Oh bollocks

I hereby retract any positive and/or nice thing I wrote yesterday. I am a boring person and do not deserve to be on the stage. and I hate it. and I want to go home.

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

HA HA!

I found the Bouffon! Sort of. I think. Aithur says its best not to think too much about this, so I won't. All I know is I have had a lot of fun in class today and yesterday.

On monday I saw something beautiful in Alvin, and believed that the idiot-bouffon was being superseded by the real Bouffon. On Tuesday my head literally exploded and I couldn't think or speak until the next day. On Wednesday I was vulgar and I loved it. Today I actually loved being a Bouffon.

Philippe worked with me on Wednesday and it was great - he told me that the audience loves me when I am vulgar and strong. On reflection, i know this to be true. If the bouffon is the part of you that loves to be naughty and blaspheme, then my bouffon lies in vulgarity - I love to be naughty in this way.

Tomorrow is the last day of Bouffon so I will try and conclude all these twines of thought post-mortem.

Why are the things that are most worth getting always most difficult to get?!

I should have known from Greek Tragedy that if I really liked something, it was bound to be difficult to achieve. Bouffon is really, really, really, really, really, really difficult. Everytime I think I have understood it and have pinned it down in my head - it changes!

The problem is, I don't think you can specify exactly what the bouffon is - the parameters are totally shifting, and really as a bouffon, you can do or be anything. This is great, I mean, great, but for people trying to learn it is fucking difficult.

I must find pleasure. This is the key to all of Philippe's teaching: find your pleasure. Artur said today "if you have pleasure, you must share it with the audience." he also said to me "you are a bouffon, for sure. So don't worry about it too much." HA! Fat chance. I am English and a born worrier. How to portray all these things at the same time: your bouffon (which is the part of you who finds pleasure to blaspheme), your bouffon performing for the crowd, (always aware that he is walking the dangerous ground) playing with your chorus of bouffon friends AND the parodies on top of that! I feel people are attempting to show pleasure by gurning and gallolloping around like idiots on the stage; but the bouffon is NOT an idiot. At all. He is very shrewd and subtle. Basically, dear reader, I am thinking about this all too much. Stop thinking, just do.

Yesterday I had my first major success in Philippe's Bouffon workshop. Those of us who had learnt the 'Adam & Eve' bouffon text were asked to walk in our couples on the stage, taking pleasure to walk like a rich couple on a Sunday afternoon out on Hampstead Heath. Paul and I walked, Philippe asked us to speak our text, Paul spoke, I spoke, Philippe banged the drum "What are you doing? You speak too much. No pleasure. you speak too fast. not enough" we walked on and the next couples made their attempts.(No-one getting further than four lines) What happened then was that because I thought that was it for us - our turn had failed and was over - Paul and I started having real fun in taking the piss out of this couple. We were poncing around saying hello to the other couples, enjoying our complicite and the game we were playing together. We were having pleasure to blaspheme, and it was genuine pleasure. Philippe (being the clever man he is) saw this and called our names again. Well, we got through the whole text and it was great! At the end Philippe put everyone else in the bin, but he saved us and said "it was good, we love you. What happened? If i went to the theatre with my wife, I could turn to her now and say 'ah, they were good'. What happened?" It is so clear in my head that it worked because Paul and I had a really great pleasure together in this game we had created of parodying these snobby bastards. This is the pleasure: Your pleasure to be onstage, combined with complicite and the joy of playing a game. But when you don't have this, it is impossible to recreate. Well, I suspect this is one of the objectives of the school - to learn how to find this more confidently.

There is so much more to write, but I think this is all I can formulate into (vaguely coherent) sentences for now.



This is me and my friend Alvin as our bouffons.

Viva la Bouffon!

So yes, I only wrote one entry for the module on Greek Tragedy, slappeth my wrists Horatio. I do have the excuse that I was moving house during this time - no more the lonely room in the house of bonkers old milky-eyed madam - now I am living in a great flat with my beautiful classmate Susana. The flat is in Place de Clichy, and is a typical Parisian square of flats around a little courtyard. Walking through to my building and up the stairs to my door is like being in a Jeunet et Caro film: it is delicious.

Greek Tragedy happened. Philippe told us to be tall and always accept the fate of the gods proudly on our heads. I got to use my 'RSC voice' (Philippe's words, not mine) and we got to work in detail on duologues. We also had another great teacher Christine Landon-Smith who was a great contrast to Philippe - as she would work with you and explain her pedagogy as she went. I thought Greek Tragedy was pretty great. Then, we started Bouffon.

It's brilliant. It's such a release after Greek Tragedy. Concentrate girls, here comes the history:

In the middle ages the children of God (the church, the rich, beautiful, successful people of society) decided that there were certain people who ruined their pleasant landscape, such as the dwarves, the legless, the blacks, the gays, the hunchbacks; the children of God decided to banish these people to the swamps and the forests because they were unpleasant, putting bells around their necks so that they would always know if they were approaching the beautiful kingdom of the children of God. They pointed the finger of scorn at these miscreants and told them they were children of Satan. The 'others' marched off to the swamp and became the Bouffons. But then arrived the Great Plague, and the children of God were afraid. They decided (in their wisdom) to allow the Bouffons to march through the town for one night, because they thought the Bouffons were disgusting enough to scare even the Plague. So they marched through the town and found great pleasure in their role as the children of Satan. The Bouffon learnt to parody the bastards amongst the children of God and learnt very precisely how to parody them to their faces so that the bastards would be laughing and laughing and laughing, but then Oh No! He is talking about ME! I am a bastard! and he either dies of a heart attack or goes home and kills himself.

This is the art of the Bouffon: to parody those who pointed the finger of scorn, those who condemned the Bouffons to the swamp (for swamp, you can read Ghetto, concentration camp...) and to illustrate that the 'children of God' can be disgusting, bastard sons of Satan.

The Bouffon is not a clown, because the Bouffon is very clever. He walks always on dangerous ground,(and relishes this) because if he is too obvious in his parodies of the bastards then the bastard sons of God will just shoot him. The clown is idiot and just wants to be loved by the audience, the bouffon wants to kill the bastard with his performance.

This week Philippe has been showing us some of the different Bouffons: the dwarf, the hunchback, the fat-stomached. He ties us up in clothes to deform our bodies, and blackens our faces and teeth. Then we started to parody - yesterday we looked at the priest and today I parodied a paedophile teacher - it is so much fun, and not so far from my comfort zone as I had imagined. It is enormously pleasurable - and this is key, because the Bouffon enjoys being a Bouffon. When the bastard points the finger and says "Urgh! You are a poof! A Bender!" the accussed man can either say "oh no! Child of God! I am one of you, let me be gay but be counted amongst the children of God" or, he can say "poof eh? Bender eh? Interesting. Yes, I probably am. I will join those in the swamp and laugh at what a stupid bastard you really are. Ha ha! And one day I will hold the mirror of truth so close to your ugly face that you will want to kill yourself when you realise your own ugliness!"

Ha ha! I love it!

This week we have to find our inner Bouffon - a Bouffon we enjoy playing, maybe the gay, the hunchback or the dwarf. Then , over the weekend we have to find three bastards to parody. I, as yet, have no answers for these tasks. One thing is for sure, this business is complicated - to be the actor, playing the bouffon, parodying the bastard, but subtly - There are so many layers! And we are satirising religion and society at the same as time as flailing around as a funny dwarf. It is complicated, and I feel the weight of a great tradition bearing down on me.

We have a new Improvisation teacher called Aithur, he works with a company in England called Spymonkey. He did an exercise with us today to help us find our pleasure to mock and be nasty. We were put in pairs, then one person had to insult the other - the more personal the better - and then the mocked had to parody the insulter. I was with Alvin, a lovely actor from Singapore who I really love, and the prospect of insulting him and being mean was just horrible, but, I thought, it is an exercise and it is valuable experience. I insulted his trousers, his hair and his glasses (all the while deep inside, feeling terrible) and then he, the lucky bastard, insulted me in Mandarin! I don't know what he said! HA! Having said that, it was great fodder for me, because when I came to parody him, I got to be the angry Chinese man- speaking nonsense Mandarin and gesturing a lot. It's all just good complicated fun.

Bon. Voila la tragedie Grecque:

I give you now a rule for tragedie Grecque and for all theatre: tragedy, comedy, bon.

The stage is a tray, balancing on the centre point. Someone enters, they go to the centre and the stage is balanced. Bon. Someone else enters, they explore the new environment and the inhabitants must balance them. More and more enter and we have chorus and individual exploring, etc etc, bon. It is exactly the same problem with immigration eh? Bon

Now, we sit round the walls of the room. STUDENTS! You must move the benches as your professeur has asked you - around ze walls of ze room! Allez. Bon.

(we move the benches to create an amphithetre and Philippe finds a track on his ipod - it is a recording of a very famous French man talking about the german occupation of Paris: he speaks beautifully, full of rhetoric and emotion)

Bon, so we take six students - you walk in ze space, proud, like with the neutral mask, and when I call your name, you speak the text ("the death of Hector" from Homer's 'Illiad') But with voice of actor, not "neurgh neurgh nah nah" Bon.

You all sit down immediately. Thank you for this horrible group.

(this is a compliment - at least most of us got to the end of the first sentence, one girl only got two words before BANG!)

Bon, now you sit down here - the horrible little table please! and a chair! and a glass!

Bon, so (A student sits in the chair awaiting instruction - for we the spectators it is like watching a good friend walking slowly to the gallows) So, you speak again about the death of Hektor - but now, you were his friend, and today is the anniversary of his death: every year you come and drink two, three glasses and remember him. There is a girl here in the cafe who you want to go to bed with. Who?...Bon, so you look at Susanna now and then like you want to go to bed with her. Attention...

(He gets to line four)

BANG! Stop! But he is communist no? There was no warmth about your dead friend, it was like you speak to the communist party. Thank you. Alors, Who?

(fuck it, I think, no girls have had a go yet - i learnt the text over the weekend - it's now or never...I stare into my wine glass and think about lovely Hektor and how he died in battle; I try to use the stylistic 'RSC' voice he has requested of me for Greek Tragedy...I get to the penultimate line! It has worked! Wow!)

Bon, next we do another exercise. I need a woman, not total idiot. Ah... (he looks at me - Shit!) Madame Stiff (I get up) She is l'alcoolique, but when she is not full of wine, she is quite intelligent. Bon, remove the table. So, place your leg up on the chair like a seducer (I do, and feel vulnerable, my eyes roll ceilingward and people laugh) You know Mae West, she said, I don't know how it is in English 'you are pleased to see me or is that a gun in your pocket?' Bon, so you say that in the style of Mae West. Attention:

('Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you just pleased to see me? I say all seductive, husky and slow)

Bon, so now you say the text like this:

(I speak the text: it was wonderful, and fun, and I had the spectators, and Gaullier let me finish the whole text!)

It's much more interesting like ziz non?

(I have to inform you of one piece of information, dear reader, Gaullier always says to students after they have been bad 'you get a zero' sometimes 'a double zero' - but never has the figure been ANYTHING else but ZERO)

Bon madame Stiff. You get a seven.

(Everyone 'oohs')

Oh, happiness is a cigar called Gaullier

The Neutral Mask reaches its end

This was the best pineapple I had ever eaten. Juicy, sharp but sweet, fully cored by the ever-so-friendly greengrocer in Sceaux. All that remains now is the core and the base, which look like a toddler's sword.

Yesterday, for the first time, I was bored in class. GASP! QUEL HORREUR?! BAH NON! Bah oui mes petits amis, je me suis ennui. I was frustrated because for the whole week we had been 'doing' animals: from Penguin to chicken, from tortoise to crocodile, and I was BORED. Philippe just read out a list of animals and we had three minutes to search for/discover/explore/challenge this animal rhythm and from it find a character - only to be told "ah, not so bad" or "totally boring, sit down immediately." It's not enough! Well, I thought, this is not teaching - my niece Abi could be shouting out animals for me to imitate. It's just not enough! Philippe your methods are tired! Where is the expoloration? But oh! Philippe is so clever. He was trying to grind us towards crisis: I fretted all night with my anger and decided the best way to combat the situation was to think 'maybe it's me' and to try and attack the class today, (i'm trying a new mantra - it's something about acting positively, don't ask) to just throw myself into whatever we were doing, so that even if what I did was rubbish, it wouldn't be boring - clearly these thoughts had been provoked in my fellow classmates: the energy in the class today was amazing.

Today Philippe asked us to explore colours from behind the neutral mask: What is Blue? How is Purple? Philippe also wanted to explore which languages of the classroom had the best words for each colour. So, as a group in neutral mask were 'doing' blue, the spectators would call out their respective word for blue to see which matched the rhythm of the masks. 'Bleu' said the Frenchman, 'Azoras' said the Portuguese and we would discuss which word fitted best the colour. Blue is without doubt the portugese 'Azul', yellow is best in italian: 'giallo,' and 'red' we decided was best in English.

Then we formed opposing choruses (please advise on latin conjugation - chorae?) of colour. We played red versus blue, brown against orange, it was fascinating to see the contrast of the different colour rhythms and how the rhythms could be altered yet maintained to communicate a given task. Philippe finished the class ten minutes early, he said we were beautiful. "I don't want to do more now. It is best to leave with this beauty in our heads. If the others go now it might be shitty and I don't want that in my head." Ah, when you speak like zis Phil, I am week in ze nees...