Author Henry Miller’s 1948 novella The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder stands apart from the rest of his more autobiographical work. Miller himself described it as the most real thing he’d ever written. A brief forty pages long, it tells the story of Auguste, a world-famous clown who wants to do more than simply make the audience laugh. He wants to bring them true joy. Now a new play, Smile: A Clown's Ascension, brings Miller’s story to the stage. Actor Dennis Leroy Kangalee plays Auguste the clown in the new production. He also co-wrote the play, remembers reading millers story years ago when he was in his 20s:
"It always stayed with me as a mysterious little fable I think that any actor or performer would be taken with. And the whole idea of the clown, of course, is a very specific thing. But you can’t help but look at it and see any performer, right? I mean any performer could relate to it."
Magus Magnus is the play’s director. He also co-wrote the play with Kangalee.
"I had been working on some other clown stories recently, but this one where the first aspect of the story is that Auguste the clown has created this circus clown smile of trance, of enlightenment...then one day the smile becomes so real for him, he actually falls into a trance…that’s when everything begins because his audience turns on him. He loses everything. That simplicity stuck with me because it was so new."
Click the audio player at the top of this story to listen to the interview or read the highlights below.
On the overall vibe of the play, and how it fits with Henry Miller's own Aesthetic:
Kangalee says audiences can expect a sort of ‘radical vaudeville’ when they see the play, through a mix of spoken word, pantomime and music. And he says that he approaches his performance of Auguste as if he were a solo punk musician playing a set of songs at a concert, which he says is very much in line with Henry miller’s own aesthetic:
"There’s no BS. [Miller's a] Nonconformist. A rebel, really."
On composer Philip Glass contributing music to the play:
"We were ecstatic about that! We’re able to use and incorporate the music in the storytelling."
(Listen to "Tissues 7 and 1" by Philip Glass above).
"Smile: A Clowns Ascension" honors Miller’s story on the stage at the Grace Dodge Chapel at Asilomar in Pacific Grove on October 15th…with additional performances at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel October 16th-18th, with a closing performance at the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur on October 19th. The Henry Miller Memorial Library and J. Stock Productions, which are putting on the play, are among KAZU’s many underwriters.