As a child, Thom Monckton always dreamt of being a concert pianist, but was afraid of hitting a wrong note at a crucial moment.
“I used to watch classical music performances. I remember just watching them and being really quite afraid, because their performance seemed so perfect, if they were to make a mistake, it would stand out so badly.”
In a sense, Thom’s nightmare has come true. In his solo contemporary clown routine, ‘The Pianist’, he portrays a self-important musician whose solo piano performance meets with catastrophe after catastrophe. “It's about a pianist who thinks he's pretty great, but has difficulty getting around to playing the piano, and pretty much everything that could go wrong for him does, and 500 times as bad.”
Funny though it may be, the inspiration is close to home. “I always had aspirations to be a pianist, but then I realised how much practice was involved. Then I discovered circus, which is way more fun.” Thom’s empathy is not limited to the pianist. “I think the most stressed out person must be the page turner, the person who sits behind the pianist and turns the page. The pianist is always regarded as super important, so I just imagine the amount of pressure the page turner must be under.”
Does Thom worry that an uninitiated audience might take the show seriously, and think he is simply an incredibly unlucky pianist? “No. Not for the whole show anyway. There was an elderly couple who went to see the show, and they actually thought it was a normal piano recital. My girlfriend was in the audience, and sitting behind them, she told me they were commenting all the way through, 'ooh, no, what's he going to do', but they caught on about halfway through.”
{youtube}XsbdZUJI6I0{/youtube}
Indeed, Thom has given similar, intentionally-incompetent performances before. “One of my favourite gigs in Finland was actually performing at a music festival. All the other shows were real music, and mine was the anomaly. After the performance a lot of the professionals came up to me and said, 'thank you, it was such a relief to see someone completely screw it up.'” Thom sees this sort of routine not only as a comedy piece, but as a way to take pressure off other musicians.
Although it is a solo show, ‘The Pianist’ is a more collaborative effort than Thom has been used to previously, as he worked in its creation with Finnish circus troupe Circo Aereo. “They're a great company. For me it was the first experience I'd had with working with a budget, and working with any kind of support, so it was amazing. I would come up with an idea, and there would be someone who would work to create that idea, instead of it being impossible because we didn't have the funding, so that was really great. The choreographic approach brought a richness to it that I haven't experienced before.
“There are more people involved in the creation of it, and I kind of realised that I'm not the best person to do all the jobs. I chose the music and the costume and the lights and everything for 'Moving Stationery', whereas in 'The Pianist' there was someone who designed the lights, designed the costumes, and there was someone who did the music. They were all professionals in that field, and obviously, they were much, much better. So I think that was a really good revelation. There are some people who are a lot better at particular elements of the creation. I'm pretty confident in my ability and performance, but in terms of musicians, it's better to leave musicians to make the music.”
Despite appearances, Thom assures that he did not intend his show to be make fun of musicians. “I didn't want to be critical of musicians themselves, I have nothing but respect for classical musicians, it was more to do with the pressure of the classical form, the strive for perfection, and how easy it is to fall off the pedestal.”
A pedestal that Thom won’t be volunteering to mount any time soon.
'The Pianist' performs The Royal Croquet Club 13 February – 5 March as part of Adelaide Fringe Festival which runs 12 February – 14 March.
