Aga Boom is not for those who don't like fun

The marketing pitch for the theatrical clown act Aga-Boom, which will serve up two shows at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on October 11, goes like this: The fusion of minimalist performance art, funky music, slapstick clowning and a European avant-garde style yields an experience enjoyable by all. Young, old. American, Russian. Unschooled, overeducated.

Don’t believe it.

Well, you can trust the part about the act appealing to all ages across nationalities and the fact that it’s sophisticated and silly all at once. The show has three characters (who go by the names Aga, Dash and Boom), one of whom is tormented by a big red button that carries the warning “Do not touch.” It’s touched. Mayhem ensues.

But the truth is Aga-Boom is not for everyone.

For instance, it’s not good for people who require a plot to sustain their interest for 75 minutes of zany theater. It’s dreadful for curmudgeons. It’s downright dangerous for those allergic to fun. And it’s hardly ideal entertainment for the extremely fastidious or those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The name Aga-Boom, after all, is an inversion of the Russian word for paper, which sounds like “boomaga.” By the show’s finale, as heaps of crumpled paper stack higher and deeper across the stage and streams of paper (along with humungous garbage bags) shoot through the air with impressive speed into the audience, there’s no mystery left about the act’s name or why it’s all mixed up.

“There are two ways to do a show,” explained Dimitri Bogatirev, creator and cast member of Aga-Boom and longtime veteran of Cirque du Soleil, during a phone interview last week from his home in Las Vegas. The first is “with a high, big budget, like Cirque, where you can buy everything you want,” he said. The other is “with only three clowns who have to use garbage and make this garbage interesting to the audience.”

Prepare to be awed, perhaps even touched, by trash.

Mr. Bogatirev, 45, was born in the

Ukraine and developed his current artistic sensibilities in Russia in the 1980s when a new breed of clown was emerging: clowns who act. He never worked a children’s party. He never traveled with a classic, big-top circus. He claims he’s the only person alive who has performed on military bases for the Russians (in Afghanistan, 1985) and Americans (in Japan, 2006). “All the world is upside down 20 years later and the comedy is still the same,” he remarked.

He and his wife, fellow Aga-Boomer Iryna Ivanytska, spent seven years as part of the Cirque du Soleil troupe, including three in Las Vegas in the original cast of the Cirque show “O,” before breaking off and forming their own troupe.

“Seven years is enough for most things—even marriage,” Mr. Bogatirev joked. “I was doing 10 shows a week … It was good work and good money, but my heart is open to smaller theaters where people can talk with me after the show.”

In his heart of hearts, Mr. Bogatirev would like to crisscross the United States, playing small theaters, arenas, open fields—anywhere—with Aga-Boom, using his talents to spread “positive energy, which keeps the family happy.” But he says that an entire generation of Americans has developed a serious phobia of clowns, after seeing them portrayed as negative characters in countless movies, including “Batman,” the “Saw” franchise, and many other horror films.

“Thank you, Hollywood,” he chides.

As such, American theater owners don’t book clown acts with great frequency, he said. But Aga-Boom, assured Mr. Bogatirev, is an antidote to the clown phobia. “One man came up to me after a show and said, ‘My daughter was afraid of clowns, but she saw the show and now we’ve seen it six times,’” Mr. Bogatirev recalled.

He takes great pride in stories like that, which reinforce his belief that the appeal of Aga-Boom is its purity of entertainment. “I’m not joking about politics. I’m not joking about my wife. We’re joking about ourselves and people completely forget about their problems outside the theater,” he said, adding: “We use minimum action for maximum reaction and maximum excitement.”

It’s a satisfying accomplishment for Mr. Bogatirev to build an act around facial expressions, tightly choreographed movements, audience interaction, moments of improvisation, and a few choice props in order to give audiences as much joy as they’d get out of a Cirque du Soleil show on a fraction of the budget, with a miniscule crew.

It’s theatrical clowning, pure and simple. Something everyone—save for the terminally grumpy—can enjoy.

Aga-Boom will present two shows—at noon and 4 p.m.—on Saturday, October 11, at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $20, $35 and $50, available by calling the Arts Center box office at 288-1500, stopping by the PAC at 76 Main Street in Westhampton Beach, or online at www.WHBPAC.org.