"LOL: The End" is a clown show with a lot on its mind. I went to see this show's premiere at the FRIGID Festival over the weekend because Una Osata was performing in it. Una is a very talented actress and writer I got to know a few years ago at some Freedom Train Production workshops. I was also intrigued because it was going to be a show with her family involved as the other clowns. Her sister Michi and father Yoshimasa Osata would be on stage with her.
I hadn't seen a clown show since "Slava's Snowshow" which was a brilliant cross between vaudeville, Blue Man Group, and Jacques Tati's "Mon Uncle." Slava's clowns embodied the Eastern European morose and dour attitude with floppy gesticulations and faces that were painted in various states of depression.
"LOL" is a completely different style and take on clown shows. "Slava Snowshow" was the epitome European auteur clowns and mimes. "LOL" is Japanese frenetic in flavor. The clowns are more manic, the face paint is more colorful and explosions. While Slava slouched, LOL clowns are balls of energy. While Slava was about the slow decline of a relationship and the loss of love, LOL is an allegory about the end of the planet.
