Not I (as that misery, Samuel Beckett, put it). The general idea is to have a good time with clowns, and usually I like nothing more. But you must never feel isolated by comedy. Laughter revels in the company it keeps. The wise theater saying goes, "We laugh together and grieve privately." But what if the clowning leaves you feeling lonely?

The much-admired Mr. Irwin isn't to blame. Well, not entirely. I found his 75-minute Harlequin Studies , the first show of his season at the Signature, too studious . His series of traditional commedia dell'arte sketches proved a rarefied enchantment zone-a schoolroom guide in muted good taste to such high-flown concepts as "Archetype and Individual." But all I craved was the custard pie.

I thought at the time that why we laugh at certain things rather than others was an unsolvable mystery of the universe. After all, people suddenly burst out laughing at funerals. There they are, laying a loved one to rest, and they're in uncontrollable fits of laughter! The tears roll just the same.

As I say, it makes no sense. And what makes you laugh needn't tickle my fancy (and vice versa). Or, as the comic said whenever a routine was greeted with a tremendous round of indifference, "Suit yourselves!"

But I had higher hopes for Mr. Irwin's second offering in the Signature series, a revival of his 20-year-old tour de force about the very nature of clowning and theater, The Regard of Flight , though it's been blandly renamed, for some reason, The Regard Evening . The key word was flight . Mr. Irwin declares that he's trying to flee the old and traditional in favor of "the new, new theater" (which includes "the new, new ventriloquism," which looks like the old, old ventriloquism to me). And his clown also appears to be fleeing some mysterious thing -a threat, a death sentence.

The moment Mr. Irwin approaches the wings, weird, unseen forces try to drag him off, as if giving him the hook. He's at his rubbery best-and funniest-when he's scrambling desperately against the magnetic pull of gravity. Besides, he exists only onstage. Oblivion is found in the wings.

Yet he sleeps lightly . The opening image shows Mr. Irwin contentedly asleep in bed in his red-striped jammies. He seems to be floating in a surreal dreamland an inch or two above the bed. He shrinks in size wonderfully, too. In Act II, his now middle-aged self becomes this tiny, bent old clown-crone en route to dissolving like the Wicked Witch. Mr. Irwin's miraculous physical dexterity is beyond question, of course. But who is he? A bewildered innocent won't quite do it. He knows too much. Who is he playing?

My problem with Mr. Irwin is that he's playing at being a clown. The Regard Evening once again has the feel of the classroom-of demonstrations made and lessons earnestly learned (and overintellectualized ideas easily debunked). It's a livelier class than the solemn Harlequin Studies , but a Clown School even so, and one possessing its own brand of pretension.

The composer and pianist, Doug Skinner, thus acts as a kind of all-knowing director, teacher at the podium and stage hand. "Warning!" Mr. Skinner announces, for example. "Costume change!" The stage hand's unseen, scary instructions-"Stand by!"-are a device long since used by the French Absurdists. But as Mr. Irwin changes into a clown's costume displayed like a totem, Mr. Skinner will then inform us drolly that they are "demystifying the theater process" or making "a formalist construct" of the "postmodern."

Intended to satirize the jargon of drama schools, it only strikes me as smug-an easy joke at the expense of obvious artiness that's already been told many, many times before. In his youth, Mr. Irwin studied with the theater theorist and intellectual Herbert Blau. "Bill," observes Mr. Skinner during Mr. Irwin's really unfunny send-up of an actor trying to perform a Shakespeare parody, "I'm not following your choices at all …. "

Who is? But it's enough, apparently, for Mr. Irwin to hit a facile populist note to bring down the house. His other longtime collaborator, Michael O'Connor, functions as some kind of arch critic or conscience. "Warning!" you might think. "Another dated idea …. "

"Are you a voice in my head?" Mr. Irwin balefully asks his conscience-critic within. Deep down, you see, he's a neurotic clown. He worries . He doesn't touch us, as clowns must. He's being dragged away by unseen forces, he hates drama schools, he's very busy being intellectual about not being intellectual, and now he's hearing voices. His onstage toilet is also perilously out of reach, and I haven't been feeling too great myself lately. But, at best, it's all too precious for me, too "knowing," too "human."

It's not what I'm used to. All clowns are acts of nostalgia, except to the child. They are our childhood memories rekindled. Thomas Mann, no less, described clowns in Confessions of Felix Krull as "basically alien beings … side-splitting, world-renouncing monks of unreason, cavorting hybrids, part human, part insane art." For me, the clowns of my childhood were precisely that- not really human . They were exotic, mysterious and mad. They smelled of sawdust and seemed to come from another planet, like aliens. They were a source of wonder .

I saw a fabulous clown recently at Circus Oz , the lunatic Australian traveling circus at the New Victory Theater. The show opened with the entry of the veteran clown, Tim Coldwell, who came on walking upside-down on the roof of the stage to the music of "Send in the Clowns." He astonished me! He was walking upside down about 40 feet in the air. I realize he did it with magnetic boots, but still- you try it! He sat at a table stuck to the ceiling and had a little whisky from a glass. Then he sort of walked upside down into his floppy clown jacket and zoomed perilously down a pole head first to the stage-or earth.

When I was 6 or 7, the best of all the clowns were Charlie Cairoli and Paul, and I saw them every year when the circus came to town. Charlie was the adored red-nose clown in baggy pants. He was all custard pies and buckets of water. Paul was the white-face clown, always immaculate in his dazzling Pierrot costume in the dust and dirt of the circus ring. But the funnier the outrageous Charlie became, the sadder Paul was. I could never understand it. In the midst of Charlie's chaos, Paul played a saxophone, and the sound he made was like a wail of grief. I remember asking my parents, "Why is Paul so sad when Charlie is so happy?" But they never told me.

Mr. Irwin's ironic "new, new theater" doesn't take me-or him-forward into the future. In fact, he's sentimental about the past and the noble heritage of clowns. But it isn't his fault in this regard: He can't return me to the innocence of childhood where "art" doesn't exist, or where comedy and tragedy once lived unknown to me in foreboding partnership.

I know what you're thinking: It must have been a really slow news day if they couldn't find anything better to write about than a dog's birthday party. Either that, or Italian journalistic standards are even lower than ours. Both assumptions are probably true.

However, Skippy's isn't the average dog's birthday party. It takes place on the terrace of the Hotel des Bains on the Lido, the grand Art Nouveau hotel that serves as the backdrop for Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and also for the Visconti movie based on the book.

Furthermore, anywhere from 50 to 100 people will attend, and the party has been going on for almost 40 years. We're currently on Skippy No. 4. My mother gives all her dogs the same name to ensure continuity, and she even insists that they be born in August because she feels that Leos are more sociable.

In any case, the first story appeared in Corriere della Sera a few days before the party. Unfortunately, the reporter neglected to interview my mother, Skippy or any other family member. We believe the mole may have been the photographer my mom hires to take souvenir pictures of Skippy and his guests. He'd approached her with an interview request from a reporter, and she'd passed along the query to me. I didn't pursue it because, frankly, the party is just an excuse for old friends to get together, not a public spectacle.

The resulting story stated that Skippy's birthday would be celebrated on Aug. 14. The correct date was Aug. 17, as it always is. They also misstated Skippy's breed, calling him a pug when he's a Boston terrier. Adding insult to injury, they referred to my mother as an "old lady"-twice.

The next piece, which came out a couple of days later in Il Gazzettino , the local Venetian paper, was even worse. It repeated the mistakes from the previous story (they didn't bother to interview anybody, either) and described my mother as an eccentric American billionaire.

That would be nice if it were true. But it wouldn't be true even if the Italian currency was still the lira. But now that we were suddenly linked to the likes of Warren Buffett and Silvio Berlusconi, we started to worry that someone, perhaps the Italian Mafia, might kidnap our kids-or, worse, Skippy.

Maybe we were overreacting. But sure enough, barely a day after the first story appeared, Skippy came down with a bizarre illness. He started to suffer from paralyzing attacks that turned his body into agonizing knots and made breathing almost impossible. It crossed our minds that someone, perhaps a member of the hotel staff-perhaps the waiter who delivered Skippy's dinner every night and seemed a little off-might be trying to poison him.

What made the situation unbearable, especially for my mother, is that Skippy is normally the most peppy of pets. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe him as hyperactive. I remember when I drove my mother down to Maryland five years ago to pick Skippy up from his breeder. Skippy's mother, aunt, brothers and sisters were also there, and they were out of their minds, too.

Somehow, Skippy managed to appear normal-even placid by comparison to the rest of his family-resting peacefully in my mother's lap until she signed the check. He hasn't taken a break since.

For example, like most dogs, he likes to play fetch. Except Skippy will keep returning his tennis ball or squeaky toy and proceed to whine-whether you toss the object five times or a thousand times-until you literally have to threaten to beat him with a stick; at which point he slinks off, looking back over his shoulder, with a sinned-against expression.

Then there's his panting. It's so relentless that my mother has stopped wearing her hearing aid because the noise drives her crazy-not that she loves him any less.

Finally, there's Skippy's jumping. When you least expect it, he'll leap at you (he can jump almost to the height of a fully grown man), scoring a direct hit to your balls on the way up.

A veterinarian was summoned to the hotel after Skippy's first attack, but he couldn't find anything wrong with him. Once the attack passed, Skippy seemed to recover completely. The doctor left behind a prescription for a muscle relaxant, best wishes for a speedy recovery and a substantial bill with the concierge.

Unfortunately, Skippy hadn't completely recovered. Less than an hour before his birthday party, he was struck by his most severe attack. The hors d'oeuvres had already been set out on silver platters in the hotel's Thomas Mann room, peach juice and champagne to make bellinis were at the ready, and a sign that directed well-wishers to "Skippy's Birthday Party" in both English and Italian had been posted in the lobby.

Upstairs, we waited and prayed for Skippy's recovery. The animal couldn't move, and my mother-whose passion for her dog is complete-wasn't much better. She somehow managed to get dressed and go downstairs to greet her guests, even though it appeared increasingly likely that Skippy's birthday party would have to go on without Skippy.

The way the party works is that my kids and my brother's kids (six in all) make a triumphal entrance with Skippy once all the guests are assembled. These days, we communicate via walkie-talkie: I give them the word when the moment has arrived and Skippy bursts in-panting like a maniac, of course-to greet his guests and eat his cake.

However, this year it seemed more like a death watch as I radioed up to the room, only to be told that Skippy's condition wasn't improving. Just as hope was running out, Benito, the hotel masseur, got word of Skippy's plight and rushed to the rescue. I wasn't there, but I've been told that Benito gave the pet a massage, kneading his hind quarters, while explaining something about unblocking his energy.

Sure enough, Skippy began to recover. It's possible it was just the muscle relaxant kicking in. Nonetheless, Benito achieved something like rock-star status with the family: Five minutes later, Skippy was making his entrance at his party. His cake, the size of a Fiat Uno and bearing his likeness, was wheeled out and, as in years past, Skippy posed for photographs with his guests. The party even attracted a couple of gate crashers-drawn either by the press coverage or the sign in the lobby-who loaded up on free canapés.

Skippy seems to have recovered completely, though he's still undergoing tests. And from that day on, every time Benito arrives to give my mother a massage, Skippy rolls over to have his own butt rubbed. And when it comes to the press, we've learned our lesson: The only way to control them is to cooperate and spin them. In the end, it was my fault for not calling that reporter back; next year, I'm thinking of hiring a publicist.

"You really ought to see if you can upgrade to business class," the boy, who couldn't have been more than 10, stated enthusiastically. "It's worth the extra money."

I wanted him to leave, but he launched into a recitation of the fun that awaited him and his family, including individual TV monitors into which he could hook his PlayStation and play video games clear across the Atlantic. The boy went on that it would be great if he could persuade his dad to move back to coach so that our kids could come forward and experience the excitement for themselves. But he didn't see that as a realistic possibility, since his dad was also a video-game fanatic. He mimicked his father at the controls, his body lurching backward and forward as he zapped terrorists or space aliens.

The bespectacled young man ended his visit by confiding that he much preferred Business Elite to first class (and asked me whether I shared his sentiments). The flight attendants never left you alone in first class, he noted, constantly plying you with food and gifts. In business class, one did get the occasional breather.

The boy finally took leave of our table, but his words echoed in his wake, and I started feeling bad for me and lousy for my kids. I knew it was absurd, petty, spoiled. My kids had just spent a month in Europe-riding the roller coaster at Tivoli Gardens, encountering a moose in the wilds of Sweden, buying Versace jeans in Venice (when you're 13, as my older daughter is, shopping constitutes a peak experience). But now I felt as if they were deprived.

While I'm aware that many people flying first and business class are doing so on frequent-flyer miles, I couldn't help but see the incident as a metaphor for life in America these days. We're rapidly becoming a banana republic, where the rich are at the controls and everyone else is crossing themselves in the back of the plane.

And Delta, our carrier, did nothing to repair my wounded self-esteem. I'm convinced that the airlines have configured coach class not as a way to eke out a profit, but as a form of punishment for those who can't afford business class. The seats feel like stocks. It's virtually impossible for someone of my height-6-foot-2-to take a flight without requiring arthroscopic surgery upon arrival. The restrooms are approximately as fresh-smelling as the Port-O-Sans at Woodstock, and the harried flight attendants regard you with incredulity when you request something as modest as an extra packet of sugar.

All this after rubbing your nose in the rewards of wealth by forcing you to march past the already-seated business-class passengers on your way back to the brig as they familiarize themselves with the controls on their Barcaloungers and avert their eyes at your misery.

Flying tourist class didn't used to be this way. When I started flying I was 8 years old, and plane travel was a gracious, almost magical experience. The stewardesses came by with candy before takeoff-individually wrapped bags of raspberry-shaped bonbons on Air France, little bars of Lindt chocolate with pictures of the Matterhorn on Swissair.

And a trip to the lavatory was like a visit to F.A.O. Schwarz. My father, I'm not embarrassed to reveal, was a small-time thief. He stole a year's supply of soaps and colognes on those journeys, and taught us to do the same. Eventually the airlines wised up and removed the tops from the bottles so that we couldn't cart them off, but it took years before they caught on.

I'd steal anything. My mother tells the story of the time I came racing down the aisle holding aloft a brand-new sanitary napkin and shouting, "Mommy, look what I found!" I had no idea what it was; all that mattered was that it was free.

I did enjoy a certain measure of retribution-well, almost-against our Chappaqua acquaintances. As it happened, we were bringing my mother and her hyperactive Boston terrier, Skippy, back from Venice with us. Skippy is so antsy that when my mother takes him to the Animal Medical Center for his annual checkup, the vets there, who see thousands of psychologically damaged animals each year, nonetheless greet Skippy by saying, "It's the crazy dog." He's so energetic that he can jump almost to my height from a standstill-not once, but five or 10 times in succession, or until you force him to quit.

Skippy was fully living up to his potential in the hotel launch that took us and the Chappaqua family to the airport. A couple of hours after my mother had given him his tranquilizer, Skippy and his carrying case were lurching back and forth along the floor of the boat. We weren't in rough seas; Skippy was merely trying to jump to the ceiling inside his bag. My wife told me she overheard the Chappaqua mom, a pale, small-boned blonde, tell her spouse, a very large tanned guy, that if Skippy was flying Business Elite, she didn't know what she'd do. Guess what? Skippy was flying Business Elite ! Not only that, but-as fate would have it-my mom and her faithful companion were seated just across the aisle from the Westchester gang. Unfortunately, by the time the plane took off, the drugs had finally kicked in and Skippy descended into something resembling a coma. In fact, he was so uncharacteristically quiet that we briefly grew concerned he might have passed away.

When I came up front to visit my mom, the Chappaqua family made believe they didn't know me. These were people we'd had several conversations with, whose children had played with our children. They'd even visited our cabana at the beach. Yet because we were flying coach, we were apparently no longer worthy. However, about halfway through the flight, their son did come back to visit. "It's not so bad back here," he announced as he gazed at the movie screen at the front of the cabin. "It's really cool back here." So he decided to stay. Not with us-I believe my wife made it clear he couldn't; there wasn't a single seat to be had in coach-but in the galley, bothering the flight attendants.

The trip wasn't a total bust, though. The air turbulence was minimal, and on the way out I took my mother's unopened complimentary Business Elite toiletry kit. When we got home, my daughters and I fought over the L'Occitane lip balm, the toothbrush, the hand cream, the ear plugs, even the Tic Tacs. Those kids are chips off the old block.