“A Clown is a poet in action.” - Henry Miller

Forget Pagliacci or Tears of a Clown. Auguste is the modern clown for our age.

Continuing their “Investigations of a Clown” concept which began with the ceaseless workshopping of Beckett’s early and late monologues, Kangalee Arts now creates a new mono-drama that promises to leap into the cosmic void to express that remarkable, but tormented, desire that artists undeniably possess:” breaking on through” to the other side in order to grant an audience something holy.

The Modern Holy Fool: Kangalee, Not Keaton Our bewildered clown is stretched between silent film, poetry, revolutionary vaudeville, delirious mime and nirvana.

Only a clown and poet are foolish to even risk such things!

[All Photos by Susan Kingsland, 2021, 2022]

What is it about the smile? How dare one desire to ascend or transcend…

For the first time ever in the USA, the most mysterious story Henry Miller ever wrote is being adapted to the stage & performed by the Kangalee Arts Ensemble. This historical project has been brought to the fore by Justine Stock with the blessings of the Henry Miller Estate…

A radical adaptation of Miller's short story THE SMILE AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER that fuses the personal, the political and the poetic.  This haunting tale about a clown who wishes to imbue everlasting joy to his audience is a heartbreaking parable of the artist's struggle in a society that refuses love.

Dennis Leroy Kangalee & Magus Magnus collaborate to melt the journey of Auguste, the veritable "fool on the hill", with shards of visionary poet Arthur Rimbaud, murdered subway busker Jordan Neely, and echoes of Miller himself -- in a cubistic and transgressive performance that presents both a self-portrait and sharp commentary on art and the society that creates the conditions of which, often, the greatest art is made. 

What happens when the actor no longer loves their art? Or when the art no longer loves them? What happens to the artist when his visionary ambition collides with the hostility of a repressive state?

IN COLLABORATION WITH THE HENRY MILLER MEMORIAL LIBRARY

PRODUCED BY J STOCK PRODUCTIONS

PERFORMED BY DENNIS LEROY KANGALEE

DIRECTED BY MAGUS MAGNUS

WRITTEN BY KANGALEE & MAGNUS

Artwork by Brian Alessandro

Produced by J. Stock Productions in conjugal with the Henry Miller Memorial Library, the Kangalee Arts Ensemble shall return to the terrain of the clown - this time in Henry Miller’s world, not Samuel Beckett’s - and hopefully in between them both, a world of their own.