of it. And I wanted a video with a really enthusiastic audience. And students and colleagues always make for enthusiastic audience is very generous. Audiences and and then I also I wanted to have a performance under my belt before I went to the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival in May. So I thought it would help me kind of ease into that again in front of a generous. Audience of people who are known to me, and that was great and I guess also I I did want to offer that kind of communal experience which. During the pandemic we weren't really able to enjoy and as we are emerging from that, we find that we're able to get back to those big communal experiences which are so important like it's. Who we are? We are narrative creatures. We are storytellers. We want to consume story and together. Not just by ourselves, but together and so. I wanted to offer that to our community as well, this opportunity to be together and and show them this kind of wild style that doesn't get done a lot. At least here in America, I think Americans aren't used to the avant-garde. They, they they used to, they like to see. We like to see. I'm an American, too. We like to see what we already know. Oh, Oklahoma. I've seen that before. Let's go. We'll see that. I know that. I'm very familiar with that, so. I think. Asking people to. Widen their comfort zone a little. And the art they consume is is a valuable ask. So I did it here and that was really fun. And then I went to Orlando in May and that was just a wild experience. This is the first time I've done the show. Four times in a row. Which was great because doing it doing one off. Really hard on a performer. Because it's always opening night. It's like. Oh my God, you just can't get into a routine. So to do it four times in a row felt really good to me. Lauren the actor. I remember this the whole day is about getting ready. At the moment, the way I eat, the way I exercise, the way I sleep, what I do with myself all day is about working up to that moment of stepping backstage. And getting my costume on and then. Telling the telling the tale, but it was interesting because the last day of the performance. I I was kind of, I don't know, doing my day, went out and about, did some little touristy things and came back and looked at my e-mail and my mother-in-law had sent me an e-mail that said. Hope the show is going well. I'm sure you must be very upset about Texas. Like, oh. My brother lives in taxes. All my aunts and uncles and cousins live in Texas. What's happened in Texas? So I looked and it was the what she was referring to is EU Valde shooting at the elementary school there. And of course my show is about. How vulnerable children are. Our culture world in which we claim to value. But our actions say otherwise. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I can't do this show. How can I do this show? Because the first part the 1st. 2/3 of it are just funny, silly, wild, naughty. You know, irreverent fun. How can I say those things? Behave that way when this horrible, tragic event has happened. To be honest, I spent that day crying and wrestling with whether or not I could do should do the show. And I finally decided that I should. And I did and. I have never had the experience of audience members needing to interact with me after the show in the. Way I did. After that show people. Literally lined up to touch me to tell me about. Afghan children they had adopted to cry with me, to thank me. It was really. It was a very intense experience for me. Mostly was endeavoring to kind of hold the hold those emotions and hear them. It was a hard show for me to do. Very emotional and so. In that way, that was very wild part of it. The other wild part of it was that nobody knew me there. I had a few friends in the area who came to see. The show, but for the most part I was an unknown entity and a community that is full. Of actors and performers. Because of Disney and Universal Studios and a lot of film things going on there, it is a very active, very talented pool. And I was unknown. Lady doing Mcleon show and the. The first audiences were light. But once the review came out, that last show was full up. And people have been talking and all the people who were working and doing the shows, their shows there came to see it as well, so. This is a big big. Full house. And that was very satisfying that the longer I was there, the response was, oh, we want to see this show we got. To see this show. That was very, very satisfying.
Lauren Bone Noble
To me.
Lauren Bone Noble
That people responded well, so it was wild in that way to be like this new face. And, and a good reminder, just hold the show, do the show. Each audience deserves me to come out and do the show. As I planned. Regardless of if they're two people or 100. Or 200. 20 whatever the number is, they they deserve the same. Attention to detail and devotion to story as any other audience, so that was good practice for me. To do that.
Katherine Stewart
Cool experience and you did get wonderful reviews and I think one a couple of warrants as. Well, did I?
Lauren Bone Noble
Did I?
Speaker
Right.
Lauren Bone Noble
I didn't, really. I panicked because it was the third night of four and one of the reviewers. I introduced himself to me. He came up to me after the show, like there's kind of a thing they do at that festival where the. The actors interact with the audience afterwards, so it so I kind of when I'm in the costume and the makeup, I feel obliged to stay in character. So he came up to me afterwards. I'm kind of in my in my clown character. And he was like a really great show. Since, you know, tomorrow is the last show, I don't think I'm going to write a review. And I felt like my my heart dropped down. To the floor because. Part of the reason I had gone was to get a review for my tenure and promotion. And I sort of like took him by the elbows. Like come speak with me outside and I'm sort of half in my cloud and half as Lauren saying. If there's anything you can do to please write, even just a little something I really need this for. Work, and I was trying to explain to him and he got confused and thought I meant I was a student. He's like, I can write your professor and I'm like, no, I'm the professor. And it was, he was very sweet. He was so kind and so generous. And he's like, I I just don't know, you know, I don't think I have time. I was like. Please don't worry about it. And then the next day I sent him a much more. Thoughtful, saying e-mail, kind of explaining who I am and why I come to Orlando and what I was doing. And, and he later I discovered actually, just like a week ago, he did write a very nice thing. Later, after the festival closed, he said I couldn't cover all the shows, and here's one that I missed. A proper review, but he said some very nice things and I was so touched and grateful for that. But the other Orlando Sentinel did. That guy is like. A machine I. Mean he reviews and reviews and reviews. He's incredible. I mean, Matt palm. But what a gift. So he gave me a very nice review. And then he and Seth Kuberski, the other reviewer, selected my show with twelve others as best in Fest, and then they also gave me an award for best solo specialty show. Which was nice. And then the next place I'm going is New York to United Solo.
Katherine Stewart
Yes, tell us a little bit about that festival.
Lauren Bone Noble
United Solo it's. The world's largest solo theater festival and is a curated festival. So they invite people, you apply and they select and. It's over October and November. It's a long month long festival. On Theater Row is the venue so an off off Broadway venue which is. You know, very exciting to me. To bring my show to such a prestigious location. And so that's exciting. So I'm doing that and. And then I do have another offer in January, but I'm not allowed to say what it is because though I have signed the contract, they have not finalized all the shows that are going to be there. So I can't say but that I do have another contract to perform in January. And then I'm considering there's a festival in Chicago that I'm considering applying for. But we'll see. We'll see. It's a lot to self produce. I kind of missed being just the actor. Now suddenly, like, oh, the way you know, when you're the actor and you get hired under an equity contract, you really are very limited. It's like they don't let you do other things. It's like no, no, no, you just do your acting part and we'll give you your costume and we'll. Provide you with a place to stay and we'll give you the script and even highlighters and a pencil and we'll take you to the grocery store and all you have to do is show up and act. And I I'm missing that. A little bit. And all my paperwork and applications and contracts and. All that, but it is once I get there and put my suit on it. Will all be worth worth. It once I'm inhabiting that. It feels really, really good to me.
Katherine Stewart
Is there anything else you would like to add about the show? I will include in the show notes, you know, links for United Solo and dates and times and all that stuff and.
Lauren Bone Noble
Well, I have a really cool I have an Instagram page. If people if you mentioned that's fury the show period.
Lauren Bone Noble
Oh, we'll.
Katherine Stewart
Pull this out in there too.
Lauren Bone Noble
The shows my Instagram page. I think the one other thing I mean. I do think there is some value. In talking about. I mean, if this is, uh, I don't know who. Our audience is. But as it kind of the it's to me it's interesting. People are not really familiar with clowning. Culturally, as Americans we have a very rigid notion of what clowning is. And I think when people. Hear that? It's a clown show. They naturally will be like it's for kids or you know, it's something that it's it's absolutely not. And it's also a traditional e-mail field. And I think there's great value for women identifying folks to be. Doing this craft. In a very. Out there way. So I don't know if that if we have time to talk about that a little, but to me it feels. Valuable in our academic.
Lauren Bone Noble
Craft, too.
Lauren Bone Noble
Maybe touch on that a little bit, but. My my problem is Catherine, I could. Go on and on. And on about clowning and clowns. Why don't I just jump in? I'll watch the time there. And I'll try to go on too long. So when I think about this show and like. What it is, I think. That the three areas that helped me. Consider and talk about it are the style, the story and the substance. And the style, of course, is. Bufan, which is a particular kind of clowning. But most people aren't familiar with Bouffon. So if we start. With clouds that we are familiar with, I think the clown that most people are familiar with is the birthday party clown. Which is really is a clown, but they do not typically. Do the verb, which is clowning, right? So they appear as clown. They have on the makeup and perhaps the wig and the colorful clothes and the big shoes. But that's kind of where it ends. And then they might, you know, make balloon animals or do a little light magic or some face painting. But there's no narrative, there's no character. And I think that This is why we have this kind of fear of clowns. There's a whole culture now of clowns being scary because when we see a creature that looks like one thing but is behaving like another, like if you see a person but they're behaving like a snake, that's. Going to be. Like whoa and if you see a person. Who is? In this complete mask, but they're not behaving as a character naturally. We think that person is probably up. To no good. And so I think there's this whole culture now growing up around clowns being scary because the kind of clown we're really used. To is this birthday party clown. But there are other kinds of clowns to. The performance clown is really the high status clown, and the low status clown and low status clouds are like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and more recently, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, and of course Ofner Eisenberg. Oh men, I note. Uhm, there aren't a lot of women doing clowning. And I think it's because clowns are not really designed for. Eh, enticing gays? They're vulnerable. Often kind of shy, they're meek, they they're asexual kind of beings. And and so women. I can't even think of a famous woman clown, honestly. But those male clowns were really easy to kind of riff off. But then there is so the low status clowns, they're like warm, engaging. They want the audience to love them off in the world around them. Kind of baffles or befuddles them and then suddenly they're doing something incredible like slack rope walking or juggling or doing magic or physical feats. That are impressive, so it switches from this sort of. Timid being to somebody who's really good at something. And that's the magic of the low status clown. The high status clown, which is bouffon really doesn't care what the audience thinks about them at all. As a matter of fact, they love to mock the audience. They're satirical. They live to put up a mirror to human failings and foibles. And laugh and laugh at them. Or on the flip side, cry and cry. So that's what these bouffon. That is the type of clown it is. Uhm, comically cruel, delightfully naughty. You know, body. And that's what she is. And and so I think. That's a worthwhile. Thing to note when thinking about the style of the show, the clown is not what you think a clown is, and I think that's part of the delight for the audiences.
Lauren Bone Noble
What is this?
Lauren Bone Noble
Thing I'm watching, I really like it, but I don't know what it is or where it's going, what's going to happen, and I think that's the thing I love about doing it is it's such a surprise to everyone. Everyone feels. We feel like. We're going on this thing together that is unknown. Which is fun, I think, for people to experience.
Katherine Stewart
That was an excellent encapsulation.
Lauren Bone Noble
Well, it's important to me to. Think about or talk about share. These aspects of the work we do. Because I think for young actors, it's so easy to think, well, all, all theater. Is is this? Or that there's so many ways to tell story and to engage with audience it's. So exciting to me to break. Away from traditional forms and. And play in these. New World or different worlds, and to share that to a student so they feel like, hey, I could make something I'm not restricted to. These very traditional formats or roles that are assigned to me, I could play anybody I want, which is part of thing. And for me, honestly, Catherine, about making this character for myself, I felt very restricted for many, many years when I lived in New York. City to playing a certain type of character. I always got cast as the victim. My characters always got my beat up or lousy husband or something wrong and. I I kind of. Wanted to take charge of my. Personal artistry and be able to tell a more complicated. Story than just that, the wife or the girlfriend or whatever. Anyway, now I want to tell a story of a comical murderess.
Katherine Stewart
I love it.
Lauren Bone Noble
That's bad.
Katherine Stewart
As ever, it has been lovely visiting with you today.
Lauren Bone Noble
It's always lovely to visit with you.
Katherine Stewart
Once again, that was Lauren Bone noble, assistant professor of movement for the actor, telling us all about her solo show Fury.
Speaker
Let's do it.
Katherine Stewart
For more information about the show and upcoming performances, please check out our show notes. We've got several links in there. And if you're in New York November 12th and 13th, we hope you'll go see the show. And if you do, introduce yourself to Lauren and tell her we say. Until next time, this is Stage & Screen.