Day Eleven - "You Don't Have To Be Funny. You Just Have To Surprise Us."

Kate and Oli were half an hour late this morning. Better. But still crap! So I followed my lesson-learnt from yesterday and left after twenty minutes. (This is a bit out of character for me but felt quite liberating! Nasty. Rebellious. Naughty...) Finally met up with Kate and Oli at Jaurès where I got off because I saw this pretty lake and wanted to get out and have a look around. Other than the lake it was pretty boring, which I felt slightly bad about. But boo-hoo. I just wanted to explore. 

The lake in Jaurès. It's probably actually a river. Most likely part of the Seine. I dunno. Sorry!

In class today Philippe set the scenerio that one character was a criminal on trial. They had to sit at a chair whilst another character, their lawyer, spoke to the jury (the audience) to try and win their case. Some people bombed and were killed but there seemed to be quite a bit of pleasure coming out of this particular improvisation which led to a lot of enjoyable scenes. 

After the mid-class break Philippe then upped the ante for the improvisations, and added a witness for and against the prosecuted. All of these scenes turned out to be very funny with some great team complicite going on. The first was extreme, with an incredibly complicated story developing, and characters arising from the jury/audience. The scene started with four characters onstage and ended with eight!

I jumped up and did the last scene as the lawyer, defending Angela's geeky raincoat dragging character who was accused of stealing spaghetti and tomato sauce from the local supermarket. Dimitra was the accusing witness and Juli was the defending witness. I played the scene with a cheeky confidence, a cockyness, which worked very nicely for my character. I was a little bit nervous, and fumbled with my words a bit, but found a saving-action for my character - his smile. This is a bit like Sayumi's little horse ballet kicks that she does if the scene starts to die, and the scene always picks back up because we love the kicks! For my character, whatever my character said, whether it made any sense or not, would be loved by the audience if it ended in a big teethy grin. "Your honour, my client says she did not do dee crime and if she says dat den she must be telling dee truth because I know her and she is not a lier. So dee case is closed. Yes?" *SMILE*. I was able to save myself a few times with this smile, and with a bit of success on stage I found that it fed my pleasure, that I became less nervous and enjoyed playing a lot more. At the end the scene the audience applauded and then Philippe finished off by saying he'd enjoyed today's class very much. Which was nice to know. I think we all had a fun time today.

Afterwards I stayed back and asked Monsier Gaulier two questions. 

Q: I feel that I have to be funny here. Is this the case?

A: You don't have to be funny. You just have to surprise us. We can be "AHH" (laughter) or we can be "ahh" (wonder). They are both worthy in the theatre.

Q: Your idea of pleasure, does it apply even when, for example, a character cries onstage?

A: An actor still needs pleasure even when they are portraying pain. The audience still wants to enjoy themselves even in a sad play. An actor should never share their own pain. That is theirs and is personal. But an actor finding pleasure in portraying pain, this belongs in the theatre.

He also told me that my work today was "not bad." I definitely feel I found some things today.

Some notes from class: 

• "Don't play too much. Your body [appearance] speaks for you."

• Your job is to have fun with your character - allowing the audience to imagine. When you speak too much there is no room for them to imagine.

• "Try to create something mysterious."

• "You have to surprise us for us to love you."

• It is very funny and enjoyable watching an actor try and find their way through an improvisation. It is rewarding when they figure it out as they go. This is why 'ideas' are no good.

After class a big group of us headed to Anders' house for dinner. Kate came too! We had a delicious pasta made by Adriano and Aretha, lots of wine, and great company.

Crowded on the metro heading to Anders' place at Jourdain.

Dinner time.

Dinner time without flash photography. A much better indication of the mood.

EXTRA! EXTRA!: If you want to watch me eat escargot in live video action, go to  http://mcgill-does-the-world.blogspot.com and scroll down a bit.