It takes chutzpah to answer a Playbill ad for a clown when you’ve had no clowning experience. But to beat out hundreds of red-nosed, orange-haired applicants and land a job with the greatest clown show on earth, someone would need a virtual black belt in chutzpah.
Someone like Spencer Chandler.
A native San Franciscan and Hebrew Academy graduate, Chandler returns to his hometown to co-star in “Slava’s Snowshow,” the international hit that does for clowning what Cirque du Soleil did for the circus. The show, conceived by and starring Russia’s Slava Polunin, is a clown’s-eye view of winter, childhood and seeing the world anew. It plays at S.F.’s Golden Gate Theatre for three weeks beginning Tuesday, April 11.
When he showed up for his audition two years ago, Chandler wasn’t sure what he was going to do to impress Slava, but he studied the clowns auditioning ahead of him and was determined to stand out from the crowd.
“Three hundred people showed up in different costumes with props,” he remembers. “They asked me to clown around for three minutes. So I sauntered down the aisle pretending to look for my seat, holding a ticket stub.” His comic antics, crawling over people in their seats, worked. He was cast in the show that day.
Chandler has been with “Slava’s Snowshow,” which has toured the world for years, throughout its two-year New York run. It’s a dream job for him.
“I understand the clown tradition of Keaton and Chaplin,” says Chandler, “and the slightly depressive, melancholy and metaphysical wasteland clowns always find themselves in.”
Chandler says his years as a student at S.F.’s Hebrew Academy, with its large Russian-speaking student body, helped him click with Polunin. “I grew up in a school that was 80 percent Russian-immigrant kids,” he says. “My grandfather was from Odessa, so I was hearing Russian all the time, and I appreciated the Russian brand of mischief.”
Chandler speaks Russian now, along with Hebrew, German, Yiddish and some French. Ironically, as a clown in “Slava’s Snowshow,” he speaks not a word, letting his outlandishly costumed body do the talking.
The gift for gab runs in his family. His grandfather was KGO talk-show legend Ira Blue. His father, Sanford Chandler, also had a broadcasting career on KEST. From an early age, it seemed Spencer was born to do the same. He grew up in the Richmond district and, after graduating from Hebrew Academy, attended Washington High School, where he was a member of championship speech teams.
Judaism was important in his household as well. “My mom credits Rabbi Pinchas Lipner [of the Hebrew Academy] with making the case for a Jewish education,” he says. “I liked the experience of being there.”
Chandler’s sister Shana went on to become a cantor. She now serves at a congregation near Los Angeles.
Chandler pursued theater, graduating from UCLA as a German major and later living in Vienna to perfect his German. He then moved to New York to be a full-time actor. He performed for three seasons with the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater, the oldest surviving Yiddish theater in New York. He’s also done guest spots on TV series like “Law and Order” and “Criminal Intent.” And he heads a nonprofit arts organization, Cannery Works.
But “Slava’s Snowshow” takes up most of his time these days, with eight shows (and a million laughs) a week.
Having had this much time in the show, Chandler thinks he has this clown business down, especially the core definition of a clown’s persona.
“Slava says, ‘Imagine yourself being hit in the head with a sandbag. Take away reason and cogency. Whatever is left is your clown persona.’ When you see clowns, they’re all missing something. Clowns are big babies, but in a good way.”
“Slava’s Snowshow” plays 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays and 2 p.m. matinees Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, April 11-May 7 at Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., S.F.
Tickets: $37-$75. Information: (415) 512-7770.