Rochester Fringe Festival 2025
Low Down
An insightful production in which practiced drag performers try out their newly learned art of clowning, while we learn about the process it took for them to get from drag to clown to stage, and the struggles and strengths they found in that process.
Review
Breadcrumbs Productions presented Clown + Drag at Rochester’s Multi-Use Community Cultural Center, in an intimate and delightful black box theatre space. The seats were arranged in a few wide rows so that even when sitting in the very back, one couldn’t miss a single sequin or exquisitely manicured eyebrow on stage. I expected the title of the show and content to attract vibrant and colorful people, and I was not surprised to see a person donned in a fluorescent construction worker outfit as a member of the audience when I arrived. As time went on, it became clear that he was actually a cast member shmoozing and doing crowd work before the show began, setting the raucous tone and expectation for audience interaction.
What followed was a kind of variety show from an ensemble of practiced drag queens and kings, who each – and sometimes together – put on clowning sketches and exercises, trading lip syncing and death defying dance moves for mime and self-made sound effects. During the blackouts between sketches, there were documentary-style interviews from the performers playing over the sound system. Through these interviews, the audience learns that this ensemble all decided to take clowning classes for the first time and put on a show with the tools and insights from their process. It was genuinely both informative and moving to learn about the contrasts of art forms – clown vs. drag – and the experiences the performers had learning this new-to-them performance art.
I was particularly struck with the repeated mention that with drag, there was an expectation of perfection within the community and art form when performing, and that learning how to clown required an unlearning and letting go of that perfection and embracing “the art of failure,” a philosophy that rarely if ever went hand in hand with drag. Most cast members expressed an initial discomfort that resulted in an ultimate freedom in learning how to clown, and what transformations and vulnerability they allowed themselves when they donned a clown nose over their drag makeup.
The combination of the interviews with the sketches is what made the show effective. The sketches themselves and crowd work were to a varying degree of success and skill, but hearing about the process they each went through in order to make it to the stage to present the show to us was a pleasure. Not only was Clown + Drag a lot of fun, but it was an honor to be a witness and support to these artists fully embracing the risk of their newly acquired art form and the strength it gave each of them through the process.
