Today Kate and I got out at Invalides Metro stop to have a look around. We came across this fantastic building, the Grand Palais, a giant glass exhibition hall, which Kate is frolicking towards in the photo below.
'frolic' (v)
- Gaiety; merriment; A playful antic; To romp; to behave playfully and uninhibitedly; To cause to be merry
We then kept walking along this fantastic wide (and clean!) street heading towards the Arc de Triomphe. After a short stroll we came, by accident, across a Disney store... Kate and I had agreed that we would go to Euro Disney together whilst she was here, so we went in and purchased two one-day/one-park tickets. We're going to go tomorrow. On Valentines day. The day the guy in the picture below is hoping to make a fortune.
These guys come into restaurants whilst you are eating and try and get you to buy a rose for your dinner partner. A very clever tactic. I guess it would hard to say no if you were on a first date. What kind of impression would that give to the unlucky girl?!
In class today Philippe set the scenario similar to yesterday's, that one character is a criminal sitting on a seat centre-stage. And the other two characters are cops, interrogating their prisoner. This got a bit boring quickly, mostly because people were too hesitant to get up, so Philippe soon changed the exercise. *Note: After today I have realised it's not worth getting nervous about going up on stage, that it wastes time and energy, and that I need to just get up and see what happens. Adriano is a great example of somebody that just gets up and tries things, not worrying about success or failure, and he gets to go up several times in a class because others are too scared.*
Philippe then announced that a "genius" had come to him after class yesterday saying that he felt he had to be funny, and that he had told him "You don't have to make us laugh...but you have to tickle our imaginations.". He then set a new scenario in which nine characters are to go on stage, where they are to dance to the music at a party. When a character becomes overwhelmed by the music they are to come centre-stage and yell "Maestro! Please stop the music" and then go into explaining why the music has effected them so. This scenario led to the strong possibility that characters might be sad, and therefore maybe not funny.
When I got up I played sad. Underlined sad. Not deliberately, but looking back I see that that's what I did. I got stopped by Gaulier very quickly - "How many times have I asked you to smile...? How many times did you smile?" None. Big Zero. I got really annoyed with myself today because after waiting for ages for my turn, I blew it very quickly and then had to sit down. However I did learn that for my character, the smile is incredibly important. All the time. It makes my character who he is. Gaulier said "You can't be sad in a classic way. Have to find a beautiful way to be sad. To surprise your audience." For my character, smiling whilst being sad would be surprising. What I did wasn't surprising.
Notes from class:
- We dont care about details. Just surprise us.
- An actor needs to develop a sense for when he's loved and when he's flopping. Sometimes an actor misreads the situation and leaves the stage when actually we loved them!
- As an audience, we need silence. This gives us room to imagine.
- "When on stage did you think 'Ahh everybody loves me?' Or 'oh no, nobody loves me?'"
- Some actors play too much. I think this applicable to me also.
- Language doesn't matter in the theatre. Idoya was amazing today. I couldn't understand what she was saying (because she spoke in Spanish). But I could understand what she was doing.
- "If you feel secure you will be bad. If you have fun with the fear [of a flop] then something will come."
- "When you're in crisis you look for something with much more sensitivity."
- "Pleasure will help you yell properly in the theatre."
- "You changed a bit for our pleasure. Thank you for that." = An actors job every night.
- Irena pushed Alex out of the way today in order for her to have a turn. It was not a playful push, but could/should have been. Theatre needs to be a game. Not a competition.
- Marieke was amazing today! She got totally lost but hung in there. And during her time in crisis - under the threat of a huge flop - we saw her and loved her.
After class I caught the metro close to the Eiffel Tower and called Cherie to say happy Valentines Day.
A very pretty location for a very pretty girl...
Then went to Tui's place for dinner! Her apartment is tiny but very cute and has nice little pieces of New Zealand on the walls. It was a lovely evening.
Emma (I think) from NZ, Liz from South Africa, Tui and Jeremy.
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