It’s 1:30 a.m., and a Clown Wants to Fix You

Around 2 a.m. one current Saturday, Julia Masli laughed as she glided as much as an viewers member in a sweaty basement room at Edinburgh’s Monkey Barrel comedy membership.

Wearing a ghostly outfit with dolls’ legs sticking from a black hat, she pointed a microphone on the panicked-looking man and requested a easy query: “Problem?”

After a confused “Er,” he blurted out a real challenge for most individuals within the basement. “I’m quite warm,” he mentioned.

Masli, trying involved, led the person onstage and made him sit on a stool. Then she pulled an enormous electrical fan from a close-by cabinet and duct-taped him to it.

As the viewers laughed, the clown was already shifting on. “Problem?” she mentioned, pointing the microphone at one other viewers member.

Masli’s present “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” (operating by Aug. 27) has turn into the shock hit of this yr’s Edinburgh Fringe, Britain’s largest arts and comedy pageant. She thought of it a piece in progress and had deliberate for less than two weeks of performances, however word-of-mouth enthusiasm and rave newspaper critiques rapidly offered out the run, forcing Masli to increase it in the one out there time slot: 1:30 a.m.

On Wednesday, the present was nominated for the perimeter’s fundamental comedy award, and Masli introduced a three-week London run subsequent yr.

Viggo Venn, one other clown and Masli’s companion, mentioned the present had gripped audiences as a result of “it feels so risky and exciting,” with little risk of planning. “She just has to trust the comedy gods that something magical will happen,” Venn mentioned. “And it does. Every day.”

In one current present, Venn recalled, a person mentioned he had a strained relationship along with his mom, so Masli referred to as her at 2 a.m., resulting in an emotional chat onstage. That wasn’t one thing you get from many comedy acts, Venn mentioned.

During a current interview in an Edinburgh pub, Masli, 27, mentioned she developed reveals by developing with video games to play, “and then from those I find where the meat is.” Last yr, she began a routine the place she’d stroll as much as viewers members and say “Ha” in more and more foolish methods, seeing how they responded. If they echoed her, she tinkled a bell. If they misplaced the phrasing, she screamed.

One evening, she determined as a substitute to say “Problem?” and see what occurred. She discovered that viewers members rapidly shared startling tales. Working with Kim Noble, a efficiency artist, she mentioned they realized: “This is it. The ‘Problem?’ is the show.”

Performing “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” has modified Masli’s personal perspective on the world, she mentioned. At an early present, a person mentioned he was obese, so she started operating across the venue with him to assist him burn energy. “It was wild,” she recalled.

But when one other man mentioned he too felt fats, she mentioned, she concluded the issue lay not with the lads, however with how society noticed them. She requested different viewers members in the event that they felt the person seemed obese, then kicked out anybody who agreed.

“Clown is really about connection,” Masli mentioned within the interview when requested why she thought the present was a hit. “Maybe right now everyone just wants to be connected.”

The daughter of two attorneys, Masli grew up in Tallinn, Estonia, till age 12 when her mother and father despatched her to a women’ boarding faculty in England. Masli has mentioned she spoke so little English on the time that she would mime to be understood.

As a teen, her coronary heart was set on changing into an actor and performing the good tragedies on London phases. She auditioned for British drama colleges, she mentioned, “but got nowhere because I had this really strong accent.” So she moved to Étampes, France, to review underneath Philippe Gaulier, a clowning teacher whose previous college students embody Sacha Baron Cohen.

For 9 weeks of a 10-week module, Masli mentioned, she didn’t make anybody chuckle. In the ultimate week, Gaulier informed her to carry out as a plumber. She got here onstage, seemed on the pipes and mentioned, “Oh, God.” When everybody fell about, she couldn’t cease fascinated about how one can make it occur once more.

Venn, Masli’s companion, mentioned there was one thing in Masli’s eyes — “this innocent but cheeky look” — that might make anybody chuckle with a look.

After returning to London, Masli struggled to make it as a clown. At one level, she stopped performing for 18 months and have become so depressed she couldn’t get off the bed. Things solely modified in 2019, she mentioned, when she took her first present, “Legs,” to the Fringe. Made with the Duncan Brothers, two different clowns, it featured skits comparable to Masli shaking fingers with viewers members utilizing her ft.

Only two individuals noticed the primary efficiency, Masli recalled, however the present gained a prize for comedian innovation. Masli now tries to focus on the appendage in all her reveals. “‘Legs’ saved me,” she mentioned. “It was the biggest ‘Keep going.’” Last yr, she returned to Edinburgh with “Choosh!” a solo present a couple of migrant struggling to make it within the United States, for which The Daily Telegraph named her the Fringe’s “best sad clown.”

Both these reveals featured some viewers interplay, however nothing in comparison with what occurs in “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.” During the current Saturday efficiency, the issues ranged from the trivial (somebody’s glasses have been damaged) to the seemingly insurmountable (a person mentioned he was a hypochondriac). Masli tried to resolve all of them.

She solely appeared stumped as soon as, when an viewers member mentioned that she was devastated after splitting up along with her girlfriend. Masli empathized, however that didn’t appear to assist. She solicited relationship recommendation from different viewers members. That didn’t work, both. So Masli steered one thing a bit extra left discipline: that the particular person crowd surf.

Approaching 2:30 within the morning, the viewers member leaped into the group, who then carried her from the entrance of the room to the again. Her heartbreak was removed from solved, however for a minute, a minimum of, she appeared to overlook all about it.