The Clowns Have Come to Save us from AI! Interview with Sara Toby Moore
THE MECHANIX is the newest production from Sara Toby Moore’s Thrillride Mechanics, San Francisco’s theatre of human animation, created and presented with their signature blend of human cartooning, magical realism, a tinge of sci-fi, and soulful storytelling.
The Mechanix is a quixotic story about two ride mechanics at a seaside amusement pier who are faced with a baffling conundrum: people vanishing off their rides without a trace. When a bizarro midway appears alongside the pier’s real one, they are thrust into an alternate dimension where they must navigate a funhouse of characters while discovering their own astonishing secret about identity, loss of enchantment, and the mechanics of how and where we all belong. I spoke with Sara Toby Moore about the show, why we need clowns now more than ever, and, of course, why AI is ruining our society.
Genie Cartier: “Where did the idea for this show come from?”
Sara Toby Moore: “The show’s origin was probably born from my summers at the Jersey shore as a kid. I am also a survivor of Action Park and rode the Cannonball Loop, so the name of the pier in this show is Action Pier as an homage! Boardwalk amusement piers really seem enchanted because of the feeling of being suspended above the sand and ocean, and I always felt there was a secret dimension between the rides. Top that with the idea that we are in a collective, global identity crisis on many levels, and you’ve got the premise for The Mechanix.“
How is a clown show different from a theater or comedy show?
I have a pretty wide definition of what I think a “clown” is, and I’ve done my time as a classic clown with several circuses. But I’m also besotted with Looney Tunes and realized early in life that THIS was what I aspired to be: a human cartoon. To me, there’s a wild kind of expressive freedom that comes with clown work. Not that it always has to be gigantic. It can be a very subtle performance, just infused as hell with charged emotion. The clown is mad truth, even eating a bowl of cereal. My goal is to create otherworldly clown and physical theatre experiences that give people the sense of having visited a goofy, foreign land.
Can you speak to how the show relates to the current state of the world?
The show is basically about our global, collective identity crisis, and that massive issue comes from obvious garbage like greed and supremacy. But if you break it all down, it all comes from loss of enchantment. At least that’s the position of this play. Think about it: people have lost track of who they are for many reasons, resulting in them being in the wrong jobs and positions and harboring awful, divisive belief systems. Perhaps you’ve heard of a few! So The Mechanix is a goofball but soulful treatise on how we fix and restore one another’s enchantment.
What do you want people to know about clowning? What misconceptions do you want to set the record straight on?
Like many professional clowns, I get weary of seeing the word thrown around, along with “circus,” with regard to politics and, in the case of our ailing country, morals. It’s a lazy trope: “That guy’s a clown!” How about “that guy’s an evil fascist dictator?” Call them what they ARE. Leave the clowning to people like us who want to tell highly animated stories and actually make others feel and laugh. And of course, there are many types of clowns, from the red-nose rainbow-wigged ones, to the liquid beauty of Cantinflas, to Pee-Wee Herman, to serious circus clowns. But at its core, it’s realness. Heightened realness and truth in a highly expressive state.
What makes clowning an important force in the world right now?
The Clown will always makes us look for what’s real, and wow, do we need as much of that as we can get in this increasingly fabricated and screen-centered universe. To be able to create experiences for people that mirror the true pathos of being human is the clown’s superpower, and one I work hard to keep doing. Today’s tragedy is tomorrow’s comedy, after all! So all our failures and losses being processed through the lens of empathy and laughter is paramount to this work, and a deeply needed balm for us all.
Why should people get off the couch and come see live performances?
This is it, loves: it’s us against the machines. Not that AI can’t be fun and helpful, but the robotization and automation are at critical mass, in my opinion. There are so many screens, so many platforms, so many things to touch and press that are NOT human. The tech world is so fucking over-jammed with updates and new thingees nearly every day that it’s caused this collective addiction to shit that’s not real. Come see live events: theatre, music, poetry, art, all of it, because it’s REAL. Because your heart and soul need it more than you may even know.
The Mechanix runs August 23rd to September 6th at Z Below. TICKETS AND SHOWTIMES HERE
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