It is more important for him to touch people than tickle them: “The gag reveals the humanity. That little moment we are revealed to ourselves, that inkling that we have this gift of awareness and consciousness.”
Houben’s new work Marcel came out of the success of The Art of Laughter at Theatre Du Rond-Point in Paris. “I had performed in the 700-seater for a month three times so they said ‘can you do something else funny?’ ‘I said I can’t but I know someone who can’. I talked to Marcello. I felt his full potential was rarely released as a slapstick comedian so I said I want to make something for him which celebrates him and his early years. I watched a video of us in 1986 at the Albany. How light and young we were. We now have stiff backs!”
Between them they came up with Marcel. “I said to him what should the theme be and he said ‘the seven ages of life’. I said two ages – the beginning and the end. The body at the last 100 yards still has the spirit of the child. I always wanted to do a chase onstage, so with a friend and a designer I found a structure that permits us to do a chase. It is essentially a circus ring tilted so we have height in an abstract space. As soon as you move around it you change hierarchically. It can be a long hard way up or a quick slide down.”
Once they had the idea the process was relatively fast. “We roughly created it in two weeks while doing Beckett in the evening.” Houben plays the straight man and leaves the clowning to the magisterial Magni. “We see this man going to get his clown licence renewed. I’m the inspector who says ‘sorry mate, no.’ It’s like being fired. What do we do next?”
The Mime Festival shows will be the first public performances before it goes back for a run in Paris in the Spring. “This is still a baby show. It still has its Pampers on. It brings us back to the origins of Complicite but it is more than just personal sentimentality and melancholy. It’s the fact that we are old and that’s what the body does.” The title is a serendipitous play on words – as well as the name of the star performer, a Marcel, he points out, is a style of vest that old men often wear when resting in their rocking chairs.
It is wonderful to see Houben back at the LIMF, particularly because he is currently so busy. His other current project is doing the physical staging for The Girls, the major new musical based on The Calender Girls written by Tim Firth with music by Gary Barlow. “I was working on them taking their clothes off this morning!” he says, before letting out a loud guffaw. For someone who says he is not interested in making people laugh he certainly likes to laugh himself.
Both shows are at The Shaw Theatre
Marcel Sat 9 > Tue 12 January. Tickets & info here.
The Art of Laughter Sun 10 Jan. Tickets & info here.
