Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Bienvenue à Paris!

It was freezing today! Stepped outside to immediately get the chills down my spine. Went back into my apartment building and immediately put on thermals. Youch.

Today I went to this American Church I'd read about online as a good place for English speaking people to find accommodation and work. There were some good offers posted but most are nabbed up straight away. I am heading back there tomorrow morning for another look. Met a nice guy called Federico there yesterday. An actor from Italy. We had a good little half English have French conversation. Well, more like mostly English, some French. But hey. So I ended up staying in the area near where the church was (Invalides I think) and had a bit of an explore. Went into an Irish Pub and checked out job availabilities but not so good unless I can speak French. I think this is going to be the case everywhere. But he said some places in the 6th arrondissement may not care. Got a cheap (6.40€) chinese vegetarian dinner. Will go back there!

Then went to meet up with Lorenzo. But he pulled out because there are Metro strikes at the moment and he couldn't get to me. So I headed where I was going to go with him anyway. Up about 45 mins to the right on the metro. To a little area called Telegraphe and I ran towards this tiny little beautiful theatre in the middle of nowhere. Here, I saw a show called 'Bievenue a Paris'.


It had Judith in it who I did Characters with last year. And another actor who trained at Gaulier. And it was directed by Gaulier's son, Balthazar! So it was a cool little reunion for me. The actual show was fun, but I couldn't understand much of it because most of it was in french. A mother and a son essentially. And their antics. Some nice moments of play and audience interaction. But often a bit heavy and not that connected with us. I don't think that was a thing to do with the language barrier. I was hoping to be able to get it clearly just from body and voice. And I kind of did. But it lacked a bit of variety in these areas. But that's understandable. Cool to see big broad Gaulier character stuff too. I definitely like it. The extremity and the sillyness.

Entrance to Théâtre de l'Orme.

Then went out for a drink with them and some other of their friends afterwards. One of the guys played Nick Carraway in an American production of Gatsby a few years ago! He was in the production that stopped the Elevator Repair Service's production of Gatz which I'd heard about as being a scandal. (Basically they argued that there couldn't be two Gatsby productions on at one time in a particular city!)


So him and I had a good conversation about how Gatsby works when translated to the stage. And what floats and what dies when it is. And had a drink and olives and chickpeas and peanuts with Judith and her friends. It was really nice. The first time I've felt at home like I did last time. Great to have a little social life!





Felt a bit scared about Gaulier after hanging with those guys however. Feeling that fear I felt last time I was in Gaulier's classes. I'd forgotten a bit about that feeling. Harlan, the guy who was in the show with Judith kept saying to me "courage", as if he was warning me. And I had a big chat to Judith about how she really struggled at Gaulier. She said for a while getting killed is funny. But then soon you get sick of dying all the time and it starts to get to you. You start to really want to win. And this sounds okay to me. But the way she said it made it seem as if dying just isn't okay anymore. Im not sure if I agree with that. Isn't the point of the killing to remind us that sometimes we are shit? And that that is just life? And when we come to realise that it makes it okay when we die. Tomorrow I will be better! Of course we try to survive. We try not to be shit. But sometimes we just are! I hope I can come back and read this post in a few months time, if I am in this state where I'm 'broken' and sick of getting killed all the time. We are bad sometimes. Accept it. Let it go. Go out and play and keep on discovering. Don't get too attached or want something too bad. It's unattractive! Relax. Have fun.

Was scared I wasn't gonna make it home at the end of the night because it was late - 12am - close to when the Metros stop going - and the strike was on so it was unclear whether they would ever come. But they did. Eventually.

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