"Send In The Clowns"
A Lesson on Performing

Performing is all about communicating the emotion of a song.

Recently, when ScotianAires were working on our ballad in a coaching session with David MacEachern, he mentioned this performance of "Send In The Clowns" by Barbara Streisand. (Song by Stephen Sondheim from the musical "A Little Night Music"). Watch how she puts all her emotions into her face rather than hands and arms.

Here is Sondheim describing what he attempted to do with the song. He explains how it's a song of regret, of an older woman (an actress) too angry to speak, not wanting to make a scene with this man (a former lover) besotted by his eighteen year old wife.

I found several more wonderful performances of this song. Compare them. Notice how these performers capture the anger/regret in quite different ways; how all convey the emotion through their face, with very little hand/body movement!

• Judi Dench
• Glynis Johns
• Glen Close
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Cleo Lane
  

Here Sondheim is coaching a young singer.
In another coaching session he helps the singer understand the emotion and how she might achieve it.