Clown-versation with LARRY PISONI

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LORENZO PICKLE (aka Larry Pisoni) is a legend in US clown history.
He was born into a tradition of performing, with grandparents who worked as professional vaudevillians. Pisoni left home at 15 to become a carny vaulter, performing gymnastics for carnival audiences.
After working for a few years with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Pisoni and Peggy Snyder turned the Pickle Family Jugglers into the Pickle Family Circus, famous for its exuberant integration of music, and for being one of the leading shows in the "New Circus Movement." Although the PFC didn't preach any "new circus" agenda, they deliberately avoided some of the traditional circus acts.
Touring world-wide gave Pisoni a cross-cultural perspective of clowning. Occasionally, as on a Japanese tour with cellist Yo Yo Ma, he tailored his material for a particular country. "I see a contradiction built into comedy, Pisoni said, and that is, it’s universally experienced but culturally specific. At the same time, it’s subjective - if you find it funny, then it’s funny."
Pisoni left the PFC in 1986 because, he says, "I went through one of those 30s crises. Like, 'What am I doing?'" By 1990, the PFC was history, although today some of its members operate a circus school in San Francisco that was started in part by Judy Finelli.
It was Finelli and especially her then-husband Hovey Burgess who gave Pisoni his start in the circus, giving him a full introduction to circus arts, steeped in the European tradition. "Hovey believed all circus skills are related to one another," Pisoni says. "So, the better the juggler you are, the more you can understand the timing of the handspring. Or, the better wire walker you are, the better juggler you will be, because you have to be in a state of equilibrium to make accurate throws."
In his 2001 show "Clown Clown Clown Clown Clown Clown Clown", Pisoni took a free-wheeling comedic journey through time and space to assume seven distinct clown personae that have informed the clowning tradition. He plays the northern European folk fool that is predecessor to the court jester; assumes the mantle of a Hopi Kochaer; invokes Commedia dell’Arte with a scene between Pulcinella and Arlecchino; and pays homage to Samuel Beckett with a clown personality inspired by his black humor. Pisoni plays the show’s finale in the classic garb of red nose and oversize shoes of Lorenzo Pickle, the contemporary clown Pisoni made world famous.

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