Collaborative Clowning at Gallery

“Cacophonia, Or What to Do When the World Isn’t Funny,” is an unusual collaboration between artists: Russian emigre Olga Serova and American Dick Monday, two talented professional clowns.

With quirky humor shaped by their divergent backgrounds, and united by a sense of the absurd as well as a satiric cynicism toward their respective governments, the pair have conceived (with director Louise Steinman), a comic play about finding common ground.

But despite moments of off-beat humor and charm in mime and dialogue, it’s not an experiment that has completely jelled. While the chemistry between the artists is evident, creatively this play for all ages has a work-in-progress feel at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.

The clowns open with a mock struggle for star status, until a voice directs them to get on with the show. Then, in separate vignettes, Serova as a put-upon Muscovite and Monday as a harried Californian find the absurdities of daily life too much to bear and magically leave the Earth only to be stranded on an asteroid in space.

They fight for dominance with his cellular phone, her broom and pre- Glasnost insults. At one point they acknowledge their hostility as “old news,” explaining that they wrote the show “back in October.” The unseen voice orders them to stick to the script.

When mutual interests unite them, they decide to share the “knowledge they have learned.”

The social and political commentary throughout the script is both its strength and its weakness. As one-liners, the remarks are funny; as dialogue they’re sketchily framed. Steinmen’s loose gaps in staging lead to fatal uncertainty: Was that it? Should we clap now?

Script consultant and director for Serova’s “Moscow” segment is Eugene Kozhenikov, who also plays the voice of Moscow radio. (Michael Heatherton is the Los Angeles radio voice). The mood lighting, including a strobe sequence, is by Tom Albany.

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