Monks: these clowns are gifts from God
27 Feb 2025 - Photos by Audrianna Martin Del Campo

Monks takes the adage of clowns as sacred fools to an illogical level of demented delirium. Brother and Brother (that is the extent of their names though they do bestow Brother monikers, ranging from malicious to comical to pointedly absurd, upon us visitors. I will be forever honoured to be Brother Critic, one of the Brother Critics who "came en masse") have invited us into their monastery to, Brother rhapsodizes, "go to the fields to watch the clouds, watch the donkey, and do nothing." Sounds blissful. We are told that this interaction with the outside world only happens every five years, but one begins to suspect that it is might be more frequent, the fearsome Abbot is out and an opportunity has been seized. Both Brothers have tragic back stories, seem a little bored, are curious about the outside world, and as Brother laments, "We're monks, we can't have sex." Before adding, "Unless you teach us." Before adding, "I love mouth." Sexual repression remains a subtext but Monks has way more, and way less, feverish intentions. Blissful it fortunately ain't.

The Brothers' duty at the monastery is to count lentils. Tedious exacting work that they demonstrate and which quickly descends into chaos. Everything the Brothers' touch turns to chaos. Spectacularly so. A lecture on the rules, the sharing of bread and water, a summer storm, all escalate into extravagant lunacy. Extraordinary clown shows build to a moment where the audience is reduced to helpless hysterics and then released. Monks does it twice. Twice before delivering a poignant cathartic moral and then, just because they can, build titters into guffaws into uncontrollable gales of almost physically painful laughter yet again. To attempt to explicate the gags or scenarios would not only be spoilers but would be fruitless, context and skilful seduction are all. As is the element of surprise. There is no way to predict what will happen next as anything can and will happen. Even a prolonged suspenseful reveal that we know is imminent, is stretched torturously in order to wring maximum hilarity when it actually happens.

The skill in Monks construction, no matter how anarchic it appears, can't be underestimated. Each scene or vignette is sustained until the tension or laughter hurts, at which point a lighting change or an ominous chord of music indicates the imminent arrival of the Abbot or a new focus for the Brothers. It is an astoundingly sturdy ramshackle structure that appears effortless and buoyantly aided by moments of improvisation, but was undoubtedly the product of much creative brainstorming and dramaturging derangement into semi-coherence. Co-creators and Brothers Veronica Hortiguela (The Bidding War, Prodigal, Every Little Nookie)  and Annie Lujan (Last Landscape, King Lear) are enthusiastic and fearless. Hortiguela is the meeker but more dangerous Brother who seems eager to please and exuberantly follow the rules. All the more satisfying when this Brother rolls in frantic ecstasy amongst the wet lentils and turns the mildly droll wordplay distinguishing a donkey from an ass, into a physical manifestation of a child's party game from hell. Lujan, eyes darting as they glitter with gleeful malevolence, sports a wandering Sonny Bono moustache and a slippery bald pate. This Brother exhorts, cajoles, demands and combusts into a frantic maelstrom of unrestrained fury and consternation. Frequently.

Combined they are the slapstick solipsistic vaudeville team trope recast as reluctant religious cheerleaders who long only for a break from their toil. To share with us the bliss they claim to have found but which is nowhere in evidence. It is monastery as Tesla factory with all the anti-capitalist, anti-theology criticism that implies. But messaging is subservient to comedy, one suspects that Hortiguela and Lujan will do anything for a hearty laugh. At times they seem to tease, to ask if we think they would dare. Usually just before doing something even more daring than we imagined. Their nervy high wire act negates the normal theatregoer/monastery visitor disdain for audience participation, it is impossible to not be swept up in the Brothers' zany zeal. Of course opening night there was a preponderance of theatre types, clown colleagues, and Brother Critics, all of whom are known to salivate at a chance at the spotlight. Only one luckless, or lucky, novice who was pulled onstage risked humiliation in a particularly brazenly bold set piece. But the benevolent Brothers somehow managed to turn even that into empathetic hilarity that inspired less derision and more the sin of envy. A sin that will be yours if you miss out on this opportunity while the Abbot is away.