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

Continuing their “Investigations of a Clown” concept which began with the ceaseless workshopping of Beckett’s early and late monologues, Kangalee Arts reunites members Dennis-Leroy and Justine Stock [J. stock Productions] with theatrical poet/author Magus Magnus - to create 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.” How dare one desire to ascend or transcend. Only a clown and poet are foolish to even risk such things!

Kangalee Not Keaton: our bewildered clown is stretched between silent film, beat poetry, revolutionary vaudeville, and nirvana. [Photos by Susan Kingsland, 2021]

For the first time ever, the most mysterious story Henry Miller ever wrote is being adapted to the stage by DC poet/author Magus Magnus & Dennis Leroy Kangalee. 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 his love. Biblical in its truth, Kangalee & 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?

Produced by J. Stock Productions in conjugal with the Henry Miller Memorial Library, Dennis Leroy Kangalee 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, he and co-writer Magus Magnus will offer a glimpse…of their own.