Ah bon

Bon, alors. il y a quelque jours, j'ai dit a mon copain Adrian que la prochaine fois que j'ecrivera mon blog, j'ecriverais en francais. (et sans utilisant le traduisseur google) Cepandant, beaucoup de temps a passe (ah, et aussi je ne sais pas comment ecriver les lettres avec accents...) depuis la dernier blog et je pense malheureusement que j'ai trop a dire pour l'expliquer en francais. En regrette Adrian, si tu lis ceci, mais la prochaine fois sera en francais, je te promette.

Great, well you can see my french hasn't improved.

I'm not sure my acting has either.

Well, i'm getting somewhere - my weaknesses are certainly clearer.

So, I last wrote about bouffon. Bouffon was difficult. Really difficult. After that was melodrama, which retrospectively was really great, but at the time I was languishing in the Gaullier tunnel. Voila Philippe's method: to put you in the shit (to frustrate every artistic impulse and confidence you ever had) and then watch you crawl your way out.

From the beginning of melodrama I had a decent grasp on what Philippe wanted, but I kept realising it was not enough. Philippe would say to me after an exercise "Ah, well this is fine for English melodrama, but not here. Here, you need to give more" Give more! Give more! I kept saying to myself, "I must push myself beyond my comfort zone and into the unknown" But I wouldn't. Perhaps I succeeded a little towards the end of the course, but on the last day Philippe said something very interesting to me. He said "Tiff, she is almost there non? But everytime, you build something beautiful, but everytime, at the last minute, you escape." Eh voila: full-blown crisis. I do not trust myself enough to follow my impulses. And why? Why? Because I don't like myself very much, and I fear always that other people feel the same way. On the stage is the only place in my life where I have some control over how other people feel about me, and Philippe asking me to alter this is terrifying! I feel like this is such a fragile world, that if I try to modify it, it could break, and then where would I be? Sans plaisir, sans happiness, sans love.

So, last week we started 'mask play.' First we started with the unformed masks "larvae masks" from the Bale festival in Switzerland. They were beautiful, but very difficult to work in because you can see and hear very little. Suddenly, all the work Philippe has developed with us on complicite and openness and feeling the space dissappeared out the window - you could barely hear your fellow actors on the stage, let alone follow the audience or the space.(By the way, you can barely breathe either, one girl even passed out!) Later we worked with the masks of Commedia del Arte. I tried one day to do el Capitaine, and Philippe began to work with me. "Make a noise like a washing machine." I did "and now a motorbike" ditto "and now an airplane. Now choose someone here you want to do crack-crack-boom-boom with" I chose Yuichi, and I had to approach him like I was trying to seduce him, except Philipe would sporadically bark out "washing machine!..."Motorbike" and i obeyed by interupting my seduction with these strange noises. Everyone enjoyed this performance, and I suppose I was 'OK,' but when it was over I lay down on the floor and felt really boring. I mean REALLY boring - more boring than I have ever felt in my life. I suddenly realised that all my life I have been fooling myself into thinking i'm not just a boring bastard who should be working in a pharmacy. My brain replayed every moment in my life where I have felt dull and unadmired by people around me! Philippe had given me all these beautiful impulses, and I could not find one shred of imagination to bring them to life! and I cried. I cried. A lot. The class finished, and Susanna came to me, and I sobbed - like a toddler who can't find their breath. I felt my whole life crumbling around my ears. Eventually I calmed down enough to walk to the dressing room, when who should I run into? Bah Philippe of course! C'est comme ca la vie, n'est-ce pas? "Ah Cherie, you have been crying?" "yes" "ah, bah why?" I feel the sob rising up within me "Be...be...bec...because I think i'm boring! AGGGGHHHH" I wailed. Right into the face of world-renowned Philippe Gaullier. What a prick. He said "bah non" but then I was kindly ushered to the dressing room by Yuichi and Susanna. On the train back to Paris, a lovely girl from class called Lucianna said to me "you were beautiful today" HA! I responded (by this time, I was feeling pretty boringly sorry for myself) "Yes, because Philippe was shouting all these orders at you and we saw you only concentrating on doing what he told you - it was beautiful because you were thinking only of this, and nothing else." Ah - claro claro - I was not questioning my impulses and trying to invent shitty ideas - just responding to impulses.

Then I drank a lot of wine with Susanna and I felt better.

The next day Philippe walks into class, and before we did anything else he asked "who is in crisis here?" (most people raised their hands) and he gave the most reassuring and beautiful speech about how good it is to be in crisis, and he looked all the time at me. And i felt warm down to the cockles, Philippe seems so harsh and disinterested sometimes, but he cares. He really cares about all his students. I love him for this.

So, where was I at the beginning of this week? Bon: I need to be open on stage, and not be afraid to expose myself to the audience, I need to enjoy being myself, I need to trust myself, I need to listen to my impulses, I need to not bring my shitty ideas to the stage but rather come first with my pleasure, be open and listen to the audience.

This weekend we had to make our own masks. I made three, and today I tried out number two. Philippe asked us to come to a cafe cabaret - which means one by one we have to walk onto the stage as the cabaret act and sing a song for the audience. I entered slowly, trying to enter to the stage without ideas of the mask (Philippe's rule of mask number 1: the audience does not like it when you enter to the stage and behave like you know the mask better than the audience - they want to discover the mask with you) and trying to show the mask (Philippe's rule of mask number 2: whatever you do on the stage, it must be to show the mask). I began to sing "I feel pretty" from West Side Story. It went ok: 'I feel pretty / oh so pretty / I feel pretty and witty and bright/ and I pity any girl who isn't me tonight' At this moment I sang 'la la la la la la la la la la' and everyone laughed. I didn't realise beforehand, but deciding to sing this song was a shitty little idea that I brought to the stage. Singing the 'la la la' in the middle I did not plan, and because it was an impulse that arrived between me and the audience and I followed it - it worked. God, it's so simple. But ask me to do it again, and I couldn't. BUT IT'S SO OBVIOUS! JUST EXIST WITH YOUR PLEASURE AND THE AUDIENCE ON STAGE!! The second verse starts to flop "ah, we liked you better before!" cries Philippe before and I try to react "la la la la la" but it has become a shitty idea, no longer an impulse. Philippe stopped me and tried to work with me - he told me to speak with a stutter, and like I had a hot potato in my mouth. it didn't work, and Philippe said "Bon, the mask is good (we are collecting all the good masks together for everyone to use) The mask is good. The actor, not so good" Ouch, this one really hurt: I return to my place to consider my considerable boringness and Philippe starts talking about something else. "Who is the biggest idiot in the class? A Man?" Philippe calls over to me 'Ah...' I giggle "If you have to choose, who is the biggest idiot?" I reply that I think it's probably Anton, and Philippe says, "bon, with the mask again, imitate Anton." I get up and it is hilarious. I have great pleasure, the audience too and even Philippe is laughing. "If you continue to play your little characters, you will play all your life in blah blah blah English theatre, but if you can find this pleasure to deconner (fuck about) you will be fantastic."

I've been trying to understand this - because I WAS playing a character: the character of Anton. But Philippe was asking me questions - and I purely found pleasure in responding to him imitating Anton. Every moment I was thinking not 'I have a plan / I have a character' I was thinking 'Ah, I'm excited to show you what I will do next - where I can take this Anton.' This is exactly what Philippe talks about - the actor must always be saying "ah, watch out Macbeth, for I am coming for you. You are great, but I am better! And every moment I will surprise everyone by showing them where I will take my pleasure in showing them the way of Macbeth / the mask."

Today was Philippe's birthday and we gave him a cake and sang 'Happy Birthday.' It was lovely and he is lovely. And maybe I will be lovely too.

Jusqu'a la prochaine fois - en francais je vous promette