The other key factor is that Mr. Magni, a founder of the physical theater company now known as Complicité, is so precise in his clowning. (Mr. Magni and Mr. Houben have been performing it all over the world since its debut in Paris in 2015.) Mr. Houben’s astounding mimetic skill — he even pulls off an impression of a wheel of Camembert — is not just math, it’s showmanship. Some might even seem familiar; Mr. Houben and Mr. Magni made ideal tragicomic vaudevillians in the Theater for a New Audience production of Beckett’s “Fragments” in 2011. But I have to concede Mr. Houben’s point that at the heart of most physical comedy is the communal enjoyment of watching dignity brought low.

Source: New York Times November 02, 2017 01:41 UTC