Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp was a very early conceptual street performer whose 'act' was the definition of an anti-act in that he was entirely himself, the first British publicly effeminate gay man. His 'show' was trying to live a normal life walking from place to place and public transport etc while being constantly mobbed and abused. His 'character' was the truest politeness during more than a decade of public abuse. I think he qualifies as a street performer who made the big time.

one sixth of a three act play...

...Curtains open, the stage is bare except for a secured pole with a chair propped against it facing the audience, the lighting tone is dim.

Two Clowns enter from stage right with Lurk prone on a plank between them.

[this is a sneaky Antony Livingspace homage]

These two Clowns are minions and have a vague corporate whiff about their costume.

Their transport of Lurk is measured, sardonically dignified however as the front Clown gets to the pole the back Clown stumbles and Lurks legs fall and his body follows mitigated by the front Clown who deposits  the body gently at his end next to the pole and at a 45 degree angle to it.

The back Clown runs in circles hysterically as head Clown chills and calms him/her down.

Shimmiesd up the pole, takes the top off a test tube and blows a cloud of powder into a spot-lit space above Lurk before sliding down quickly and both Clowns leaving as the focus is left on the descending powder that eventually arrives and awakens the Clown..

Lurk stirs, pulls himself up onto the chair, then casually crosses legs, then elevates and investigates the pole playfully.audience unacknowledged, everything internal….

word up

Keep your eye on the bread because the circuses have now been taken out of the equation.

You can't kill clown

So the largest superpower on the planet who spends 3 times as much as the nex 7t highest on weapons of war is so scared of 'the other' that it guts it's national arts funding because killing people and stealing their shit is the only performance art that's ever mattered.

Dean Butler-Opening Line

Dean Butler was a young NZ comedian many years ago and he was a demented prop comic pre carrot top, pre Livingspace [who is far far more than a prop comic but there are elements and this was about 85.

He had the best opening line.
He had a suitcase which he dumped on a table and opened and starting grabbing stuff, looking at it and throwing it back in, rubber chicken, alarm clock, slinky,
then he pulled out a dagger in one hand and a teddy bear in the other and shrugged and stabbed the teddy bear in the stomach.
Blood gushed out and with a look of amazement he delivered his opening line.

"They DO bleed."

bus-stop Question

If the byproduct of your civilization is reducing the planet to a bruised and bleeding and possibly terminally injured domestic servant like some sort of mindless virus or delusionally inbred 19th century colonionalist living in 2017 ( ha, the definition of Israel). Then what is art but a useful excretion and deflection and distraction?

mmmmmm?