By Harry Haun
08 Dec 2008

Polunin's artistry is apparent to all, miming through skit after skit, occasionally rising to gibberish vocal effects a la Chaplin in "Modern Times." Dressed in canary yellow and proudly parading a red-ball nose, he's of the Emmett Kelly sad-clown camp and can turn on a dime from comedy to pathos. In one skit, to the grandly overwrought strains of Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez," he staggers on stage with three arrows sticking out of him, and he carries his death throes into the audience, over seats, into the aisle, before returning center stage to kerplop with finality.

An armada of eight subsidiary slapstickers — done up in drab green, wearing wing-span hats and outsized shoes — had their own chaos going on in concert. They are not above making their own forays into the audience, flinging splashes of water willy-nilly everywhere. And they all wrap it up at intermission when Slava starts tugging a frayed flat that unravels into a huge web that engulfs the audience.

	Producer John Pinckard and agent Jonathan C. Herzog, producer Judith Marinoff Cohn, Daryl Glenn and producer David J. Foster
	photos by Aubrey Reuben

The opening-night party at the Zipper Tavern was billed as "a cocktail reception," which is Russian for "no food." Wines flowed freely, as did the national drink of Russia, wodka. How many glasses of Grey Goose does it take for a clown to take off his makeup and put in a personal appearance? On second thought, don't ask.

The reason it took The Great Man so long to arrive, it turns out, was because he was busy putting on a brand-new clown face. He finally showed up, flanked on the left by his wife (Elena Ushakova, who's a fish-packing clown in the show) and on the right by their son (Ivan Polunin, the leader of the green team and Slava's stringbean bottom banana).

"I have the best library on comedy in the world," crowed Polunin pere, through a translator. "Silent movies and commedia dell'arte and English music hall — all are influences for me. I have 82 movies by Charlie Chaplin, 120 movies by Laurel and Hardy, lots of Harry Langdon. All of the stars of silent films — I have them all."

Why did he opt for Broadway this time when he was such a success Off-Broadway previously? He was candid: "I got bored working every day Off-Broadway. I decided I'd only come here again for a special celebration, and that would be Broadway.

"Every time I come, I bring snow with me," he hooted happily. And, yes, he confirmed that 70 million pieces of paper are consumed for every performance.

Polunin, who created his snowshow 15 years ago and has subsequently flung it at 25 different countries, does not always play the yellow fellow in the center ring. Whenever the mood hits him, he farms it out to Robert Saralp and Derek Scott.

"I did it this afternoon," Scott announced, sans translator. "I don't know the schedule next week, but sometimes we arrive and Slava just says, 'Today you make Yellow.' Otherwise, I play Green. It depends. It's very whimsical. Slava's very open. Sometimes, we play it as two yellows where we do different sections of the show."

Polunin caught the Ottawa-born actor in performance in Europe and immediately invited him into the company. "It was a very high-end kind of variety show, and I was doing a comic American character in a European show," Scott recalled. "Afterward, Slava saw me and said, 'Derek, I want you to come to Moscow for two weeks and perform with me.' I said, 'Okay.' No contract. No talk of money. No talk about accommodations. It was just like being 'I want you to come and perform with me in my home country.' And that was enough. The sincerity and the openness of the gift — it was just being invited into someone's home. All the details fell into place. We got tickets and visas and all that, but it was two human beings saying, 'I want to work with you.' Then, later, he said, 'Let's work some more.' It was as simple as that."

Scott can attest to how Polunin is revered back home in Mother Russia. "Slava kinda peaked when perestroika was happening, when Russia was starting to open up. Being freed from those constraints, people developed a fondness for Slava and his light spirit. His troupe ended up riding the waves of this bigger movement, in some ways like The Beatles did and Bob Dylan did and Andy Warhol did. Slava came to represent this movement. Today, in Russia, Slava Polunin is known by everyone."

And how old would he be? "No idea," said Scott. "He's ageless." It's the right answer.

The curtain call at opening night of Slava's Snowshow
photo by Aubrey Reuben

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