Geoff Sobelle found his way to being funny by finding himself in the world. “The clown reveals himself,” says the former Palisadian, and co-star of “all wear bowlers,” currently on stage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. “It’s what you believe that’s funny.” The 29-year-old actor is talking about the kind of theater where all that’s needed is an actor’s body and imagination; a kind of theater where you play daily life and where the dynamic study of human nature is the basis for character. Although Sobelle says, “I knew as a little kid at St. Matthew’s that I loved being in plays,” he didn’t pursue it in high school. “My head was in the clouds,” he recalls, “I was always missing audition dates.” Sobelle did find an outlet for his performance by practicing magic, and is still a member of the Society of American Magicians and the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Although he has since moved on from there, he says magic informed the way he thinks about theater. “I strategize and think about things as a magician would. Its technical aspects appealed to me, and I loved the absurdity of magic’all the work that goes into a three-second effect.” At Stanford, Sobelle studied English. “I felt like when I was at school it would have been a shame not to take advantage of all the classes available and that it would not be good to spend all my time in theater.” But, by his junior year he was ready for a break and went for a year to study at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where he learned the physical language of the kinetic theater, using mime and movement. “It was a new way of seeing the world. Lecoq taught you to look at things, to enter a space and see the space, and breathe. “Lecoq’s method was not so much about pantomime, but more of a corporeal mime,” Sobelle explains. “How do you see the wind? You see the wind’s effect on a flag, or a branch. How do you see jealousy reflected in the actor? You see the forces of nature at play once the actors are there.” A few magic tricks, extraordinary athleticism, covetous body language and defined characters combine in “all wear bowlers.” The play tells the story of two silent film clowns, Earnest Matters (Sobelle) and Wyatt R. Levine (Trey Lyford), who take a wrong turn and find themselves off the movie screen and into the audience-filled theatre. The opening segments of the show are a complex combination of film and live stage shenanigans. Moving from the silent screen, they literally break through the fourth wall and into a riotous existential nightmare. The clowns walk through the skin of another life. What makes the pair so funny is their relationship, which recalls Laurel and Hardy, or the two tramps who quarrel, make up and contemplate suicide in “Waiting for Godot.” In early stages of “bowlers,” Sobelle and Lyford worked with David Shiner (“Fool Moon,” Cirque de Soleil) to develop the piece. Shiner didn’t think it was funny at all, Sobelle says, adding that he “speaks amazing truths and was very demanding.” Sobelle says Shiner thought it was a series of tricks and pranks that lacked recognizable characters. “His critique changed the way I think about stuff. You want to let the audience see for themselves who you are.” Sobelle as Earnest is more the Oliver Hardy character. “Everything is very important to me, very crucial, but myopic,” he says. “I’m the type who is intent on screwing in the last bolt while the house is falling apart. Earnest is involved in the matter of things, and doesn’t see into the phenomenon of things, whereas Wyatt sees outside the box.” The two are outrageous, as when they kick a couple of audience members out of their seats and haul the seats up onto the stage. They are masters at slight-of-hand, as they conjure all manner of tricks from inside their pockets, and they are linked in perfectly timed choreography. Their bodies are fine-tuned, from the masks of expression to the balletic pratfalls. While at Lecoq, Sobelle met some students from Swarthmore College, who went on to found the Pig Iron Theatre Company, a dance-clown theater ensemble in Philadelphia. Sobelle joined the group in 2000, and during the midrun of “all wear bowlers” in New York last year took a month off and toured with Pig Iron, and created a new piece with them about Edgar Allen Poe, entitled “Red Eye to Havredegrace.” Now, he and Lyford are enjoying the momentum of “all wear bowlers.” Since its opening in New York in January at the HERE Acts Center in Soho, the show is being booked in theatres all over the world. It will be in Genoa, Sydney, and London within the year. Following the rehearsals at the Kirk Douglas, the newest in the Center Theatre Group stable, Sobelle was seduced. “All the technology and props are nice. We’re used to mostly very humble black boxes’the basement of a church in Edinburgh. This show can live anywhere.” “all wear bowlers” continues at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., through October 28. Ticket prices range from $20 to $40. Contact: (213) 628-2772.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
