“What if colonizers were clowns?” asked the clown Sachin Sharma, a question that would guide his and his co-performer Shreya Parashar’s production of Colonial Circus, playing at the Montreal Fringe Festival this week.
“Colonial Circus is a clown buffonesque show that takes on the very heavy topic of colonisation,” says Parashar. While the topic of the show is serious, the actual performance incorporates a lot of audience interaction, improvisation and singing.
Indeed, Parashar and Sharma are, before anything, clowns who will make you laugh. “This is a fun show,” emphasizes Sharma. “For us it is fun to play this out and for people watching, it is very funny and engaging.”
Parashar recalls the origin of the idea for Colonial Circus idea. “I read a beautiful quote that tragedy brewed over time becomes comedy, and I thought, oh, that’s interesting. We all in different parts of the world have gone through this tragedy [of colonisation] and still go through it. We were delving into improv clowning, and we didn’t want it to just be silly funny. There is no problem in silly funny, but we also wanted to address what’s happening around us even today.”
“Colonialism is still happening,” continues Parashar. Palestinians are being driven out, certain parts of Africa are still fighting for their rights, so it’s a sad truth that we are still sitting in, and I had it in my mind to speak about it, as artists. This is the least that we can do.”
While Parashar and Sharma are from Indian backgrounds, they do not focus on colonization in India specifically, and aim instead to showcase the colonizer’s mindset by impersonating them as clowns.
“I think the beauty lies in keeping things open,” explains Parashar. Certain common things happen around the world, whichever part was colonized. And I think that’s why some people, some audiences, really connect to us because their part of the world had similar stories. The whole show has a tone of absurdism in it, which leaves for a lot of potential to extract whatever each different audience wants to get out of it”.
The show itself is indeed a combination of skits and audience interaction that somehow mesh together to convey what is the objectively absurd mindset of colonisation. The crowd work during the show is engaging, often taking the audience by surprise.
“I’m very excited about [the Montreal Fringe],” says Parashar, “because even though the basic bones and structure of our show are there, there are lots of pockets of improvised clowning moments that we discover in the moment, and we are also adding and testing out new material. There is a response mechanism throughout this show, and you really can’t predict that.”
Colonial Circus won Best Comedy Show at Orlando Fringe (2025), and Artist’s Pick at the Toronto Fringe (2024). Shows for the Montreal Fringe Festival are June 7, 8, 11, 14 & 15 in Montreal. Show times and tickets here. The Montreal Fringe continues until June 15. Tickets for all shows HERE. To see our previous reviews, check out Meat Factory : Mommy, Homecumming, and The Routine.
