Burn bouffant burn

Grotesque and offensive Gustavo pushes
the boundaries of clowning

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Dean Bareham aka Gustavo

Age: 40

Occupation: Bouffant

Bio: This happy Plateau clown recently transplanted his act from Calgary to Montreal in order to be closer to his girlfriend, who works for Cirque du Soleil. A one-time performance artist who was kicked out of art college “because they’re all about this serious, heavy stuff and I was trying to do something funny,” a determined young Dean made his way to California to study at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre instead, and immediately upon graduation, “hit the streets” of Europe to work as one half of Madame Larosa’s whipping act—he literally being the whipping boy. “I eventually just got so tired of being nailed by that fuckin’ whip, I finally went, ‘Fuck this’ and quit. That’s when Gustavo went solo.” These days, Gustavo is nothing short of a phenomenon in clown circles, having recently sold out a 1,200-seat venue in Calgary three nights in a row, proving once and for all that Albertans just ain’t like the rest of us. He’ll be appearing as part of Circo d’Hiverno at Theatre Ste-Catherine, March 12–15.

How bouffant clowns differ from those who make balloon animals: “Bouffants tend to be grotesque—like, deformed. Gustavo has these huge shoulders and used to have a giant bulge in the front of his pants, I’d keep my lunch bag down there. He’s never had a clown nose. He started off as a very dark character but kept scaring people away so I kind of had to lighten him up a bit, nerdify him a little.”

Outside of John Wayne Gacy perhaps, what’s so scary about a clown? “His frenetic, chaotic energy. Like, I’d get kids to come onstage, but when they’d be approached by this strange clown with a giant bulge in his pants, like, that made some people slightly uncomfortable. A lot of Europeans dug it, understood it, but when I brought Gustavo back to Canada, it was, like, whoa, people wouldn’t hire me unless I took the giant bulge out of my pants. So now he doesn’t look quite so disgusting. But he still walks the edge, you know, there’s a lot of fart humour, ass humour, that kind of thing.”

But does Gustavo also do any lowbrow humour? “You know, people can still really find him offensive. Because anything can happen. I’ve had fights start in the middle of my shows, there’s a lot of interaction, playing with the audience, provoking them, making Gustavo somebody they love to hate. So at the end of the show, when I light myself on fire, everybody is ecstatic because they all want to see the clown burn.”

Something Dean/Gustavo never expected: Groupie/stalkers. “It’s bizarre. I’ll do shows and some kid will come up saying, ‘My mom wants your phone number.’ Last year, this woman started stalking Gustavo wherever he’d go. Like, I’d do a gig and she’d just be there—using her kid as a prop to break the ice. Eventually, I’d have to tell festivals not to let her backstage because she kept stalking me. But she still kept trying to track Gustavo down.”

Last book read: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama.

Musical preferences: Black Keys, Radiohead, Yma Sumac.

Words of wisdom: “Go big or go home and fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

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