OK, Ok. OK. Ahh...

Ok, so recently I have mostly felt the impulse to write this blog when I have been in complete turmoil: i moan about my boring problems, my mum gets worried that i'm about to throw myself off the Eiffel tower, and there is general self-pitying going about. So here it is: OK? Ok: I feel quite good.

GASP

I know, I actually feel quite good about myself, on the stage, and I fucking love Philippe Gaullier. I think (touch wood - I remember i have written this before) I think I am the other side of the Gaullier tunnel.

I first felt the change when we came back to school after Easter: The three months between Christmas and Easter were hell - a big grimy tunnel of self-doubt and Gaullier truisms - but after a three-week break I returned and felt something had changed. Yes, I have flopped since returning, but I feel a certain 'lightness' that I didn't feel before. And I think I have connected with my 'pleasure and beauty' - These are the Pillars of Gaullism, so if I can hang on to them I will be doing well.

Today we did an improvisation - a socialist meeting - and it was good, Philippe said I was good (well, he said 'OK' but i'll take that) And then he announced "Bon, so loo-loo break. Fifteen minutes. When you come back, you come back as someone else's character" Hazzar! What larks Pip, what a fantastic weeze! We all went to the dressing rooms and frantically swapped our costumes. The results were astonishing - so funny. Everyone returned and tried to imitate their person 'doing' their character. Paul entered as Yuichi's bloodthirsty lesbian character, Adrien entered as Nelly's militant synchronised-swimmer character, It was hilarious to see the behaviours of actors imitated. I swapped characters with Susana - hers is a 'Pirha' a kind of Spanish socialite - leopard-print dress, red shoes and red wig - and I had so much fun! The freedom to play with someone else's behaviour is unbelievable. Before I went on I thought 'I can't really be Susana and talk in English, but I can't speak Spanish, except for a few swear words.' So I entered like Su and talked in a breezy tirade of Spanishy gobledeggok with the occassional 'Iho di Poutta' (son of a bitch) or 'Yo tengo muchos cohones' (I have big balls.) I managed to continue for some while and Philippe asked me questions. At the end of the class Philippe asked us 'bon, who will we remember?' 'Paul...Tamara...Adrien...Tiff...' we enthused. And then Philippe said 'Stiff, ah but Stiff was fucking good' and then he whistled like Woof! Fucking good.

I remember this feeling of freedom and fun when Philippe asked me to imitate Anton a couple of months ago, and I think eventually this is how you have to feel with every character. Imitating another is liberating to me because you feel like the 'you' has been taken out of the equation (we think... because we are imitating someone else) but really this feeling is simply the absolute enjoyment of your pleasure -your pleasure to be an actor on the stage, your pleasure to be alive, and your pleasure as an actor to make your character dance.

Tomorrow is the last day of the 'characters' workshop and Philippe ended today's class by saying 'Bon, tomorrow perhaps, we will do something interesting'.... The mind reels, all I know is: I cannot wait.

Character

Well, its the end of my first week back at l'ecole after Easter and i find myself very aware of the fact that there are only three months left. Philippe has successfully deconstructed my approach to acting, and now only three months remain for me to re-build them with him... Hmmm. Could it be that I will finish and still be in quandry? Perhaps it will take years...Perhaps the epiphany will arrive to me in thirty years time when i'm teaching English in an inner-London comprehensive. Who knows?

It is getting harder and harder to write this blog - my thoughts are so scrambled at the moment, it's daunting the thought of trying to extract them and communicate them in any tangible or coherent way. But i'll try...

So this workshop is characters - we have total freedom to create characters and work on them with Philippe. So far, it is a great deal of fun - I have laughed more this week than almost any other. After finishing last term in total crisis, I tried to spend the holidays not thinking too much about school - after all the main paradox of the school is that Philippe crams your head with so many things to think about / to do / not to do- but the only way to be successful on stage is to be relaxed and open and not actively thinking about any of these things - so I thought I would just relax, and hope that on some level of my brain there were ideas unconsciously permeating... The first two days back at school were awesome - I was good and open, and I felt like I was being the kind of actor Philippe likes. FUCK, I thought, it's working! I am out of the tunnel and everything is easy and open and free - hurrah! My character is a geeky young girl called Carol - i'll upload a picture for your amusement, and for the first day we did a cabaret. I entered nervously and sang 'Wuthering Heights' by Kate Bush - it was really fun, and I felt very open to the audience - I started tentatively and only moved more when I felt they were ready.

Then came the third day and I was boring again. I was worried that I was playing the stereotype of my character too much - Philippe always says how you must never underline your character (I remember back to Neutral mask where your body had to contrast with your voice - if you say one thing with your body and then say the same thing with your voice, there is no space for the audience to dream: underlining) He also says when you enter, the audience will have an idea of what you can be, and if you manage to exceed that idea, and surprise the audience with where you take your character then you will be amazing. So I tried to be more subtle, and it wasn't enough. I was speaking to Lib, a lovely Canadian who teaches back home and has a lot of experience with Philippe and his school of thought. I explained that I didn't want to underline and just do the expected. 'Yes' she said 'but if you enter with your character AND the idea that you don't want to underline, then you are entering with a shitty little idea' (Philippe's phrase for when you bring your own ideas to the stage instead of finding them through your pleasure with the audience.) So the next day, I decided not to reign in my character - and of course it was too much - I pushed my idea. So where I am at now is trying to find the middle way between doing too much and doing too little. Balls.

Oh god this is so boring - so instead I will write a transcript of one of last week's exercises:

Monsieur Le Prof: Bon, so we make an office - a table and some chairs - and you enter one by one, your character is arriving at work in the morning. When I do this (taps the drum) the next one enters.

Me: Carrol (geeky awkward young girl)
Adrian: Gunther (Gangly Rambler from Germany)
Lia: Big Tony (Jamaican lover lover man)

(Adrian enters first, he looks awkwardly around the room, then returns to the wings and takes the vase of flowers back onto the stage. Philippe taps the drum and I enter)

Me: Hello
Adrian: Uh, hello (lots of awkward geekyness)
Me: Oh NO! What are they doing there? (I pick up the flowers and take them off stage) You know we're not supposed to
have flowers, Tony said never have...
(at this point Adrian interrupts me and says:)
Adrian: Yes but Tony is dead!
(I have to pretend to cry to hide my laughing, then Tony enters)
Lia: I'm not dead chillun. Big TOny's back

BANG! Ha ha ha