A game in which you hold your partners chin with one hand, and you hold up your other hand next to your partner's face ready to slap it if they laugh. Complicité in the eyes. Pleasure. Try to make the other person laugh. I was never in a partnership that was in hysterics, but we both had fun. Suli would rock at that game! So would Dan Hannah!
Then played the game where the person in minor puts their hands above their partner's (who is in major) and the major person has to try and slap the tops of their minor partner's hands. And the minor person has to try and avoid getting slapped.
This then moved into an exercise where there are three pairs up on stage dancing to music. The person in major leads the dance, still in the hand slapping position. When the music stops BAM you have to slap! My partner was Maria-Louisa, a beautiful part Mexican girl from Canada. We had great complicité together. From the get go there was pleasure buzzing between our eyes. It sounds a bit wanky, but you totally feel it when there is a good combination. At the end of each group's turn Philippe asks "Did you have good complicité with each other?...If you were in a relationship, would the sex be good after one year? Five years? Twenty? Or maybe just three months?"
Then..."the same exercise, but not the same exercise". This time with text - about how much you are in love with someone in the class - and no music. Except when the music comes on at the end. This is when you slap. I got up and did the exercise with Anna from Sydney. She's really great, a nice girl, with strong presence. Reminds me a bit of Sophie Roberts in terms of qualities. I was in minor first, which I find really easy (I guess because I don't feel nervous - like everyone is watching and listening to me). Today I made sure I didn't talk too much though! Not a big shift. Anna did great. Had a kind of sexual hunger in her voice when she was talking about her lover. And she led me around. And then she won the game I think too. "Not so bad. 4 points!"
My turn in major. I was focussing on having a nice big voice for the theatre, on having complicité with Anna and the audience, and not talking too much (as this was often problems classmates encountered = blablabla blabber mouth). I started well. Playing a bit over the top romantic. Giving room around the text. Sharing with the audience. Maybe not playing with Anna enough, but giving it out and directing it to Christine (a girl from Paris) who I was talking about. When the music played. Wham! Anna got me. "Guy. You forgot about the game. Your score, zero. And Anna...I have changed my mind. You...FIVE!"
I did forget the game. It's harder than you'd think. You have to have pleasure in yourself, and share that pleasure via complicité with your partner and your audience, whilst playing the game, and saying text (and not talking too quietly or too much). Quite a lot of layers of things to think about! This is something I will get better at over time I think.
When Maria-Louisa played she seemed quite serious and then at then at the end of the game burst into laughter: "You have to have pleasure during the game. Not after."
Then we played a game of Musical Chairs.
No dancing or eye contact specified as a rule. Just walking. And you're not allowed to move chairs. So it's not quite the hectic dangerous version we played at CCC in which you potentially could get crushed by Shadon. You have to possess more bodily control! So, if you don't find a chair you have to go up to the back of the stage and sing a song in order to 'save yourself'. After each number Philippe chooses whether you sit further away or closer to him (depending on how bad you were - the best getting to sit closest to Philippe). I missed out on a chair fairly early. I wasn't really thinking about the game again! I had a good start walking up to my singing position. Quite controlled and sensual. Then I began singing 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' and tried to be quite soft and to make eye contact with people. I basically tried to emulate the light and 'beautiful' state I found once in a CCC rehearsal singing The Body Guard song. Sang for a wee bit then got gonged and sent to the bad corner. My voice was a bit shaky. I was a bit nervous. And I didn't really show the 'beautiful' side of my own voice. Next time I will try and be less gentle and more richer and fuller. Those that got chosen to sit closer to the teacher (only about 5 people) seemed to have really good presence (stillness, control, pleasure in the eyes) and sung with a free voice and moved with a free body. Although some people, like Katie from the states, did a musical theatre number (I think it was actually Alanis Morrisette but she did it in the style anyway) dancing around the room from chair to chair. But she committed fully to it and really went there. I wish I'd done something more like that. Maria-Louisa started singing 'Part of that World' from The Little Mermaid before being killed. I wish I'd sung THAT! I could have had a really fun time doing it. So next time, don't pick songs I think will be a bit boring for me to sing. Or rather, don't sing them in a boring way for me!
At the end of the class Philippe was asked the question by Mike "How do you judge good and bad?" to which Philippe replied along the line of "I'm not a judge. I don't judge. That's not my job. My job is to follow where each of you want to go as actors/directors/performers and help guide you to get there." I love that! That is why actors as different as Sacha Baron Cohen. Emma Thompson and Geoffrey Rush can come out of the school and all be great.
After hearing this I thought - I need to start showing where I want to go...Which is big and theatrical and full of life. Why am I doing this subtle little stuff when I don't really enjoy it? I know I can't always be big. But I want to get good at that area first. That's where I want to make I think. That's where I play well. So that's my goal for the next wee while. To start playing bigger.
Two other interesting bits of the class:
1. Philippe explained at the end that his scoring system is fantasy. None of us are really that bad. But it's fun to lie. This makes me relax a bit and want to risk more. Much more.
2. During the love-slap game with Andre and Ciara he stopped Andre and asked him "how do most Australian men talk about love in Australia?" The answer was centred around getting a good root, and not so much about romance like Andre had been playing. Then Philippe got Andre to imitate the Greek men at the Melbourne markets selling fish. "Fish! Get your fish here! We've got big ones, small ones, fat ones, thin ones. We've got Snapper! We've got Wahoo! Anything you want ladies and gentleman! Get your fish here!" etc. Then when Philippe beats his drum Andre was to change the topic of text to sex but keep the rhythm of the Greek market seller. It took him a little while to maintain the rhythm. But when he got it it was fantastic! And he was big and theatrical and alive. I've just got to go there! Philippe said when you play 'love' you can't be conventional. I guess this would be underlining if you did. Although I think I played conventional a bit? Perhaps my swooning took it out of the conventional. Or did it put it more in? I don't know. Plenty more time to figure that out though!
2. During the love-slap game with Andre and Ciara he stopped Andre and asked him "how do most Australian men talk about love in Australia?" The answer was centred around getting a good root, and not so much about romance like Andre had been playing. Then Philippe got Andre to imitate the Greek men at the Melbourne markets selling fish. "Fish! Get your fish here! We've got big ones, small ones, fat ones, thin ones. We've got Snapper! We've got Wahoo! Anything you want ladies and gentleman! Get your fish here!" etc. Then when Philippe beats his drum Andre was to change the topic of text to sex but keep the rhythm of the Greek market seller. It took him a little while to maintain the rhythm. But when he got it it was fantastic! And he was big and theatrical and alive. I've just got to go there! Philippe said when you play 'love' you can't be conventional. I guess this would be underlining if you did. Although I think I played conventional a bit? Perhaps my swooning took it out of the conventional. Or did it put it more in? I don't know. Plenty more time to figure that out though!
After class I went for a walk to Parc de Sceaux with Anna, Fiona, and Zoe from Australia.
Anna, Fiona and Zoe doing Madonna poses (because I learnt when I had a broken French conversation with an Algerian woman whom I bought a Reine pizza from in Montparnasse that Madonna once performed a massive concert at Parc de Sceaux)
Then went for a quick curry with Fiona and Zoe before going to work to play with Céleste and Paul. I was a tiny bit late (whoops, the métros aren't as quick, or I'm not as quick, as I thought) but it was fine. We read a few stories - Paul really couldn't be bothered with books yet Céleste insisted on knowing the meaning of lots of new words. I had to be quite creative in explaining some things. Like the word "gosh". So we sat at on the couch and I pointed in front of us at an imaginary princess and then we sat back in our seats and gasped and said "Gosh! How pretty!" I'm pretty confident the meaning got through ;) Then we played Hide'n'Go Seek for half an hour. So funny how blasé Paul was throughout. He loved the game. But he'd get found eventually. And then he'd just stroll over and find the other person because he knew where they were hiding!
A day full of games. Life is great.
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