God’s Comic

Oleg Braude directs God’s Comic, a play inspired in part by The Clown by Heinrich Boll. This famous short novel draws a revealing portrait of German society under Hitler and in the post-war years through the eyes of an artist. In it, a clown has been abandoned by his girlfriend, whom he has considered his wife, and wanders from town to town. He return to his home town to struggle for her, but finds the town against him. She has married in the interim and left, so he is left totally alone on his own. God’s Comic is how he deals with the situation. The book is set specifically in post World War II Germany and describes well what surely were the feelings of many, but the sense of loss, alienation, lack of love, religious doubt set forth in the book go much deeper. There are flashbacks to the Clown’s past, his thoughts and memories, and his present.