Paolozzapedia: clowns, puppets, death, bowel movements and Italian stereotypes
20 Feb 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Graham Isador

Way back in May of 2015, I had the honour of interviewing Adam Paolozza on the eve of Bad New Days first presentation of Paolozzapedia as part of the RISER Project. As happens more often than I would like, I didn't get to experience the actual show, so I was excited when Paolozzapedia returned to Theatre Passe Muraille for a full scale production. Especially as I did see Paolozza's impressive turn in the impressive Flashing Lights. And any production utilizing puppets and clowning is worth investigating.

Paolozzapedia is visually stunning. Simple stark black and white elements flow across the stage creating visions and ideas. The lighting and sound boards, and the deadpan technician/performer Matt Smith, are situated to the side of the stage encased by what appears to be a working kitchen. The stage is strung with laundry - white shirts, onesies, tighty whities, etc - out to dry, and curtains on wheels, evocative of the room dividers in a hospital, frame the action, concealing and revealing in constant motion. It is all very elaborately choreographed and enticing.

At one point Paolozza and his accompanying masked clowns - Maddie Butista, Eduardo Dimartino and Christina Serra - turn a sheet on the floor into a rippling ocean (representing the water separating Canada and Italy?) that is then airborne as a magnificent white balloon. The balloon settles to become a bedsheet covering Paolozza's sleeping parents. All that elaborate beauty for a scene transition. With Paolozzapedia, that is the rule instead of the exception. 

A microwave becomes a cue and timer for a television's omniscient chatter, the grandparent puppets (by Graeme Black Robinson) are delightful with a subtle breathtaking surprise, Paolozza dares to push the bawdy into the scatological, the hand puppets (by Jesse Byiers of Chautauqua) are presented in a gorgeous organic framing and get the best one-liner of the night. There are surprises at every turn but they are quickly over and Paolozzapedia restlessly moves on to something else. Paolozza has introduced the show in a concerning prologue that even his abundant charm can't negate, and there is considerabe heavy-handed narration that attempts to add heft to the proceedings.

The connections can all be made if one concentrates and listens to the narration attentively. But elements are given short shift - the sensory smell of the kitchen is glossed over and the grandparent puppets serve little purpose beyond a sight gag that is clumsily inserted - and the narration promises emotional connections that aren't visually represented or enhanced. It is as if the pieces are just short of cohering. At the end Paolozza tells us that what is important is the "now," the connection within the theatre. For a play purportedly about the immigrant experience, the past and his relationship with his ailing father, it feels like an excuse. For a performance piece about clowns exploring a fear of death and Italian stereotypes, it sort of works.

We are told that a defining moment was when at "two or three," Paolozza expressed the wish that he was still a baby. He laments "the burden of consciousness." In that context the obsession with bowel movements, the moment, and the entrancement of moving white on black, makes sense. There is a childlike wonder haloing Paolozzapedia, a clownlike innocence of everything being discovered for the first time. So when we are told that there is no epiphany beyond experiencing the "now," I almost bought it. I just suspect that the next iteration of Paolozzapedia may not need the narration to state its themes and may find the balance to express those themes directly to the subconscious, the way the best clowns and puppets dare to do.