Day Sixteen - "If You Want To Be True You Are A Pain In The Arse"

This morning I went for a stroll through the famous Père Lachaise cemetary.

It was very beautiful with lots of tall and grand graves, cobble-stone paths, and big trees.

Monument aux Morts.

Oscar Wilde's grave.

It was covered in kisses!

I especially liked these green statue graves. They had a strange life to them.

The atmosphere was a bit spooky there. The crows (top right of the photo) definitely helped with the mood.

Moliere's grave.

Jim Morrison's grave. It had a gate around it and a security guard watching close by.

Chopin's grave.

In class today we started with a game of musical chairs with the whole class. When a couple missed out on a chair they had to then address the class/audience looking for a writer to write a show for them. This involved giving a taste of what the story to be written would include. The aim was to give just enough to let the audience imagine. 

When Mark and I missed out on a chair we went into asking for a writer, slowly warming into it. I passed the mantle to Mark to start explaining the story, and he said "well it's a very sad story, but it's a secret" which I felt was a real block. I then replied something along the lines of "yes, but we need to tell them something about it in order for them to write something for us." I tried to avoid his block. But what I should have done was work with his block. Make a game out of the fact that he is making the scene difficult. I should have pointed out how stupid it is to not tell them anything about our story because it's a secret, and then teased him throughout the scene. Or perhaps if I had accepted our story is a secret maybe something could have come from the fact that we refuse to say anything about it. I don't know. But like yesterday, I have learnt that I can't just blame another actor for blocking, I need to find a way to work with it. I need to make a game out of it. I need to play with status.

So anyway, the scene flopped badly. Philippe then asked members of the audience: "Imagine you hadn't eaten for a week and were dying of starvation. Would you eat a hot meal with these two idiots at their home? Or would you prefer to eat a carrot [he hates vegetarians] out in the cold on a bench with Fauv [a vegetarian]?" Nobody wanted to eat with us!

After the mid-class break Philippe then set us the scenario that our character was to come to an audition where we were to do a 45 second TV advertisement for a product of our choice. I wanted to try this but hesitated a bit and kept on trying to think of a good product/good idea. I considered a curry shop, or Loreal - 'because you're worth it'. But I didn't end up getting a chance to have a go. Probably a good thing considering I was getting hung up with good 'funny' ideas. However I did get up before the end of the class when Philippe was working with Judith (from Canada). He asked for ten of us to get up and sing 'Oh When The Saints' as our characters along with an MP3 of Louis Armstrong singing it. He then culled those who didn't show sufficient pleasure. I was one of them. I felt that I had a lot of pleasure but I suspect I was pushing or 'wanting it' too much. The successful singers then one by one did a solo with a backing choir. A pleasure extravaganza!

At question time at the end of the class I asked Philippe what he was looking for in the TV commercial exercise, because I felt like I didn't get to see enough examples to get an idea of what works. He answered by saying that he is not looking for anything. He is not the police. But he tries to guide us to show our spirit. He wants us to have fun with ourselves. This makes me think the next time I'm wondering what to 'do' on stage just go out and do something that I think I will have fun with!

I liked the way Philippe talked about us showing our spirit. He said that we all have different spirits. This is perhaps linked to an actor's particular qualities. Earlier in class Philippe also spoke about a link between an actor's qualities and pleasure. I don't remember exactly what he said, but the link that I made was that perhaps an actor excels in particular roles with particular qualities because the actor has the most pleasure playing those qualities. I guess this is true to me with playing slightly bent characters. I had great pleasure playing Caliban with all his grotesque sexual sensuality and perhaps this is why he worked so well for me. Q: Can I find pleasure in any character I play?

Notes:

• "What did you do to make us dream?"
  

• "Ah! Now my partner is going to shut up. Now is my time to be the star. - You need to take this opportunity with pleasure."
  

• "Fauv you must play the 'Dad I hate this' game, but not in a negative way."
  

• "We have to see your beauty. In order to progress you have to be beautiful every day."
  

• "An actor is never boring. But he has fun playing a boring character."
  

• "If you want to be true you are a pain in the arse."
  

After class I went to Oli's place to meet Kate who is back (!) and who is going to stay at my place for the night before going to Toulouse tomorrow. When we got to my apartment the key to get downstairs was missing. Oliver my roommate has moved out for a week, which is great but I need that key! So a bit of a drama. Luckily somebody came in the bottom entrance so we got in the first door. And luckily the actual key to the apartment was still in the correct place. So I got in! I called Elouise, the apartment/hostel operator (who is pretty slack and unreliable) but got no reply. She called me about 2 hours later. She is much more worried that Oliver has left without paying his rent (she blamed me for not locking him out last night) than worried about me not being able to get into my room tomorrow. So I'm a bit concerned. According to her it's not as easy as making a copy of the key - which everybody in the apartment has - and that to do that would take 2 weeks and cost 40 euros. I highly doubt it. Anyway, I'm going to have to figure it out tomorrow morning. I'm going to write a 'help me!' letter and translate it with Google Translate and hopefully somebody will come to the rescue!