Making Audiences Laugh Is His Business, and David Shiner Does It Without Saying a Word

It’s not easy being a clown.

“Think about it,” said David Shiner, who plays the gawky, hyperkinetic figure in Cirque du Soleil’s triumphant “Nouvelle Experience” at the Big Top at the Santa Monica Pier. “There are 2,500 people in the audience. I don’t speak one word. I communicate everything to them without saying anything. It takes an incredible amount of energy, from here”--he taps the center of his chest--”all the way out. So when I’m not doing the show, I’m sleeping or resting.”

All white-face impishness and rubber-band elasticity on stage, the off-stage Shiner, 37, is reserved, reflective, remarkably serious. His two appearances in the show--first amiably clambering through the audience, later picking out volunteers to star in his “home movie”--are both the continuum and the exception in this lavish and intricate show: He is the only performer who must adjust a set act to the elements of surprise and individuality he courts in the audience.

“They happen to be in the correct seat, or they’re wearing interesting clothes, or they have an interesting face, or they’re reacting to me in a certain way,” Shiner said of the people he’s attracted to playing with. “In the first number, I improvise: I go right into the public, crawl over them. For the cinema number, I definitely pick out specific people--and I’m very careful who I choose. I’m looking for body types, and also people who are going to be open and naive, willing to play--but not too much.”

The risk of sharing his space with amateurs is part of the fun, Shiner added. “I’ve developed it to a point now where I can deal with almost any situation--unless the person is completely bonkers: refuses to participate or is a real problem. Then I just get rid of them; I ‘fire’ them. But that happens very rarely--maybe two times this whole year.” At this point, he implies, the act is almost foolproof, the refinement of hundreds and hundreds of performances over the past dozen years.

Although he is one of only two Americans in the international company, Shiner has lived and performed in Europe since 1981. “I went there because I wanted to develop a particular style,” he said. “I didn’t see an opportunity to do that here. There were no clubs to work in the States; all you had was stand-up comedy.” The move to Europe followed college training as an actor, 10 years as a carpenter, and “working the streets”--doing his clown act and passing the hat--in Boulder, Colo.

It was in one of his many European festival performances that Shiner was first spotted by members of Cirque du Soleil.

“David is a great communicator, a great mime,” Cirque President Guy Laliberte said. “He can react fast to any situation with the public, work with them in any way possible.” With similar ease, Shiner’s slim, gray-suited clown coexists with the colorful Cirque acts, including a quartet of prepubescent contortionists, a corps of acrobats, tightrope walkers and trapeze artists, a leather-strapped aerialist, a stacked-chair climber and a Chinese foot juggler (of carpets and parasols).

Although the show’s effect is uncompromisingly joyful, Shiner’s clown is rooted in more sober impulses. “It’s a wonderful art form,” he said firmly, noting that his a longtime inspiration in Charlie Chaplin. “It’s been lost and forgotten, but I think people enjoy it, want to see it more. The clown is a very powerful figure in mythology and psychology. He’s the trickster; he’s embedded in everybody’s psyche. That’s why he’s such a fascinating character to play. And it goes a lot deeper than laughter--stuff we’re not even aware of.”

Shiner paused, searching his interviewer’s face for understanding.

“You know, you don’t just put on some makeup and take clown classes: ‘I want to be funny.’ It’s a cathartic process--facing yourself and your limitations, trying to answer deep questions about life and death, truth, identity. Who is this clown? He’s a tragic figure, ‘cause he doesn’t belong; he doesn’t fit in. They reason we laugh is that he’s a mirror. We want to participate, we want to come together because we recognize our own pain, our own confusion.”

Not that Shiner expects people to dip into such deep philosophizing while watching him. “The whole thing is, I want to make them laugh,” he said, pointing to his stomach. I want them to split open.” His first brush with audience-love came in a sixth-grade play, as Bob Cratchit in “A Christmas Carol.” “I just loved it,” he said dreamily. “I loved having the cape and the hat and the makeup. My mother said at the curtain call I stood out in front of everybody and took this big dramatic bow.”

Searching out the spotlight hasn’t always meant an easy life.

After moving several times as a child (once, his father loaded up a semitrailer with all their belongings--including the family car--and drove from Boston to Colorado, with Shiner and his six siblings bumping along in the dark inside), he has reconciled himself to a certain rootlessness as an adult. “I don’t feel that I live anywhere,” he said with a shrug. “But, yes, you do get to a point where you’re fed up with traveling and would like to settle down, have a home, a community.”

Balancing the rigors of life on the road is the constant kick of performing. “I’m always nervous before I step onstage,” he said. “ ‘I’ve got to go out there again--I hope I can pull it off.’ But once they start laughing, it gives me something back, a little shot. Then I go further, and it becomes like an exchange: They give to me, I give to them. And yet going on six months now, nine shows a week, it is a physical demand; my body feels it.”

When the Cirque tour does end, Shiner isn’t sure of his plans.

“It depends on where the job takes me. Doing what I do, there’s no language barrier; I can work almost anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. If something doesn’t develop for me here, I could always go back to Europe--There are many small theaters, and they tend to keep their performers around a long time. The Americans consume quite rapidly. It’s something that frightens me about working here: You’re in, then you’re out. I feel like, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve just spent 13 years developing my act. I don’t want to be in and out.’ ”

“Nouvelle Experience” plays at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, at 6 and 9:30 p.m. Fridays, at 4:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, at 1 and 4:30 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 18 at the Big Top next to the Santa Monica Pier. Tickets are $6 to $19.50 for children, $12.50 to $32.50 for adults. (213) 480-3232.