Therapeutic Clown Gives a Dose of Laughter

 

September 29, 2011

 

When Esther Blumwald walks into a room, people laugh — and then they may ask if she made her jacket, colourful and full of patches and frills.

“Did you make it?” I ask her, following suit.

“No, no, no. I found it many years ago. Long before. I think I had this clowning inside me,” she says.

 

Two years ago, when Esther Blumwald was laid off from the Board of Jewish Education at UJA, she wasn’t sure what she would do next — until a group of therapeutic clowns from Israel visited her theater group to give a workshop.

 

“I just fell in love with the whole thing,” Esther says. “This is my calling.”

 

She spent four months in Israel completing a therapeutic clowning program and her internship. But once back in Toronto, Esther was surprised at how difficult it was to find a job as a therapeutic clown, as in Israel every hospital has these jesters on staff.

 

“So I decided I’ll volunteer,” she says. “I love to do this.”

 

Most people think of child patients when they think of therapeutic clowns, and even though she has also been trained to work with children, Esther, currently volunteering at Mount Sinai and Baycrest, visits adults and seniors.

 

“Everybody benefits from it,” she says. “We all need a little cheering up sometimes.”

 

Dressed in patched-up jean overalls, a colourful tie, and a red-and-white polka-dot hat and sporting a red nose, Esther, known as Esti the Clown, makes her rounds bringing laughter to patients.

 

A therapeutic clown is not a performing clown — there’s no juggling or balloon animals. “It’s a tool to communicate with a sick person,” Esther says.

 

Esti wears a simple costume and subtle makeup. She waits quietly at the entrance of each room for permission to enter. And what transpires inside the room has a lot to do with the patient. They may want to joke around or simply ask about her colourful jacket.

 

“There was one room I went in and I saw a man playing cards by himself,” Esther says. “So I sat down and I played cards with him.”

 

Others want to talk. “Sometimes they need somebody to listen.”

 

But it can’t be all laughter and smiles when one is exposed to so much pain and hardship. “I went through some very difficult things in the hospital,” Esther says. “I couldn’t get over it for a week.” But, she says, “When you see misery disappear even for a couple of minutes, it’s like the whole world shines.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esther Blumwald going off to work in her full colourful regalia