To most people, a clown is a silly, jolly figure who wears a red nose and oversized shoes. In an upcoming performance in Northampton, the clown — specifically, in this case, a bouffon — is something far more subversive, outlandish and grotesque.
Performers Joshua Kilcoyne and Stephen Daytime will present “Perfect Beasts,” a performance of two solo bouffon acts, at 33 Hawley in Northampton on Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, from 6 to 7:15 p.m. The two, along with collaborator Jay Dunn, will also host a workshop about the fundamentals of bouffon on Sunday, April 26, from 2 to 6 p.m.
Bouffon is a style of clowning that flips the power dynamics of the typical clown-audience relationship.
“The audience laughs at the clown; the bouffon laughs at the audience,” Kilcoyne said.
Bouffons, according to a press release, are “voracious, lustful, mischievous creatures to whom nothing and no one is sacred. They are seductive mimics and shameless provocateurs who revel in ridiculing everyone and everything around them.”
“The defining dynamic of bouffon is mockery and satire,” Kilcoyne said. “And so it’s playful, it’s funny, and it can be really goofy, but there should be this thread underneath, this idea of satirizing anything about the human condition. The mythology of it is that bouffons are something other than human, and they introduce themselves to humans in order to mock the ridiculous things about human society and human behavior.”
Arguably the most famous example of a bouffon in popular culture is Borat, played by Sacha Baron Cohen — who trained in bouffon with clowning expert Philippe Gaulier — in the 2006 mockumentary “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” In character, Baron Cohen’s hijinks include angering a rodeo crowd, having a religious experience at a church camp meeting and meeting American politicians. The schtick was that many of the movie’s scenes were unscripted encounters with people who thought Borat was a real person.
“What he was doing with Borat was playing an idiot,” Kilcoyne said, but “what he’s doing is the joke — the joke is actually in the people he’s interacting with. He actually knows exactly what he’s doing the whole time.”
In a sense, Daytime said, a bouffon is “a great journalist” — even a fake one — because “the bouffons know everything; they see everything. … They are watching every single damn thing that every single person does, all the different little hypocrisies, and they take it all in, and then pretend to be an idiot so that they can present this to you a little bit innocently.”
Kilcoyne and Daytime met in Montreal in 2024, where they trained under Italian theater artist Giovanni Fusetti. The show premiered in Montreal in December 2025. Kilcoyne, however, first learned about clowning in the Valley — namely at Hampshire College, his alma mater. In fact, his Division III thesis project, which is a yearlong, advanced independent study that serves as the final mandatory capstone for graduation, was a “wordless clown movie.” Following graduation, he took time off from clowning to play music for 10 years.
“It’s only [in] the last five years that I’ve come back around to this part of myself,” he said. “But it did all originate back then, for sure.”
In the first half of “Perfect Beasts,” called “MINOTAUR,” Daytime plays a character wrapped up in the ever-growing rules for life established by “manosphere” culture. Daytime was inspired by author and psychologist Jordan Peterson, a popular figure in that world known for his book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.” Daytime admitted that while he initially found some of Peterson’s videos relatable, he eventually found their message at odds with his personal values. He devised “MINOTAUR” to “work that through and to chew it through.”
His character wears an oversized suit, inspired by bodybuilders’ proportions, and sports orange spray-tanned skin, inspired by the Oompa Loompas of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “other spray-tanned figures,” Daytime said, referencing President Donald Trump, though noting that “it’s not just about him.”
The second act of the show, “MIMI,” features Kilcoyne as a character in a wild, multi-layered black-and-fuchsia outfit inspired by birds of prey and high-end drag performances. At a recent Arts Night Out in Northampton, during which Kilcoyne stood outside 33 Hawley handing out cards, it was 55 degrees — which was perfect, he said. In a warmer setting, he has to make sure he applies makeup heavily, so it doesn’t run.
“But these are the sacrifices we make to do hyper-niche performance art,” he said.
The concept of his act is hyper-individualism: “the implications of focusing so intensely on that or prioritizing it so intensely, perhaps good and bad,” he said. According to the event description, “Each performance serves as an elaborate mating ritual between audience and performer as MIMI struts and serenades through a virtuosic demonstration of why nothing is more important than being singular, sparkling and special.”
“There’s also a lot of room to just play,” Kilcoyne added. “And it’s really important to have that sense of play. Some people get a little worried when they hear, ‘Oh, we’re going to be mocking you.’ It’s a fun atmosphere, and I think part of what the interaction can do is, it can make the room feel really together — like there’s no separation between what’s on stage and the audience — and it can really create a great aliveness.”
Tickets, not including fees, are $20 for adults and $15 for students with ID, and admission to the workshop is $60. Admission to the show is included for those who purchase admission to the workshop. To purchase tickets, visit perfectbeasts.live. This show is not suitable for children under age 12, and there is no intermission.
