Interview: Pss Pss on Silent Comedy

A talk with Camilla Pessi about the power of not talking

feature (adelaide) | Read in About 4 minutes
Published 18 Feb 2019
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Pss Pss

"Mime and clowning are two words still covered with clichés," says Camilla Pessi, "like Marcel Marceau doing the wall pantomime with the white face, or the clown in the circus with a red nose and big pants throwing water on the audience. Our goal is to change this opinion in people's minds. That's why we insist that our show is not for children and we invite the grown-ups to come and discover the clown world."

And subverting cliches is what's part of the challenge for Pessi and Simone Fassari. As part of Switzerland's Compagnia Baccala the pair master silent comedy and clowning as Pss Pss.

Pss Pss's influences extend back, in a sense, to the comedic beginnings of commedia dell'arte. "We personally were inspired by the first circus clowns: artists able to be actors, acrobats, musicians and jugglers at the same time." But another influential layer are classic silent movies featuring legendary stars such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

"They open a new era, a new way of expression that is used still on our days and will never get lost. Chaplin is maybe more concrete, Keaton more a dreamer and extreme in his acrobatic skills, Laurel and Hardy had perfect timing playing as a duo." For Pessi, what makes this era stand out is the character work which is brought to the role. "The power of the characters is what remains in people's memory and hearts. The audience is touched overall by the characters, by the emotions and the deepness of the characters... We wish that silent movies could enter more in the educational system, be part of today's culture and shown to children and young people."

Does our focus on text and sound mean we lose something from communication?

"Today non-verbal communication falls often in the vulgar or a rude expression. Which is the easiest way to use non-verbal communication. You can find non-verbal communication entering a supermarket and watching how the products are placed, in which order, and how they are advertised. This is all non verbal communication. Non verbal communication has very strong 'rules' that has an impact on people. That's the same thing we have to follow when we perform on stage. Sometimes a scene can work better and provoke a laugh just by modifying a little timing or extending a second more a little pause. Details are crucial. Details are what makes the difference. Details are what makes you crazy but are there to find and discover."

But it goes back to character, and Pessi likes to observe all aspects of what people are communicating to fold into her onstage performance. "Life off stage is our biggest inspiration, we spend a lot of time watching people walking in the streets, 'spying' how people communicate with the body when they are sad or angry or happy. We try to study our own body everyday to become more and more aware about how we stand, how we move when we are happy, trying to go deeper and deeper discovering how emotions lead to new movements."

And it is this expression which makes clowning so impactful on an audience. "People laugh because deep inside they recognise something in the way of clowning that is deep inside them, never expressed maybe, but many times thought or imagined. Our show is a contemporary and antique way of clowning, exploring the possibility to bring the two together through acting, miming and acrobatics: the universal language of body expression. We played our show all over the world without saying a word and every audience understands... The universal language of the body has the power to bring everybody together under the same magic."